Cyber War: U.S. Electric Grid is Riddled With Cyber Security Holes

.....a report released by Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), it had been discovered that malicious computer worms have been attacking electric grids, causing the companies involved to have losses in both energy and money.....

......A computer worm has the ability to replicate itself, allowing the worm to create hundreds or even thousands of copies of itself. However, consuming too much system memory could lead to network servers, Web servers, and the like to becoming unresponsive....

.....To control this issue, he says to "install firewalls, apply patches and to always perform upgrades." If something isn't done soon, the nation could be at risk for a massive power outage, resulting in millions going without the basic needs that electricity satisfies.....

Click here to read more ....

McAfee: Cyber criminals using Android malware and ransomware the most

 .....the company witnessed a 40 increase in Android malware, a near-300-percent jump in instances of Facebook-threat Koobface, and a steady rise in ransomware and reported infections. Add to that an increase in AutoRun malware, malware that attacks MBRs (master boot records), and a doubling of spam worldwide, and the state of security looks bleak.....

....Among the key findings in report, McAfee revealed that it now has a total of 50,926 mobile malware samples in its database, 28 percent of which arrived this year.....

.....McAfee has witnessed more instances of malicious spyware being combined with botnets. Among them is Android/Ssucl.A, a Trojan that poses as a system cleanup utility but is really a botnet client. It not only steals user and SMS data, it also launches phishing attacks for Dropbox and Google log-ins. It tries to infect PCs using an autorun.inf attack too.....

....... "Within the enterprise, we see password-stealing Trojans evolving to become information-gathering tools for cyber espionage attacks. Whether they target login credentials or intellectual property and trade secrets, highly targeted attacks are achieving new levels of sophistication.".....

Click here to read more ....

Now LinkedIn rolls out two-factor authentication

LinkedIn is the latest website to add two-factor authentication as a measure to prevent account takeovers....

.....The feature works similarly to the two-step verification recently pushed out by Twitter, which had been experiencing high-profile account compromises......

.......The site's more than 200 million members can enable the capability by visiting "Settings," then selecting the "Account" tab and clicking "Manage Security Settings.".......

Click here to read more.

Google cyber-knight lances Microsoft for bug-hunter 'hostilities'

Top Google engineer Tavis Ormandy has slammed Microsoft for treating security bug hunters with “great hostility”.

He blasted Redmond's behaviour towards those who report vulnerabilities as he publicly revealed a new unpatched security hole in the Windows operating system - a bug that can be exploited to crash systems or gain administrator privileges. The vulnerable driver is present in "all currently supported versions" of Windows, according to the Googler...

......After documenting the bug, he posted his initial findings to the Full Disclosure mailing list, and published a complete dossier last week.

In a related post on his personal blog, Ormandy invited others to look into the flaw, before finishing the essay with trenchant criticism of Redmond's attitude towards computer security professionals...

...Vulnerability management specialists Secunia warned that the flaw discovered by Ormandy can be used to launch denial-of-service assaults or elevate a local user's privilege......

...“The vulnerability is caused due to an error within 'win32k.sys' when processing certain objects and can be exploited to cause a crash or execute arbitrary code with the kernel privilege,”....

..Click here to read more ....

CNN International Breached, Accounts Leaked, Fake Articles Claim to be Posted By @Reckz0r

A hacker who has been quite for some time now in headlines has come back out with a claim that they have hacked CNN’s international Edition website (http://edition.cnn.com/).

.....In the post comes a short statement which states that CNN has been hacked for false news reports and also makes further claims that they have published 4 fake articles, which i could not locate or distinguish on the site and the leak also comes with small amount of data leaked from the websites database with claims that anyone who can figure out the 4 fake articles is able to obtain the complete database from them (the hacker)....

.....The site breached as you can see is the International Edition site for CNN and the leaked data that has been published to paste bin is 9 administrator accounts with usernames, user IDs and encrypted passwords along with a list of database tables......

