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By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

October 9, Help Net Security – (International) Attackers compromise Cisco Web VPNs to steal login credentials, backdoor target networks. Security researchers from Volexity discovered that attackers are continuing to leverage unpatched vulnerabilities or finding ways to gain administrator access to networks via Cisco Clientless secure sockets layer (SSL) virtual private network (VPN) portals in order to harvest employee credentials by injecting malicious JavaScript code on login pages to the VPN. The attacke... read more.

• October 13, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

October 8, Securityweek – (International) New collision attack lowers cost of breaking SHA1. A team of experts from Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in Europe, Inria in France, and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University discovered that hackers could execute a “freestart collision” attack to break the full secure hash algorithm 1 (SHA1) cryptographic hash function within 10 days for a cost of $75,000 - $120,000 using graphics cards and computing power from Amazon’s EC2 cloud. Previous research estima... read more.

• October 09, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

October 7, Securityweek – (International) Malicious Android adware infects devices in 20 countries. Security researchers from FireEye were monitoring a new malicious adware campaign dubbed Kemoge that has affected Android devices in 20 countries, in which the malware serves ads to an infected device, extracts exploits to root phones, and employs multiple persistence mechanisms. The malware is packaged with popular Android apps uploaded to third-party stores. Source October 7, Softpedia – (International)... read more.

• October 08, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

October 6, Securityweek – (International) Google patches Stagefright 2.0 flaws on Nexus devices. Google released a security update for Nexus devices resolving 20 recently discovered critical security vulnerabilities in the libstagefright and libutils Android media playback engine, dubbed Stagefright 2.0, in which an attacker could push a specially crafted file to cause memory corruption and remote code execution. Source October 6, Softpedia – (International) Hackers breach Microsoft OWA server, steal 11,... read more.

• October 07, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

October 5, SC Magazine – (International) Zero day vulnerability found in VMware product. Researchers from 7 Elements discovered a VMware vCentre zero day vulnerability involving the deployment of the JMX/RMI service used in the management interface in which an attacker could gain unauthorized remote system access to the hosting server, leading to full enterprise environment compromise. VMware reported that it is working on releasing a patch to address the vulnerability. Source October 3, Softpedia – (Int... read more.

• October 06, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

October 2, Help Net Security – (International) Unexpectedly benevolent malware improves security of routers, IoT devices. Security researchers from Symantec discovered an apparently benevolent botnet scheme targeting Internet of things (IoT)-connected devices utilizing code dubbed Wifatch that aims to protect devices from attacks via threat updates and removal of known malware families, among other features. Source October 2, Softpedia – (International) Latest Upatre trojan version targets Windows XP use... read more.

• October 06, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

October 1, Threatpost – (International) Apple patches 100+ vulnerabilities in OS X, Safari, iOS. Apple released OS X version 10.11 El Capitan addressing over 100 security vulnerabilities, including 20 hypertext preprocessor (PHP) flaws, XARA password stealing vulnerabilities which could allow an attacker to use a malicious application to access a user’s keychain, and 45 issues in the Safari 9 Web browser, among others. Source October 1, IDG News Service – (International) New Android vulnerabilities put o... read more.

• October 02, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

September 30, Help Net Security – (International) Scammers use Google AdWords, fake Windows BSOD to steal money from users. Security researchers from Malwarebytes discovered that cybercriminals are using Google’s AdWords to place malicious links at the top of Google’s search page for common searches, which would lead to a fake “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD) page prompting users to call a toll-free “helpline” with scammers that would solicit payments for support services and personal and bank account informat... read more.

• October 01, 2015

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

September 29, IDG News Service – (International) Newly found TrueCrypt flaw allows full system compromise. A security researcher from Google’s Project Zero team discovered two vulnerabilities in TrueCrypt hard drive encryption software which could allow attackers to obtain elevated system privileges if they have access to a limited user account. VeraCrypt released patches for the vulnerabilities, and users were advised to switch products for these and other security improvements. Source September 28, Sof... read more.

• September 30, 2015

By Ken Phelan, Posted in Security

There are a lot of new products emerging to secure the end point. This makes sense given the nature of the attacks we’re seeing, but it’s also leading to some confusion. I thought I would try help out with some categorization. Category 1: Signature-based defenses. These are traditional anti-virus and malware products. The signature-based solutions have a serious problem – or rather a deadly combination of two problems. There are so many new signatures that it becomes more and more expensive to manage the... read more.

• September 28, 2015