March 2013 – CyberSecurity Institute

US Companies In China Distrust Cybersecurity Efforts And Claim Data Breaches

Posted on March 30, 2013December 30, 2021 by admini

U.S. companies with operations in China are weary about cybersecurity and 90 percent of them distrust China’s cloud computing services, according to a new report from a business support lobby in Beijing.

The study was released Friday and conducted in late 2012 by the American Chamber of Commerce in the People’s Republic of China, or AmCham China, a nonprofit organization that advocates for U.S. companies and individuals doing business in China.

Although the 325 businesses surveyed by the group report high margins and expect business activity in China to grow, 26 percent of them say their proprietary data and trade secrets have been compromised by hackers.

.”Data security is clearly top of mind for member companies,” Greg Gilligan, chairman of AmCham China, said. “Over a quarter reported that proprietary data or trade secrets had been breached or stolen from their China operations. Over 40 percent stated that the risk of a data breach to their China operations is increasing…. This poses a substantial obstacle for business in China, especially when considered alongside the concerns over IPR [intellectual property rights] enforcement and de facto technology transfer requirements,” the chamber said.

Link: http://www.ibtimes.com/us-companies-china-distrust-cybersecurity-efforts-claim-data-breaches-1161119

Top 10 Security Challenges for 2013

Posted on March 30, 2013December 30, 2021 by admini

Critical data includes the information needed to run network attached infrastructure as well as the intellectual property used to manage business and drive innovative solutions.

We can expect to see a higher risk of business impacting threats with the shift from computer-based attacks, generating large number of lower bandwidth events, to virtual server or cloud-based attacks, generating ultra-high bandwidth events. With these new attack vectors it becomes even more beneficial to identify and mitigate large DDoS events while traffic is in the network cloud.

The List:

1. State-sponsored espionage
2. DDoS attacks
3. Cloud migration
4. Password management
5. Sabotage
6. Botnets
7. Insider threat
8. Mobility
9. Internet
10. Privacy laws

For more information on the AT&T 2013 Top Security Challenges visit http://www.att.com/ThreatTraq and look for show “Top Security Challenges for 2013 – 12/20/2012” or visit us at www.att.com/security.

Link: http://networkingexchangeblog.att.com/enterprise-business/top-10-security-challenges-for-2013/

Critical denial-of-service flaw in BIND software puts DNS servers at risk

Posted on March 29, 2013December 30, 2021 by admini

A flaw in the widely used BIND DNS (Domain Name System) software can be exploited by remote attackers to crash DNS servers and affect the operation of other programs running on the same machines. BIND versions 9.7.x, 9.8.0 up to 9.8.5b1 and 9.9.0 up to 9.9.3b1 for UNIX-like systems are vulnerable, according to a security advisory published Tuesday by the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC), a nonprofit corporation that develops and maintains the software.

The vulnerability can be exploited by sending specifically crafted requests to vulnerable installations of BIND that would cause the DNS server process—the name daemon, known as “named”—to consume excessive memory resources.

“However, at the time of this advisory, BIND 10 is not ‘feature complete,’ and depending on your deployment needs, may not be a suitable replacement for BIND 9.”

“It took me approximately ten minutes of work to go from reading the ISC advisory for the first time to developing a working exploit,” a user named Daniel Franke said in a message sent to the Full Disclosure security mailing list on Wednesday. Franke is not the only one possible, and that operators of *ANY* recursive *OR* authoritative nameservers running an unpatched installation of an affected version of BIND should consider themselves vulnerable to this security issue,” Wright said. … Franke’s comment, which is that the required complexity of the exploit for this vulnerability is not high, and immediate action is recommended to ensure your nameservers are not at risk.”

This bug could be a serious threat considering the widespread use of BIND 9, according to Dan Holden, director of the security engineering and response team at DDoS mitigation vendor Arbor Networks.

…Several security companies said earlier this week that a recent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeting an anti-spam organization was the largest in history and affected critical Internet infrastructure.

“If operators are relying on inline detection and mitigation, very few security research organizations are proactive about developing their own proof-of-concept code on which to base a mitigation upon,” Holden said.

Link: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9238002/Critical_denial_of_service_flaw_in_BIND_software_puts_DNS_servers_at_risk?taxonomyName=Malware+and+Vulnerabilities&taxonomyId=85

Java-based attacks remain at large, researchers say

Posted on March 28, 2013December 30, 2021 by admini

Within the digital attack space, crimeware kits — which can be purchase for as little as $200 — often come supplied with Java-based exploits.

Over 75 percent of browsers are using Java versions which are at least 6 months old, whereas nearly two-thirds are a year out of date, and 50 percent of Java versions in use are over two years behind the times in respect to Java vulnerabilities.

All in all, the researchers say that the vulnerable population of browsers is pegged at a staggering 93.77 percent.

Link: http://www.zdnet.com/java-based-attacks-remain-at-large-researchers-say-7000013131/?s_cid=e550

Antivirus apps knocked in malware report

Posted on March 28, 2013December 30, 2021 by admini

“Our analysis shows that of the more than 26,000 malware samples analysed, 70 per cent retained distinct identifiers or behaviours that can be useful for real-time control and blocking,” the report said.

The report said web-based applications were significantly more successful at avoiding traditional antivirus and remaining unknown for extended periods of time.

Link: http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/337908,antivirus-apps-knocked-in-malware-report.aspx?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=SC+Magazine+News+feed

Antivirus apps knocked in malware report

Posted on March 28, 2013December 30, 2021 by admini

“Our analysis shows that of the more than 26,000 malware samples analysed, 70 per cent retained distinct identifiers or behaviours that can be useful for real-time control and blocking,” the report said.

The report said web-based applications were significantly more successful at avoiding traditional antivirus and remaining unknown for extended periods of time.

Link: http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/337908,antivirus-apps-knocked-in-malware-report.aspx?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=SC+Magazine+News+feed