Security News Curated from across the world
The email worm became the world’s fastest spreading virus, after 1.5 million copies of emails sent out to infect machines were intercepted in the first 24 hours.
The creators of MyDoom.A plan to use those “back doors” to co-ordinate a mass attack on the website of US software firm SCO, starting tomorrow.
More info: [url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/30/1075340841697.html]http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/30/1075340841697.html[/url]
Launched Wednesday by the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security, the alerts will be available to members of the public as well as technology professionals responsible for the security of infrastructure systems.
Interested parties can subscribe to the alerts online: [url=http://www.us-cert.gov/]http://www.us-cert.gov/[/url]
Amit Yoran, director of the National Cyber Security Division, said each computer connected to the Internet is a point of vulnerability in the spread of malicious attacks. Individual computer users who don’t patch vulnerabilities in their systems, keep antivirus definitions up-to-date or take precautions when opening e-mail attachments are the biggest contributors to the spread of viruses and worms.
The alerts will include announcements about current attacks as well as information for users about how to protect their systems before attacks occur. The alerts also will provide background information about computer scams and other fraud that may occur online. In addition, the department will provide security bulletins containing vulnerability announcements, patches and work-arounds to security professionals in charge of computer networks to help them protect national infrastructure and e-commerce systems.
Yoran said the alerts will be digitally signed by the department so users can distinguish them from fake alerts that attackers might send out with virus attachments.
One of the main parties providing information is the Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or CERT, at Carnegie Mellon University.
More info: [url=http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62078,00.html?tw=rss.TOP]http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62078,00.html?tw=rss.TOP[/url]
Service quality will decline due to capital and operational cuts at major carriers, accelerating the migration toward Internet-based services.
Cisco added on-board SSL to the CSS appliance, and included valuable back-end SSL multiplexing that enables end-to-end encryption without completely sacrificing the scalability advantages of offloading SSL. Cisco also added URL rewriting, and in 2004 we expect the firm to continue to improve its depth of payload inspection and replacement functionality, which lags the general market.
F5 Networks F5’s recent feature development has been aimed at bridging the gap between the network and application with deep packet inspection (up to 16k beyond the header), SOAP/XML application programming interfaces (APIs), and enhanced rules to filter, switch, persist, and log activities as they pass through the box. This functionality enables a developer to tie application logic to network switching and allows the network load balancer to move up the stack toward more complex application and database load balancing.
Foundry Networks Foundry is widely recognized as being very capable at building scalable Ethernet switching and routing platforms. These enhancements enabled Foundry to gain ground on rival Cisco, but it still falls short of Radware and F5 in application functionality.
Radware was the first to market with link load balancing and has extensive experience with it. Other distinguishing features of the Web Server Director include bandwidth management, multigigabit DoS, and a good management console.
NetScaler NetScaler is an innovative challenger that is gradually converting some key marquee accounts (e.g., Google, MSN) due to its scalability, DoS protection, and server acceleration.
META Group recommends that buyers conduct due diligence into the company’s financials prior to purchasing.
More info: [url=http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Network_Load_Balancing_Vendor_Update.html?tag=tu.nwblog.6584]http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Network_Load_Balancing_Vendor_Update.html?tag=tu.nwblog.6584[/url]
The service, dubbed the IntelliShield Early Warning System, delivers information from TruSecure’s vulnerability-warning service to a device connected to a customer’s network.
The device then looks at the data on the network, gauges what effect the security flaw could have on it, and alerts information technology staff, depending on the level of threat.
The TruSecure service is the latest in a series of services launched to help companies determine how vulnerable their networks are to new security flaws. Other companies, including Qualys and Symantec, send out information on the latest security flaws to enterprise customers. However, those subscription service companies don’t tell managers whether the system affected by the flaw is a critical one, said Matthew Kovar, director of security solutions and services at analyst firm The Yankee Group.
More info: [url=http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5147432.html]http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5147432.html[/url]
Identity theft was the most prevalent form of fraud reported, representing 42 percent of all complaints.
The report does not attempt to identify how thieves obtained the data needed to steal more than 200,000 consumers’ identities, but security holes and data leaks remained a grim e-commerce reality in 2003.
More info: [url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/35095.html]http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/35095.html[/url]
But now software engineers at Icosystem in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have developed a program that can predict what is coming next by “evolving” future hacker and virus attacks based on information from known ones.
The idea would be to generate these novel attack strategies centrally, then remotely update the intrusion-detection software protecting PCs and networks around the world. It works by mutating the short programs or “scripts” that hackers use to invade computers or which they plant on them for later activation. The result is artificially created hacking routines that security systems could be taught to recognise, allowing them to defend networks against previously unseen attacks.
More info: [url=http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994588]http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994588[/url]