The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Tuesday, June 30
Government personnel agency takes background check system offline for background checks Hoping to avoid a third strike against it, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has taken offline a system used for performing background checks on potential new hires. The agency discovered a security flaw in the web app, E-QIP, while auditing its IT systems […] more…Trend Micro Discovers Android Vulnerability that Can Lead to Exposure of Device Memory Content
We have discovered a vulnerability in the integrated Android debugger Debuggerd that can be used to expose the contents of the device’s memory in devices running Ice Cream Sandwich to Lollipop. A specially crafted ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) file can crash the debugger and expose the memory content via tombstone files and corresponding logd log files. This […] more…Banks get attacked four times more than other industries
Modern-day criminals are still following Willie Sutton’s example of going after banks “because there’s where the money is.” According to a new report from Websense Security Labs, the average number of attacks against financial services institutions is four times higher than that of companies in other industries. In addition, a third of all initial-stage reconnaissance […] more…Sony’s post-breach woes continue as WikiLeaks dumps 276,000 more documents
WikiLeaks appears to be celebrating the third anniversary of Julian Assange’s unplanned Ecuadorian embassy stay by releasing another cache of Sony documents, including an alleged bribery investigation. more…Smartphone ‘kill switch’ effectively thwarts thieves
Smartphones thefts dropped sharply last year, thanks to security innovations such as Apple’s “Find My Phone” remote-locator feature. However, a surprising number of consumers still don’t protect their phones with password locks, according to a survey from Consumer Reports. An estimated 2.1 million Americans had phones stolen last year, down from 3.1 million in 2013, […] more…VMware’s Identity Manager offers authentication for Web, native apps
VMware is hoping to convince CIOs to centralize single sign-on access to all kinds of apps with Identity Manager, which can run in the cloud or on-site and also offers application provisioning and a self-service catalog. For better or worse, the switch to cloud-based services on a larger scale and the introduction of bring-your-own devices […] more…OpenSSL releases several patches but none for serious issues
The OpenSSL project has released several patches for moderate flaws, including an additional defense against the Logjam vulnerability revealed last month. OpenSSL is widely used open-source software that encrypts communications using the SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) protocol. SSL/TLS prevents clear-text data from being transmitted across the Web, avoiding high security risks. The patches […] more…Latest Microsoft Patch Prevents Browser History Snooping
This month’s Patch Tuesday can be considered lighter than last month’s, with only eight security bulletins released for June. Of the eight, two are considered Critical while the remaining are rated Important. Just like last month, there is a critical, cumulative update for Internet Explorer. MS015-056 aims to resolve vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer that could […] more…POC Shows Mac OS X UEFI Attacks Are Possible; What Does This Mean for Mac Users?
A critical Mac vulnerability was discovered by OS X security researcher Pedro Vilaca last week. According to his research, any attacker can disable the BIOS lock just by taking advantage of a flaw in Apple’s S3 sleep state (more known as ‘standby mode’) suspend-resume implementation. Once an attacker does this, he can install bootkit malware onto a Mac BIOS without […] more…After breaches, higher-ed schools adopt two-factor authentication
Payday didn’t go as planned on January 2, 2014, for some Boston University employees. On that day, about a dozen faculty members discovered their paychecks hadn’t been deposited into their bank accounts. Thieves had changed the victims’ direct deposit information and rerouted their pay. BU’s IT security team traced the attack to a phishing email […] more…Discovering connections between attackers
In the last few years, Pedram Hayati, founder of Australian IT company Security Dimension, has been developing a custom honeypot intelligence system called Smart Honeypot. Honeypots – fake systems designed to look like the real thing – can be used for many different purposes. One of these is to determine what attackers are after, their […] more…DYRE Banking Malware Upsurges; Europe and North America Most Affected
Online banking users in Europe and North America are experiencing the upsurge of DYRE, a malware family notorious for the multiple ways it steals data and its ties to parcel mule scams, among others. There has been a 125% increase of DYRE-related infections worldwide this quarter compared to the last, proving that cybercriminal interest in […] more…Lessons learned from Flame, three years later
Three years ago, on May 28th 2012, we announced the discovery of a malware known as Flame. At the same time we published our FAQ, CrySyS Lab posted their thorough analysis of sKyWIper. A few days earlier, Maher CERT published IOCs for Flamer. In short, Flame, sKyWIper and Flamer are different names for the same […] more…Statistics on botnet-assisted DDoS attacks in Q1 2015
Statistics on botnet-assisted DDoS attacks in Q1 2015 [pdf] Methodology A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack is one of the techniques mostly often used by cybercriminals. It is intended to reduce an information system, typically a website, to a state where it cannot be accessed by legitimate users. One popular DDoS scenario is a […] more…Trend Micro Discovers Apache Cordova Vulnerability that Allows One-Click Modification of Android Apps
We’ve discovered a vulnerability in the Apache Cordova app framework that allows attackers to modify the behavior of apps just by clicking a URL. The extent of the modifications can range from causing nuisance for app users to crashing the apps completely. Designated as CVE-2015-1835, this high-severity vulnerability affects all versions of Apache Cordova up […] more…Wi-Fi access point scans can betray a person’s location
Many Android applications collect information on Wi-Fi access points, which researchers contend can be used to figure out where a person is more than 90 percent of the time. The privacy implications of Wi-Fi access point scanning is often overlooked but presents a risk if the information is abused, according to the study, written by […] more…More information
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- MOVEit Hack: Number of Impacted Organizations Exceeds 340
- Palo Alto CEO on partnerships, platforms, the Internet of Things
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- Here comes 5Gbps networking over standard cables
- Update: Scheduled Upgrade of Shenango Core Router
- Israeli spyware firm fails to get hacking case dismissed