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Microsoft today announced that they had paid more than $28,000 in rewards to Security Researchers for its first Bug Bounty program, that went on for a month during the preview release of Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). The program was designed to run during Internet Explorer 11’s browser beta test on June 26 and went on till July 26. They said it would pay researchers up to $11,000 for each Internet Explorer 11 vulnerability they found. In July, the company announced that the first such bounty award was given to a current employee of Google, Ivan Fratric. Today Microsoft has released the names of all the people who the company said found vulnerabilities that qualified for a bounty and paid out $28k a total of six researchers for reporting 15 different bugs. J ames Forshaw, Context Security 4 Internet Explorer 11 Preview Bug Bounty - $4,400 1 Bonus for finding cool IE design vulnerabilities - $5,000 Jose Antonio Vazquez Gonzalez, Yenteasy - Security Research 5 I...

In the past, there was a general belief that Macs is much more secure than Windows PCs, but now Mac malware is a serious threat to the security of users’ computers and information. One of the reasons behind the increase in Mac related Malware attacks is the fact that Apple products are popular with many prominent businessmen and influential politicians. Daniel Pistelli, Reverse Engineer and lead developer of Cerbero Profiler, former developer of IDA Pro comes up with another interesting research, and explained The Hacker News , the basic details behind the technique he used to create an undetectable malware for Mac OS X. Apple implements internally an encryption mechanism to protect some of their own executable like " Dock.app " or " Finder.app ". This encryption can be applied to malware as well. If one does, anti-malware solutions can no longer detect the malware because of the encryption, but OS X has no problem loading such malware. This same...

According to a Security Analyst ' Maarten Boone ' working  at Fox-IT company, the Developer of notorious Blackhole Exploit Kit  developer ' Paunch ' and his partners were arrested in Russia recently. Blackhole Exploit Kit  which is responsible for the majority of web attacks today, is a crimeware that makes it simple for just about anyone to build a botnet . This Malware kit was developed by a hacker who uses the nickname “Paunch” and his Team, has gained wide adoption and is currently one of the most common exploit frameworks used for Web-based malware delivery. The Blackhole exploit kit is a framework for delivering exploits via compromised or third-party websites, serve up a range of old and new exploits for Oracle's Java, Adobe's Flash and other popular software to take control of victim's machines. It the point of writing No Police Authority or Press has confirmed the claim made by Maarten about the arrest of Malware author. Plea...

October is turning out to be a busy month for patches. This month also marks the 10-year anniversary of the Patch Tuesday program, which Microsoft started in October of 2003. Scheduled for tomorrow, Microsoft has announced that they will release eight security updates including four critical, addressing vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Microsoft Office and its other products. Bulletin 1 is almost certainly to a zero-day vulnerability   CVE-2013-3893   that has been actively exploited by hackers in targeted attacks.  Though Microsoft issued a temporary " Fix it " in September for the vulnerability, Bulletins 2, 3 and 4 address vulnerabilities in a wide range of Microsoft products, including Windows XP, 7 and 8, and Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012. Bulletins 5, 6 and 7 address vulnerabilities that could allow for remote code execution .  Bulletin 8 addresses an information disclosure vulnerability in SIlver...

A German security firm SRL claims a vulnerability in Touch ID Fingerprint Scanner and iCloud allows a hacker to access a locked device and potentially gain control over an owner’s Apple ID. SRL points out that Airplane mode can be enabled on a stolen phone from the lockscreen , which turns off wireless connectivity and so defeats the remote wipe facility . This can be accessed without requiring a passcode, could be a major vulnerability when it comes to physically stolen devices. In a video demonstration, they point out that while Apple lets users locate and remotely wipe a device using the Find My iPhone app. Since Find My iPhone can only perform a wipe if a device is connected to the Internet, but because airplane mode will disable Internet Connectivity, that may give a thief enough time to get fingerprints off of the device and eventually log in. An attacker can create a fake fingerprint on a laminated sheet and later attached to one of their fingers, as already explained ...