Security News: Archive: December 2010

FBI Raids Texas ISP Over Anonymous Cyber Attacks

Two hard drives were recently seized from Tailor Made Services in Dallas.

Lookout Warns of Geinimi Trojan

The company says the new Trojan is the most sophisticated Android malware it has seen to date.

WordPress Gets Security Update

Version 3.0.4 patches a serious vulnerability in the blogging software.

PlayStation 3 Hacked

The hack could allow pirated or counterfeit games to be run on a PlayStation 3 console.

Honda Acknowledges Security Breach

The names, login names, e-mail addresses and vehicle identification numbers for more than 2 million of the company's customers were recently stolen.

Windows Phone Marketplace Hacked

The hack enables users to install any Windows Phone 7 application from the marketplace for free.

Man Who Hacked Wife's Email Faces Years in Jail

Leon Walker could go to prison for accessing his wife's email account.

Privacy Flaw Found in Tor Project

The attack can provide a good idea of the sites an anonymous surfer is viewing.

Veterans Affairs Department Acknowledges Security Lapse

After medical information was stored on Yahoo! Calendar, notifications of a possible breach were sent to 878 affected patients.

India Plans Enhanced Phone Banking Security

One-time passwords will be required in order to authorize phone banking transactions starting on January 1, 2011.

ChronoPay Hacked

The attackers stole approximately 800 credit card numbers from the site's visitors.

Cyber Attack Hits 4chan

The forum was recently knocked offline by a denial of service attack.

Online Privacy 2010: The Year in Review

For all the talk and activity in Congress and at federal agencies, did the needle really move on Internet privacy in 2010?

Germany Plans National Cyber Security Center

The center will be modeled after the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence as well as cyber security centers in the US and the UK.

iPod Nano Hacked

Developer James Whelton uncovered some hidden features of the device.

Kaspersky Warns of RapidShare Trojan

The emails distributing the Trojan aren't detected by many spam filters.

Suing Spammers for Fun and Profit

Daniel Balsam quit his job, enrolled in law school, and started a new career suing spamming companies.

Mozilla Acknowledges Security Lapse

44,000 old user accounts were recently disabled after the account info was found to be on a publicly available server.

Apple Sued Over iPhone, iPad Privacy

The lawsuit alleges that the company allows mobile apps to send personal information to ad networks without users' consent.

NY State Subcontractor Arrested for Identity Theft

Evan Kane is accused of stealing 15,000 social security numbers from the State of New York's Office of Temporary Disability Assistance.

Carders.cc Hacked Again

The forum for trading stolen financial data was recently hacked for the second time this year.

BAE Buys Danish Cyber Security Firm

The company has announced plans to acquire ETI A/S for $212 million.

Thornberry to Lead Cyber Security Initiative

US Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) will lead the initiative in the next Congress.

FTC Okays Intel Anti-Virus Buy

The US Federal Trade Commission has approved the company's acquisition of McAfee.

Biden Hacker Pleads Guilty

Barry Vincent Ardolf admitted possession of child porn, computer hacking, aggravated identity theft, and making death threats.

Microsoft Warns of Zero Day Vulnerability in IE

The flaw can enable hackers to inject malware onto vulnerable systems.

Digital River Hacker Indicted

Jeremey Parker has been charged with stealing approximately $270,000 from Digital River.

Mobile Marketing Association Seeks New Privacy Rules

The MMA wants consumers to have a clearer sense of how information is gathered.

Security Breach Hits Microsoft BPOS Cloud Service

The breach occurred in company data centers in North America, Europe and Asia.

Smartphone Security Company Gets $19.5 Million

Lookout Mobile Security now has nearly 50 employees and about four million registered users.

Cyber Attacks Target Human Rights Groups

A large percentage of human rights and independent media sites have been hit by DDoS attacks.

Panda Predicts New Mac Threats in 2011

PandaLabs' Luis Corrons says the Mac's increasing popularity will inevitably result in an increase in the number of threats.

Raytheon Buys Cyber Security Firm

The company will pay $490 million to acquire Applied Signal Technology.

Microsoft Withdraws Outlook Security Update

The update caused problems for users connecting to third party e-mail products.

New Malware Blocks Facebook Access

The latest version of W32.Yimfoca blocks access to Facebook until the victim completes a survey.

Phishing Attacks Target Netflix Users

The emails tell customers their accounts have been suspended, and ask for updated credit card information.

GFI Warns of Malware Masquerading as Disk Utilities

Researchers have noted an increase in the amount of malware posing as disk utilities.

Security Hole Patched in ProFTPD

Version 1.3.3d patches a critical vulnerability.

