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For all the talk about China and the Syrian Electronic Army, it seems there's another threat to U.S. cyber interests i.e Iran. Series of potentially destructive computer attacks that have been targeting American oil, gas and electricity companies tracked back to Iran. Iranian hackers were able to gain access to control-system software that could allow them to manipulate oil or gas pipelines. Malware have been found in the power grid that could be used to deliver malicious software to damage plants. The targets have included several American oil, gas and electricity companies, which government officials have refused to identify. The officials stated that the goal of the Iranian attacks is sabotage rather than espionage . Whereas, The cyber attacks from China however, are more aimed at stealing information from the U.S. government that is confidential, as well as from private business.  Mandiant announced that the Chinese government was backing the attacks. However, officials fr

Liberty Reserve , a payment processor similar to Paypal was down on Saturday after the founder of Liberty Reserve, Arthur Budovsky Belanchuk , 39, on Friday was reportedly arrested in Spain by Costa Rican authorities after his they raided suspect´s home and offices in San José and Heredia. Mr. Belanchuk, a Costa Rican citizen of Ukrainian origin, was under investigation since 2011 after authorities flagged his firm for money laundering . Investigators say that Budovsky's businesses in Costa Rica , including Liberty Reserve , were used to launder money for child pornography websites and drug trafficking. Liberty Reserve is a largely unregulated money transfer business that allows customers to open accounts using little more than a valid email address, and this relative anonymity has attracted a huge number of customers from underground economies, particularly cyber crime . It allowing users to nearly anonymously open accounts with limited documentation of identity. Dep

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

Skype … once upon a time a VOIP application considered very secure and wiretap-proof, it was the common belief that no one could intercept such communications due a complex mechanism for the management of audio / video and text streams. One day, Microsoft decided to buy the product, according to many to catch a significant portion of users fond of Skype, but according many experts the company of Redmond wasn't interested only to acquire new market share. The architecture of the popular VOIP infrastructure was improved according Microsoft, in reality it is common thought that it was implemented the possibility to intercept every conversation, as requested by US government to major service providers. The claim is that Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are today able to access the communications exchanged by Skype users and Microsoft has still not been adequately answered to various question on the matter. The German associates to H security magazine at heise Security have be

A Google security engineer has not only discovered a Windows zero-day flaw, but has also stated that Microsoft has a knack of treating outside researchers with great hostility. Tavis Ormandy , a Google security engineer, exposed the flaw on Full Disclosure , that could be used to crash PCs or gain additional access rights. The issue is less critical than other flaws as it's not a remotely exploitable one. Ormandy said on Full Disclosure, " I don't have much free time to work on silly Microsoft code, so I'm looking for ideas on how to fix the final obstacle for exploitation. ". He's been working on it for months, and according to a later post, he has now a working exploit that " grants SYSTEM on all currently supported versions of Windows. "  " I have a working exploit that grants SYSTEM on all currently supported versions of Windows. Code is available on request to students from reputable schools ," Ormandy adds. Microsoft acknowledged

A new type of Android malware that can intercept text messages and forwarding to hackers is discovered by  the Russian firm Doctor Web . This is a very serious threat to users, because using this malware attackers can easily get two factor authentication code of your Email or bank accounts. The malware, dubbed as Android.Pincer.2.origin , is the second form of the original Android.Pincer  malware and is distributed as security certificates that the user must install. Upon launching Android.Pincer.2.origin , the user will see a fake notification about the certificate's successful installation but after that, the Trojan will not perform any noticeable activities for a while.  Android.Pincer.2.origin connects to a server and send text messages in addition to the other information as the smartphone model, serial, IMEI and phone number and the Android version is used. To malware then receive instructions from commands in the following format:  start_sms_forwarding [telephone number]

For millions of low income families, the federal government's Lifeline program offers affordable phone service. But an online security lapse has exposed tens of thousands of them to an increased risk of identity theft, after their Social Security numbers, birth dates and other pieces of highly sensitive information were included in files posted publicly online. Reporters with Scripps were investigating Lifeline, a government benefit-program that provides low-income Americans with discounted phone service, when they came across the sensitive data. They discovered 170,000 Lifeline phone customer records online through a basic Google search that contained everything needed for identity theft. They asked for an interview with the COO of TerraCom and YourTel, which are the telcos who look after Lifeline,but they threatened reporters who found a security hole in their Lifeline phone system with charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Then, the blame-the-messenger hack