Click here to read more ...

DHS employees' info possibly compromised due to system flaw

"U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees have begun receiving notifications about a vulnerability that has inadvertently made their personal information potentially accessible to unauthorized parties.

The flaw was apparently found in the software used by a DHS vendor to process personnel security investigations and has been immediately addressed. "

There is no evidence that the information contained in the system - names, social security numbers, date of birth - were actually stolen or accesses at all, but potentially affected employees, contractors, inactive applicants, and former employees. ...


Click here to read more ....

A spotlight on grid insecurity

Drawing from responses from more than 100 utilities across America, a new report shows that the nation’s electric grid remains highly vulnerable to attacks from Iran and North Korea, or other threats like geomagnetic storms from solar activity.

The electric grid is the target of numerous and daily cyber attacks. One utility said that there were 10,000 attempted attacks each month, and others describe the level of potential incursions as “daily”, “constant”, “malicious” and “seeking to gain access to internal systems.”

...Most utilities comply with mandatory standards only, not additional voluntary ones, and do so unevenly. For example, while almost all utilities said they complied with mandatory Stuxnet standards, only 21 percent of industry-owned utilities, 44 percent of municipally- or cooperatively-owned utilities and 62.5 percent of federal entities reported compliance with voluntary Stuxnet recommendations that industry did not agree to mandate.

Most utilities have not taken concrete steps to reduce the vulnerability of the grid to geomagnetic storms and it is unclear whether the number of available spare transformers is adequate...

Click here to read more ....

Microsoft decrypts Skype comms to detect malicious links

.. Several independent researchers including security consultant Ashkan Soltani who was hired by Ars Technica confirmed that some of the URLs contained in chats were, indeed, accessed from an IP address belonging to Microsoft...

..encrypted communication must be decrypted in order for the links to be scanned, and according to its Privacy Policy, Skype can record and retain links and other content sent over Skype.

"There's a widely held belief—even among security professionals, journalists, and human rights activists—that Skype somehow offers end-to-end encryption, meaning communications are encrypted by one user, transmitted over the wire, and then decrypted only when they reach the other party and are fully under that party's control. This is clearly not the case if Microsoft has the ability to read URLs transmitted back and forth," points out Ars Technica's Dan Goodin.

Click here to read more

LulzSec cyber hackers jailed in Britain

Four online hackers who masterminded attacks against major global institutions, including Sony Pictures and the CIA, have been jailed in Britain. The sentencing judge criticized the group's quest for publicity.


The group hacked into Pentagon computers, crashed the website of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as targeting British institutions - including websites belonging to the National Health Service and the Serious Organized Crime Agency.
In one attack, the group targeted the website of Rupert Murdoch's The Sun newspaper, redirecting visitors to a spoof story that Murdoch had committed suicide. The group also carried out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, using linked networks of up to one million computers to crash websites.


Click here to read more ....

Is Microsoft reading your Skype communications?

The question of whether Skype - a Microsoft subsidiary since May 2011 - allows U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to access the communications exchanged by its users has still not been adequately answered by Microsoft...


That conclusion has been reached after The H's German associates at heise Security have been notified, and then independently confirmed, that every HTTPS URL sent over Skype gets checked from an IP address registered to Microsoft headquarters in the U.S...

When asked why that is, the company has replied that they are indeed accessing all sent URLs so that they could spot and remove spam and phishing links.

But the researchers remain unconvinced...


Click here to read more ....

Private messages of Bloomberg clients end up online

Private messages of Bloomberg clients end up online: "Mere days after Bloomberg News admitted that its journalists could access some client information via the company's financial terminals, it has been revealed that the company inadvertently leaked on the Internet over 10,000 private messages exchanged by its clients.

Financial Times reports that the messages in question were found by a unnamed financial markets professional via a simple Google search, and that they were online for a number of years, accessible to anyone who knew what to look for. After the FT inquired about them, they were taken down.