Security Researchers Build Test Botnet

A team of Canadian researchers recently created an isolated version of the Waledac botnet.

English Defense League Hacked

Hackers recently accessed the personal details of the far-right group's supporters.

Hackers Easily Bypass Car Immobilizers

The weakness of the technology was recently exposed by researcher Karsten Nohl.

Secunia Updates Free Security Tool

Version 2.0 of the Secunia Personal Software Inspector was recently released.

Cyber Security Measures Dropped from Defense Bill

Several cyber security provisions were removed from the House version of the FY 2011 defense authorization bill.

Gawker Acknowledges Lax Site Security

The company plans to overhaul its web infrastructure.

EU Considers Crowd-Sourcing Cybercrime Reports

Rob Wainwright has suggested a reporting mechanism along the lines of the Internet Crime Complaint Center in the US.

Romanian Police Arrest 42 VoIP Hackers

The group had caused more than $13.5 million in losses to companies in the U.S., Britain, South Africa, Italy and Romania.

Google Adds New Security Warnings to Search Results

The new warnings are focused on sites that are compromised but are not actively infecting computers.

One in Four Users Disable Anti-Virus Software

Avira reports that 25 percent of consumers have turned the software off because it was slowing down their computer.

California Agency Acknowledges Security Lapse

The California Department of Public Health recently lost a magnetic tape containing unencrypted personal data on up to 2,550 people.

CitySights NY Hit by Security Breach

The breach resulted in the theft of 110,000 customers' credit card data.

BofA Sues Ex-Employees for Data Theft

The former employees are accused of copying a confidential database containing information on clients of U.S. Trust.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Stuxnet Malware

A German computer consultant says the malware set back Iran's nuclear program by two years.

Security Flaw Found in OpenSC

MWR InfoSecurity researchers have developed a proof-of-concept exploit for the flaw.

Hackers Target Android Devices

Exploits for the Android operating system rose by 400 percent from 2009 to 2010.

Privacy Watchdogs Criticize Commerce Department Report

The report has been criticized for emphasizing self-regulation by the online advertising industry.

Microsoft Updates Free Security Essentials Software

The software titan has released version 2 of its free security package that adds a new anti-malware engine.

Metasploit Takes Aim at Cisco Security Exploitation

Open source penetration testing framework goes after Cisco in new release – but Cisco isn't worried.

Commerce Dept. Calls for Privacy Bill of Rights

New report from Department of Commerce tees up issues for the executive branch to consider as it continues to develop its evolving approach to online privacy.

Microsoft Updates Forefront Endpoint Security 2010

Updated enterprise security client features a new anti-malware engine and integration with System Center Configuration Manager.

WikiLeaks.info Denies Malware Risks

Spamhaus recently issued a 'malware warning' for the site.

Arizona Hospital Acknowledges Security Lapse

The Mountain Vista Medical Center recently lost data cards containing personal information on 2,284 endoscopy patients.

UK Sites Prepare for WikiLeaks Cyber Attacks

Concern is focused on sites run by the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs.

Hackers Expose Personal Data on 13 Million deviantART Users

The breach occurred through marketing company Silverpop.

SAP Releases 'Significant' Security Update

The company has made a white paper available to help customers install the fixes.

Ohio State Deals With Massive Data Breach

Hackers repeatedly accessed a university server holding the names, social security numbers and birth dates of more than 760,000 students, faculty and former students.

Security Flaw Found in HP Storage Hardware

The company has acknowledged a 'potential security issue' with its StorageWorks P2000 product.

Hacked Web Sites Turned Into Storefronts

According to security researcher Denis Sinegubko, the sites are used to sell counterfeit software.

Colorado Sheriff's Office Acknowledges Security Lapse

Personal information on 200,000 suspects, victims, and informants was leaked online.

Mozilla Expands Bounty Program for Security Flaws

The group will pay between $500 and $3,000 for bugs found on a dozen of its Web sites.

Airwide Intros Mobile Security Solution

The company's Network and Personal Security (NPS) solution is designed to address a wide range of threats faced by mobile operators and their customers.

NSS Labs Commends IE8, IE9 Security

In a Microsoft-commissioned study, IE8 and IE9 caught far more malicious sites than Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.

Victory for Sun in Intellectual Property Suits

Wins court cases against an accused counterfeiter and an unauthorized importer.

Avira Researchers Find New Password-Stealing Trojan

The Trojan is designed to hijack shortcuts on the user's desktop or in special folders.

McDonald's Acknowledges Security Breach

Hackers recently stole personal data on an unknown number of McDonald's customers.