The Hacker Conference partnered up with CTF365 to provide the best CTF experience during the conference. While trying to find out more about their product and also about their CTF surprise, I got an interview with Marius Corici Co-founder and CEO for CTF365. Q: November 2012 was when you first announced about this project which was supposed to start at the begin-ning of 2013. What happened that made you delay the starting date? A: Well, we're definitely enthusiastic about making CTF365 the greatest CTF platform out there, and this proves to be much more difficult than initially anticipated. I won't get into detail, because, as it happens, the story is like something pulled out from the theater of the absurd. If we would ever get a chance to make a making-of- CTF365 movie, I'm sure it would be amusing and tragic at the same time. What I will say [and repeat], is that we are putting our best efforts into making CTF365 work, we are a small and committed team, which is a problem [for

In 2010, as part of what has been dubbed as Operation Aurora , Chinese hackers infiltrated a special database within Google's systems and gained access to a sensitive database worth of information about American surveillance targets.  Google reported the hack publicly years ago, saying that the sophisticated attack resulted in the theft of Google intellectual property and the partial compromise of some human rights activists' email accounts. When the news first surfaced in 2010, Google said hackers stole the source code behind its search engine, and targeted email accounts of activists critical of China's human rights record. But recently discovered that the hackers also obtained surveillance information, including emails belonging to suspected spies, diplomats and terrorists which law enforcement officials had been monitoring. Google reported this breach to the FBI, resulting in a national security investigation. According to the sources, hackers were after the names of

A website that can be described as " DDoS for hire " is perfectly legitimate, according to the owner. Malicious sites that offer attack services are not strangers on the Internet, but web sites sponsored by law enforcement is another story altogether. Ragebooter, is one of many sites that accepts payment through PayPal in order to flood sites with junk traffic, overloading servers and denying others access. The service uses a technique called DNS reflection to flood a website and amplify the amount of traffic directed at an address. Unlike other existing sites that offer similar services, the Ragebooter have particularly interesting back door leading directly to the FBI. It seems that the Federal Investigation Bureau uses the site to monitor the activity of users on the network, and that added to the site IP Logger that keeps the IP addresses of all users coming to the site. Investigation shows the site operator is a guy named Justin Folland located in M

Cyber Security researchers have discovered a family of information stealing malware targeting Pakistan that originates out of India.  Norman Shark, the global security leader in malware analysis solutions for enterprises, service providers and government, today released a report detailing a large and sophisticated cyber-attack infrastructure that appears to have originated from India. The attacks, conducted by private threat actors over a period of three years and still ongoing, showed no evidence of state sponsorship but the primary purpose of the global command-and-control network appears to be intelligence gathering from a combination of national security targets and private sector companies. Attackers used known vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, chucking malware dubbed HangOver onto target machines, most of which were based in Pakistan, where 511 infections associated with the campaign were detected. HangOver installs keyloggers , takes screenshots and rec

A Romanian man serving a five-year jail sentence in Romania for his involvement in an ATM skimming scheme, has developed a device designed to protect ATMs from such attacks. 33-year-old Valentin Boanta who is being detained in a prison from Vaslui, Romania, after he was convicted on charges of bank card fraud in 2009, developed what he calls the SRS (Secure Revolving System) which changes the way ATM machines read bank cards to prevent the operation of skimming devices that criminals hide inside ATMs. " When I got caught I became happy. This liberation opened the way to working for the good side ," Boanta said. " Crime was like a drug for me. After I was caught, I was happy I escaped from this adrenaline addiction ," Boanta said. Boanta began working on SRS during his trial. SRS, Boanta says, can be installed into any ATM. ATM skimmers work by installing a second, concealed card reader over the one that's built into the ATM. When an unsuspecting bank customer

The US Department of Defense has cleared Apple's iPhone and iPad for use on its military networks, along with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and BlackBerry 10 devices, the agency said in a statement Friday. The entire DOD is much, much larger, of course, and mobile devices are increasing in importance for the military just as much as they are for we civilians. The report notes that out of more than 600,000 mobile devices used by the Defense Department, only about 41,000 of those are Apple products, with most of those not connected directly to the military's networks. But because these platforms have previously not been certified or cleared for use, such devices had not been connected to secure military networks, except for testing. The move was hardly shocking, but Samsung devices running the Knox security suite and BlackBerry 10 already trickling into the hands of Pentagon employees, the decision sets the stage for a three-way bout for military market supremacy. Offic