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The banking Trojan known as Shylock has been updated with new functionality, including the ability to spread over Skype. The program was discovered in 2011 that steals online banking credentials and other financial information from infected computers. Shylock, named after a character from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Shylock is one of the most advanced Trojans  currently being used in attacks against home banking systems. The code is constantly being updated and new features are added regularly. According to security researchers from CSIS Security Group , the Skype infection is based on a malicious plugin called msg.gsm and allows the malware to send messages and transfer files, clean messages and transfers from Skype history and even bypass the Skype warning for connecting to servers. Beside the new ability to spread through Skype, Shylock can also spread through local shares and removable drives. Infection by the Trojan a...

Today I decided to remove Microsoft Security Essentials Antivirus from my system because Security Essentials failed another certification test by independent testing lab, AV-Test Institute. Microsoft's Security Essentials antivirus for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 is a free add-on to Windows Defender, which blocks adware and spyware on Windows. In its review , AV-Test revealed that 22 of the 25 programs that were tested passed the test, but Security Essentials came up short. The lab tested all programs across three areas: protection, repair ability and usability of the whole computer based on the impact of the software. " We always used the most current publicly-available version of all products for the testing. They were allowed to update themselves at any time and query their in-the-cloud services. We focused on realistic test scenarios and challenged the products against real-world threats. Products had to demonstrate their capabilities using all ...

We continues to recommend users disable the Java program in their Web browsers, because it remains vulnerable to attacks that could result in identity theft and other cyber crimes and less than 24 hours after Oracle Sunday released a security update that addresses two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in Java that are being actively exploited by attackers, an online vulnerability seller began offering a brand-new Java bug for sale. According to a report , a Java exploits was being advertised for $5,000 a piece in an underground Internet forum and the new zero-day vulnerability was apparently already in at least one attacker's hands. The thread has since been deleted from the forum indicating a sale has been made, something sure to bring more concern to Oracle.Oracle can't predict the future, and its engineers obviously can't predict what exploits are going to be found in its software. The most recent hold Java fixed allowed hackers to enter a computer by using compro...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

Every day we read about an incredible number of successful attacks and data breaches that exploited leak of authentication mechanisms practically in every sector. Often also critical control system are exposed on line protected only by a weak password, in many cases the default one of factory settings, wrong behavior related to the human component and absence of input validation makes many applications vulnerable to external attacks. Today I desire to focus the attention of a report published by the consulting firm's Deloitte titled " Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2013 " that provide a series of technology predictions, including the outlook for subscription TV services and enterprise social networks. The document correctly express great concern of the improper use of passwords that will continue also in 2013 being causes of many problems, it must to be considered that value of the information protected by passwords continues to grow attracting il...

The US Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Emergency Response Team has released a report , which stated that two American electrical power plants were compromised late last year and has identified a number of glaring electronic vulnerabilities. Some unknown malware infected two power plants control systems using unprotected USB drives as an attack vector. The tainted USB drive came in contact with a handful of machines at the power generation facility and investigators found sophisticated malware on two engineering workstations critical to the operation of the control environment. The report did not say if the computers did or did not have up-to-date antivirus software, but it did say that current software would have found the malware.  The other infection affected 10 computers in a turbine control system. It was also spread by a USB drive and resulted in downtime for the impacted systems and delayed the plant restart by approximately three weeks. ICS-C...

A zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in popular Cisco Linksys routers that allows hackers to gain remote root access. Security vendor DefenseCode discovered the flaw and reported it to Cisco months ago and a fix is already on the way. According to Cisco, more than 70 million Linksys routers sold globally. This exploit was successfully tested against a Linksys model WRT54GL router by researchers at security firm DefenseCode who claimed that the latest Linksys firmware 4.30.14 and all previous versions are still vulnerable. It took the team only 12 days to develop an exploit that could be used by hackers to take control of a person's wireless router and hijack all the information being processed through it. The vulnerability is demonstrated in the following video:

Oracle delivered an unusual emergency patch to Java's critical Zero Day vulnerability on Sunday to fix a malicious bug that allowed hackers access to users web browsers. Exploits for the previously undisclosed flaw were being hosted in a number of exploit kits and attacks have already been seen in the wild dropping ransomware and assorted other malware. Security Alert CVE-2013-0422  include two vulnerabilities that are remotely executable. Oracle confirmed that the flaws were only present in Java 7 versions and did not impact Java on servers, Java desktop applications, or embedded Java. Java is used in 3 billion machines, about 2 billion of which are desktop or laptop computers. Similarly, Back in August last year, Oracle issued an urgent fix to seal a dangerous security flaw within its Java software that's left thousands of computers wide open to malicious attacks from hackers. Lamar Bailey , director of security research and development for nCircle ...

A new sensational discovered has been announced by Kaspersky Lab's Global Research & Analysis Team result of an investigation after several attacks hit computer networks of various international diplomatic service agencies. A new large scale cyber-espionage operation has been discovered, named Red October , name inspired by famous novel The Hunt For The Red October (ROCRA) and chosen because the investigation started last October. The campaign hit hundreds of machines belonging to following categories: Government Diplomatic / embassies Research institutions Trade and commerce Nuclear / energy research Oil and gas companies Aerospace Military The attackers have targeted various devices such as enterprise network equipment and mobile devices (Windows Mobile, iPhone, Nokia), hijacking files from removable disk drives, stealing e-mail databases from local Outlook storage or remote POP/IMAP server and siphoning files from local network FTP servers. Accordin...

Aaron Swartz has committed suicide on January 11, 2013 in New York City.  I have long been fought if you write something about this extraordinary boy, but not dedicate a tribute would be a shame. Aaron Swartz has decided to leave a huge void in the IT scenario.  For me, as the entire world he is a legend, a guy that has profoundly changed our daily work. Aaron Swartz is an eclectic persona; he is an hacker and active activist, co-founder of social news website Reddit and founder of the group Demand Progress. The EFF in a blog post states: " Aaron did more than almost anyone to make the Internet a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge, and to keep it that way. His contributions were numerous, and some of them were indispensable. When we asked him in late 2010 for help in stopping COICA, the predecessor to the SOPA and PIPA Internet blacklist bills, he founded an organization called Demand Progress, which mobilized over a million online activists and proved to be...

Hackers crew Jember Hacker terrorists (JHT) deface the official website of Indonesian president (https://www.presidensby.info) with a message reads, " This is a PayBack From Jember Hacker Team ". Hackers deface website of president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) apparently in protest at growing corruption and wealth inequality in the country and because of increasing anger at the current administration. Deface page mention hacker code name as " MJL007 " who performed the hack and government is working with law enforcement teams to examine log files in a bid to trace the origin of the attack. " Corruption is rampant, the poor are everywhere. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer ," hacker told . Mirror of hack is available at Zone-H .

Last week, Happy Hacker   arrested in Thailand on charges of stealing millions from online bank accounts. According to new reports same hacker alleged as ZeuS Mastermind and used to have the profile of a miscreant nicknamed " bx1 ," a hacker fingered by Microsoft before as a major operator of botnets powered by the ZeuS banking trojan .  He remained smiling throughout a press conference in which Thai police explained that Thailand will seek to extradite Mr Bendelladj to the US state of Georgia, where a court has issued a warrant for his arrest. 24-year-old Algerian Hacker , Hamza Bendelladj   arrested at a Bangkok airport enroute from Malaysia to Egypt. The ZeuS botnet is one of the most notorious in existence, and it's also one that has earned its masters some pretty massive payouts. The Email ID's  daniel.h.b@universityofsutton.com , and danieldelcore@hotmail.com  mentioned by Microsoft in a complaint submitted to the U.S. District Co...