Articles In Security

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

June 24, SecurityWeek – (International) Malware can steal data from air-gapped devices via fans. Security researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev discovered a new acoustic data exfiltration method dubbed Fansmitter was leveraging the noise emitted by a computer’s fans to transmit data without relying on speakers by sending bits of data to a nearby mobile phone or a computer equipped with a microphone. Attackers can control the fan to rotate at a specific speed to transmit a “0&... read more.

• June 28, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

June 23, Softpedia; Austin Daily Dot – (International) Hackers breach US company and unwittingly expose 154 million voter records. Security researchers from MacKeeper discovered that a CouchDB database containing details on over 154 million U.S voters was compromised after a hacker took down L2’s, a company that builds, manages, and sells access to U.S. voter records, firewall. The database contained 1-year-old information and was taken down, and authorities were unsure of the identity of the ha... read more.

• June 24, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 26, SecurityWeek – (International) Angler EK malvertising campaign abuses recent Flash zero-day. Security researchers from Malwarebytes reported that a previously patched zero-day flaw in Adobe Flash Player was being exploited in a new malvertising campaign targeting ad networks through a conditional malicious code which redirects users to the Angler exploit kit (EK) after executing fingerprinting checks. Attackers exploit the vulnerability via specially crafted Microsoft Office documents. Source May... read more.

• May 31, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 26, SecurityWeek – (International) “Wekby” group uses DNS requests for C&C communications. Security researchers from Palo Alto Networks discovered that an advanced persistent threat (APT) group named Wekby, APT 18, Dynamite Panda, and TG-0416, was using the “pisloader” malware to infiltrate a system via Domain Name System (DNS) requests for command & control (C&C) communications, which allows the malware to bypass security products. The “pisloader” malware was believed to be a variant of the... read more.

• May 27, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 25, Softpedia – (International) Fiverr removes DDoS-for-Hire services from its marketplace. Fiverr banned and removed a series of ads reportedly providing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)-related offerings on its marketplace Web site after security researchers from Incapsula found several DDoS services. Source May 25, Softpedia – (International) Hackers take over thousands of Twitter accounts and tweet out adult content. Symantec discovered that over 2,500 Twitter accounts were compromised after... read more.

• May 26, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 23, SecurityWeek – (International) Exploit for recently patched flash flaw added to Magnitude EK. A French security researcher discovered that attackers were integrating the Magnitude exploit flaw against previously patched Flash Player 21.0.0.213 installations to potentially deliver various pieces of malware, including Locky and Cerber ransomware. The exploit was not fully implemented in Magnitude and researchers advised users to be cautious of the exploit. Source May 21, Softpedia – (International)... read more.

• May 25, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 19, Softpedia – (International) A quarter of all hacked WordPress sites can be attributed to three plugins. Sucuri conducted an investigation on over 11,485 compromised Web sites and released its “Website Hacked Report” which revealed that during the first 3 months of 2016, 78 percent of hacked Web sites were using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) platform and found that attackers were primarily using outdated plugins to hack WordPress sites. Outdated plugins included RevSlider, GravityForm... read more.

• May 20, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 18, SC Magazine – (International) Cisco patch blocks DoS vulnerability. Cisco released patches for its Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software after security researchers found attackers could alter a memory block, allowing the system to cease transferring traffic and cause a denial-of-service (DoS) situation. The flaw was reportedly linked to an issue in the installation of Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) error handling for Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) packets. Source May 18, Securi... read more.

• May 19, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 17, SecurityWeek– (International) Critical vulnerability in Symantec AV Engine exploited by just sending an email. Symantec updated its Antivirus Engine (AVE) addressing a critical memory corruption flaw after a security researcher from Google Project Zero discovered the flaw affected most Symantec and Norton-branded antivirus products and reported the issue related to how the antivirus products handle executables compressed in the ASPack file compressor. The vulnerability can be remotely exploited for... read more.

• May 18, 2016

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

May 16, SecurityWeek – (International) Data leaked from hacker forum Nulled.io. Risk Based Security reported that the popular forum, Nulled.io was compromised after hackers leaked a 1.3Gb archive containing more than 536,000 user account information including usernames, email addresses, hashed passwords, application program interface (API) credentials for payment gateways, authentication logs, and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, among other data. Researchers are unsure how the Nulled.io database was compr... read more.

• May 17, 2016