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Oracle released an emergency patch on Thursday for previously unknown Java vulnerabilities that cybercriminals had targeted with popular exploit kits within hours after the bugs' existence became public, security researchers found yet another vulnerability that can be exploited to run arbitrary code on systems that have the runtime installed. Security researchers from Poland-based security firm Security Explorations claim to have discovered a vulnerability in the Java 7 security update released Thursday that can be exploited to escape the Java sandbox and execute arbitrary code on the underlying system. While so far the vulnerability has only been found being used against Windows, other platforms such as the Mac OS could potentially be targeted through the same exploit. Security Explorations sent a report about the vulnerability to Oracle on Friday together with a proof-of-concept exploit, Adam Gowdiak, the security company's founder and CEO said Friday via email. The compa...

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center posted a broad agency announcement recently, calling on contractors to submit concept papers detailing technological demonstrations of 'cyberspace warfare operations' capabilities.  Air Force is seeking to obtain the abilities to 'destroy, deny, degrade, disrupt, deceive, corrupt, or usurp the adversaries' ability to use the cyberspace domain for his advantage' and capabilities that would allow them to intercept, identify, and locate sources of vulnerability for threat recognition, targeting, and planning, both immediately and for future operations. According to the document the issuing Program Office "is an organisation focused on the development and sustainment of Cyberspace Warfare Attack capabilites that directly support Cyberspace Warfare capabilities of the Air Force." Technologies that can map data and voice networks, provide access to the adversary's information, networks, systems or devices, manip...

Reports have surfaced that liquified natural gas (LNG) producer RasGas , based in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, has been struck by an unidentified virus, this time shutting down its website and email servers. The malware, however, did not affect the company’s operational computers that control the production and delivery of gas, an official of the Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas company. The attack reportedly began Aug. 27. The RasGas website was still unavailable on Thursday, three days after the attack. For the second time in two weeks a virus outbreak has been reported at an energy company in that region. Earlier this week the Saudi Aramco oil company confirmed that its network was hit by a virus two weeks ago, shutting down 30,000 workstations. Neither company identified the virus, but in at least one of the cases it is believed to be malware known as "Shamoon." A joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil, RasGas exports about 36.3 million tons of liq...

Oracle has released a new patch which kills off a vulnerability in Java 7 that was being exploited by malware developers. " Due to the high severity of these vulnerabilities, Oracle recommends that customers apply this Security Alert as soon as possible ," Eric Maurice, the company's director of software security assurance. The out-of-band Security Alert CVE-2012-4681 includes fixes for “three distinct but related vulnerabilities and one security-in-depth issue” affecting Java running within the browser. Users with vulnerable versions of Java installed can have malware silently planted on their systems just by browsing to a hacked or malicious website unknowingly.Java is a free programming language widely used to enable every day programs and website elements to function, including some games, apps and chat, as well as enterprise apps. The attacks using this vulnerability so far have been Windows-based, the exploit was demonstrated on other platforms supported by Java...

Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web reported about the first cross-platform backdoor to run under Linux and Mac OS X identified as " BackDoor.Wirenet.1 ". This malicious program designed to steals passwords entered by the user in Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Chromium, and passwords stored by such applications as Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Pidgin. BackDoor.Wirenet.1 is the first-ever Trojan that can simultaneously work on these operating systems. BackDoor.Wirenet.1 is still under investigation. At launch BackDoor.Wirenet.1 creates a copy in the user's home directory. To interact with the command server located at 212.7.208.65, the malware uses a special encryption algorithm Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). BackDoor.