“This work was done with client consent, where emails were explicitly forwarded to us to a dedicated email account and released by the person responsible for the email so that we could conduct internal testing to improve our technology for the client,” a Bloomberg spokesman stated.

Click here to read more ....

Info-stealing Dorkbot worm spreading on Facebook

The Dorkbot worm, which first appeared in 2011 and has since been spreading via removable drives, IM programs and social networks, is currently targeting Facebook users.

The worm is delivered to potential victims via a chat message that appear to be coming from a friend and, at first glance, the link looks like it should take users to a regular JPG image file hosted on MediaFire...

According to Bitdefender, over 9,000 malicious links pointing to the malware have been detected in 24 hours, but Facebook is reacting quickly and blocking them.


Click here to read more

IT security jobs: What's in demand and how to meet it

The information security job market continues to expand. In fact, according to a report by Burning Glass Technologies, over the past five years demand for cybersecurity professionals grew 3.5 times faster than that for other IT jobs..

Employment in the occupational group that includes information security analysts is projected to grow 22 percent from 2010 to 2020, faster than the average for all occupations, according to Eric Presley, CTO at CareerBuilder

Read more: IT security jobs: What's in demand and how to meet it

TeamSpy snooped on governments, big biz undetected for 10 years

Computer security researchers say they have uncovered a decade-long espionage campaign against governments, businesses and human-rights activists in Eastern Europe and beyond.

We're told the spying operation was partially pulled off by subverting TeamViewer - a legitimate tool for remotely controlling computers and holding meetings online. The snoopers installed the software on victims' Windows PCs and modified the code's behaviour with DLL hijacking to open a backdoor on the compromised machines. This successful tactic earned the campaign the nickname of TeamSpy and kept the hacking crew under the radar for years.

The researchers, who are based at the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS Lab), said the spying team also used custom-built malware in days gone by.
......

"The campaigns are a mix of targeted attacks and conventional cyber-crime activities, for example, banking crime operations such as the Sheldor campaign."

CrySyS Lab reckoned the attacks are the work of a small and technically skilled team that has grown more sloppy over the years as complacency set in.

.....

TeamSpy's modus operandi is similar to the approach taken by the hackers behind the earlier Red October attack, although the two operations are not thought to be directly linked. The TeamSpy crew usually roped in victims using so-called waterhole attacks based on planting malicious code on websites frequently visited by people working at targeted organisations. That attack code was also injected into advertising networks that ran across the targeted regions.

A detailed technical analysis by Kaspersky Lab of TeamSpy can be found here [PDF]. ®

....

Click here to read more ....

SOUTH KOREA UNDER CYBER ATTACK

SEOUL – Three South Korean broadcasters and two banks were hit by a major cyber attack this afternoon, in an apparently successful attack that has rendered system-wide computer networks unusable since 1400KST (0100EST).

KBS, MBC and YTN were all hit by the attack, as were Shinhan and Nonghyup banks, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. KBS staff member Luke Cleary tweeted a picture of his laptop screen, apparently showing a wiped operating system:

Although no evidence has thus-far been presented, a statement from the presidential office said they were investigating the possibility of North Korean involvement in the attack, and the military has upgraded its “info surveillance status” in response. Reuters, however, reported that a holding page from a hacking group know as the “Whois Team” appeared on an LG-owned website (see below video).

“The circumstantial evidence points towards North Korea, but that’s also the perfect cover for someone wanting to attack South Korea and cause mischief,” North Korea Tech blogger Martyn Williams told NK NEWS.

.......

Click here to read more ....

Other Links of same story :

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/

http://www.northkoreatech.org/

http://www.scmagazine.com

http://www.symantec.com

Britain and India to agree cyber crime joint taskforce

Britain and India are expected to agree to set up a joint task force to fight cyber crime, a move London hopes will help it safeguard the personal banking and mobile phone data of millions of Britons, much of which is stored on Indian servers.

....