Sarah Palin Targeted by Pro-WikiLeaks Hackers

Palin's web site was recently hit with a denial of service attack.

Major Ad Networks Serving Malware

DoubleClick and rad.msn.com have been found to be delivering malicious banner ads.

Gawker Hacked

Users' e-mail addresses and passwords are now being shared on peer-to-peer networks.

RealPlayer Gets Security Update

The update patches 27 vulnerabilities in Windows RealPlayer 11.1.

Enisa Examines Smartphone Malware

The agency says businesses and consumers are at risk of data breaches through smartphone usage.

University of Wisconsin Warns of Major Data Breach

More than 60,000 former students and staff are just finding out that hackers had access to their personal data for more than two years.

Anonymous Explains Pro-WikiLeaks Cyber Attacks

A recent press release intends to explain Anonymous' recent attacks in support of WikiLeaks.

WordPress Gets Security Update

Users are advised to upgrade to version 3.0.3 as soon as possible.

Zeus Botnet Targets Leading US Retailers

The malware injects a legitimate-looking pop-up when an infected user visits a targeted retailer's card services web site.

Cyber Security Bill Introduced in US Senate

The bill would require the establishment of minimum standards for Internet security.

NASA Audit Reveals Major Security Lapse

Used hard drives containing sensitive data may have been sold to the public.

Teenager Arrested for Pro-WikiLeaks Cyber Attack

The 16-year-old is the first person to be arrested for participating in the ongoing attacks.

UK Teen Arrested for Call of Duty Cyber Attack

The teenager is suspected of involvement in a denial of service attack against the online game.

Office 2008 for Mac Gets Security Update

The update includes patches for critical security flaws that could allow attackers to overwrite memory contents with malicious code.

PayPal Cyber Attack Leveraged Two Botnets

The attack disabled Paypal.com from late Wednesday until early Thursday morning.

WikiLeaks Cable Links Russia to 2007 Cyber Attacks

According to a US State Department cable, Estonian officials believed the Russian government was behind the attacks.

OpenSSL Update Patches Two Security Flaws

Version 1.0.0c of OpenSSL was recently released.

US Banks, Federal Agencies to Collaborate on Cyber Security

The NIST, DHS and FSSCC signed a memorandum of understanding this week.

WikiLeaks Bolsters Cyber Defenses

The site is now supported by 14 different name servers across 11 different networks.

Apple Patches 15 QuickTime Security Flaws

The vulnerabilities affect both Windows and Mac OS X users.

Symantec Warns of Multilingual IM Malware

The new worm is able to target users in 20 languages.

Facebook Hit with South Korean Privacy Complaint

The company has 30 days to respond to the complaint from the Korea Communications Commission.

Symantec Warns of Smartphone Security Lapses

The majority of smartphone users plan to access sensitive data on their mobile device when they're out of the office.

Intellectual Ventures Sues Over Security Patents

A patent licensing firm founded by Microsoft's former chief strategist and CTO sues several leading security software firms for patent infringement.

Pro-WikiLeaks Hackers Take Down MasterCard Site

An attack by Operation Payback brought down the company's web site as well as at least part of its payment systems.

Rustock Leads Botnet Rankings

The botnet's spam output has doubled over the last year to reach 44 billion spam emails a day.

Vietnam to Invest $42 Million in Cyber Security

The aim of the 10-year, $42 million plan is to strengthen the country's cyber defenses.

Winamp Update Patches Security Vulnerability

Version 5.601 addresses a 'moderately critical' flaw in the media player.

TDL4 Rootkit Leverages Windows Task Scheduler Security Flaw

The use of the same vulnerability was originally detected during the initial analysis of Stuxnet.

Shadowserver Tracks Darkness Botnet

Members of the group have observed the botnet launching DDOS attacks on more than 100 sites.

Microsoft Enhances IE9 Privacy Protection

Two new technologies enable users to specify which sites are allowed to track them, and enable sites to publish lists showing what information may be collected.

Mobile Security, Partnerships Win Juniper CEO 2010 Vision Award

Juniper Networks CEO Kevin Johnson's approach to mobile security helped separate him from the pack in 2010.

Zenprise Shores Up Mobile Device Security

MobileManager 6.0 gives administrators more tools to monitor mobile devices in the enterprise and prevent costly data breaches.

WikiLeaks Cable Says China Hired Blaster Hackers

The 2009 cable alleges that Chinese firms with ties to the military have hired several hackers.

Juniper Acquires Altor for Virtualization Security

Juniper Networks has purchased Altor Networks for approximately $95 million.