It said India was set to have one of the biggest online populations by 2015 with an expected 300 million users - larger than the United States and up from the 137 million users already in India today.

......

Click here to read more ....

Cybercrime-as-a-Service – A Very Modern Business

By Vishak Raman on 7 March, 2013

Cybercrime business includes a complete range of deliverables, from attack tools and methods, consulting, services, advertising, and a myriad of programs that serve as the ‘product.’

Cybercrime business includes a complete range of deliverables, from attack tools and methods, consulting, services, advertising, and a myriad of programs that serve as the `product'. The more features or the more complex the service offered, the higher the price. A worrying new phrase has entered the lexicon of cybercrime - Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS). While the term is self-explanatory it more than adequately describes how cybercrime in the 21st Century has become commoditised. 

......

Just as with any other business, there are products and services available to be sold to customers. These include; Consulting services such as botnet setup ($350-$400); Infection/spreading services (~$100 per 1K installs); Botnets and Rentals - Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS ($535 for 5 hours per day for one week), email spam ($40 / 20K emails) and Web spam ($2/30 posts); Crimeware Upgrade Modules. SpyEye Modules as an example, range anywhere from $500 upwards to $10K. SpyEye is a prolific banking botnet that emerged in 2010 and can be upgraded to enable advanced features for money laundering.

.......

Click here to read more ....

Chinese hackers breach DRDO systems; steal cabinet committee on security files

Saikat Datta l @saikatd

New Delhi: A successful Chinese hacking attack has caused what is arguably the biggest security breach in India with systems of hundreds of key DRDO and other security officials being compromised and leading to the leak of sensitive files related to the cabinet committee on security (CCS), the highest decision-making body for security issues of the government of India. 
The other stolen files recovered so far belong to the governments of the United States, Russia, and South Korea.
....

As they continued to trace the breach, they discovered thousands of top secret CCS files, and other documents related to surface-to-air missile and radar programmes from DRDL, a DRDO laboratory based in Hyderabad, among many other establishments. 
Even the e-tickets of the scientists who had travelled to Delhi in February were found on the server. 
The intelligence officials also discovered documents of deals struck between DRDO and Bharat Dynamics Ltd, a defence PSU which manufactures strategic missiles and components. Some other recovered files were related to price negotiations with MBDA, a French missile manufacturing company.
But the shocking part was the extent of the hacking by the Chinese, believed to be officially sponsored. 
.......

Click here to read more ...... 

Doctors used silicone fingers to fool fingerprint scanner

The story broke when Globo TV managed to get its hands on a video that shows 29-year old doctor Thauane Nunes Ferreira first clocking in at work by pressing her own finger onto the device, then doing the same for two colleagues by using silicone fingers.

In the footage, she seems uncomfortable doing it, and collecting the slips of paper that proved that those persons checked in. After having been arrested, she admitted to doing it for a while now, but pointed out that she was coerced into doing it by Jorge Cury, the head of the emergency room

Click here to read more ......

Software that tracks people on social media created by defence firm

A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.

A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an "extreme-scale analytics" system created by Raytheon, the world's fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

Raytheon says it has not sold the software – named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology – to any clients.
....

The sophisticated technology demonstrates how the same social networks that helped propel the Arab Spring revolutions can be transformed into a "Google for spies" and tapped as a means of monitoring and control.

Using Riot it is possible to gain an entire snapshot of a person's life – their friends, the places they visit charted on a map – in little more than a few clicks of a button.

.....

The power of Riot to harness popular websites for surveillance offers a rare insight into controversial techniques that have attracted interest from intelligence and national security agencies, at the same time prompting civil liberties and online privacy concerns.

....

n April, Riot was scheduled to be showcased at a US government and industry national security conference for secretive, classified innovations, where it was listed under the category "big data – analytics, algorithms."

According to records published by the US government's trade controls department, the technology has been designated an "EAR99" item under export regulations, which means it "can be shipped without a licence to most destinations under most circumstances".

Click here to read more ....