ICSA Launches Endpoint Security Consortium

The consortium will develop ways to test and certify anti-malware, host intrusion prevention and detection, and personal firewall technologies.

Indian Central Bureau of Investigation Hacked

The Pakistani Cyber Army recently defaced the CBI's web site.

Adobe Warns of Illustrator Security Flaw

The vulnerability affects Adobe Illustrator CS5 15.0.1 and earlier for Windows.

YouPorn Hit with Privacy Lawsuit

The suit accuses YouPorn of improperly accessing its users' browser history.

VeriSign Expands DNSSEC Deployment Options

New DNS security signing solutions from VeriSign aim to help registrars to deploy DNS security tech as demand grows.

eEye Automates Vulnerability and Compliance Management

The IT security firm debuts Retina CS 2.0 Management Console to provide its customers with end-to-end vulnerability and compliance management.

Verizon Researchers Claim Hole in IE Protected Mode

A security feature in Internet Explorer 7 and 8 meant to keep users safe instead leaves a hole where users expect to be most secure.

Trend Micro Finds New Version of LICAT Malware

The malware is linked to the Zeus Trojan.

Symantec Warns of Twitter Security Risks

The company says businesses need to educate employees about the risks involved in using Twitter.

Russian Malware Targeted ATM Machines

A Siberian gang hired a virus writer to develop malware capable of infecting ATMs.

Cyber Attacks Lead to WikiLeaks Site Shutdown

Due to denial of service attacks, EveryDNS has pulled the plug on wikileaks.org.

Security Researchers Breach IE Protected Mode

The attack requires no interaction on the part of the victim.

Russia Leads Global Spammers

Kaspersky Labs reports that the volume of spam coming from Russia doubled in October.

Lady Gaga Hacked

A pair of German hackers claim to have accessed several pop stars' computers.

FBI Ties 23-Year-Old to Mega-D Botnet

Until November 2009, the botnet was directly reponsible for a third of global spam traffic.

AVG Anti-Virus Update Bricks Windows 7

The company has provided instructions on how to repair damaged systems.

VMware Patches ESX 4.1 Security Vulnerability

The flaw could allow a local user to gain additional privileges.

Hackers Breach ProFTPD Server

The attackers replaced the source file with a backdoor.

Microsoft Research Announces Malware Detection Tool

Zozzle was designed to perform static analysis of JavaScript code on a web site.

WikiLeaks Raises Questions of Information Security

If you work in information security, the latest WikiLeaks controversy should have you considering how your company deals with securing its data.

IBM AppScan Takes Aim at Input Validation

The root cause of many cross-site scripting and SQL injection security vulnerabilities is input validation sanitation. IBM’s new Rational AppScan 8 platform could help to mitigate or eliminate the problem.

Gartner: Cyber Attack to Damage G20 Economy by 2015

The research firm says an attack could cause years of disruption to leading western economies.

BlackBerry 6 Gets US Goverment Security Certification

Research In Motion's newest operating system is now FIPS 140-2 certified.

ThinkPoint Scareware Masquerades as Trojan Removal Tool

The fake anti-virus app is being advertised under the name of 'Windows Trojan Removal Kit.'

Privacy Concerns Raised Over NHS Site

Google and Facebook are tracking users' behavior on the National Health Service web site.

House Panel Mulls 'Do-Not-Track' Online Privacy Bill

As the legislative session winds down, lawmakers look ahead to the online privacy debate next year, with one prominent member announcing plans to back 'do-not-track' legislation.

WordPress Gets Security Update

Version 3.0.2 fixes a privilege escalation hole, along with two other vulnerabilities.

Canon Hacker Puts Russians on the Moon

The company was informed of the vulnerability in September.

Second Cyber Attack Hits WikiLeaks

The latest attack exceeded 10 Gbps, according to a WikiLeaks Twitter post.

White House Orders Security Review

The Office of Management and Budget has ordered all federal agencies to review their procedures for protecting sensitive data.

Fortinet Introduces High-Speed Security Blade

The FortiGate-5001B combines firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention, identity-based application controls, anti-virus, anti-spam and Web filtering functionality.

Savannah GNU Web Site Hacked

The compromise was the result of a SQL injection attack.

FTC Privacy Report Advocates 'Do-Not-Track' List

Federal Trade Commission issues staff report calling for a browser-based mechanism to give consumers the option of blocking online marketers from building profiles about them.

Fake Kodak Gallery Pages Serve Trojan

According to Sunbelt researchers, the sites are being used to distribute the Bayrob Trojan.

Winamp Gets Security Update

Version 5.6 of the media player fixes two 'highly critical' flaws.

Security News: Archive: December 2010

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