November 9th, 2009

CBS 60 Minutes tackles cyber-terrorism

Posted by Ryan Naraine @ 7:07 am

Categories: Arbitrary Code Execution, Black Hat, Botnets, Browsers, Data theft, Exploit code, Governments, Hackers, Malware, People's Republic of China, Russia, United States of America

Tags: Cyberterrorism, CBS Corp., Hacking, Security, Ryan Naraine

Could hackers get into the computer systems that run crucial elements of the world’s infrastructure, such as the power grids, water works or even a nation’s military arsenal?  Watch the CBS News 60 Minutes segment after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

July 23rd, 2009

China's Green Dam and the cyberwar implications

Posted by Ryan Naraine @ 8:30 am

Categories: Anti Virus, Arbitrary Code Execution, Botnets, Browsers, Complex Attacks, Denial of Service (DoS), Exploit code, Governments, Malware, Pen testing, People's Republic of China, United States of America, Viruses and Worms, Vulnerability research, Zero-day attacks

Tags: Software, China, Vulnerability, Computer, Chinese Internet, Green Dam, Government, Productivity, Tools & Techniques, Internet

Guest editorial by Oliver Day

Chinese military leaders have always been aware of the military advantage the US has over the People’s Liberation Army.  Reading through their published assessments of Sino-US war possibilities confirm our belief that we would dominate them in the air, land and sea.  However the PLA was born of asymmetric warfare and this remains a core part of their strategies against any possible wars with the US.  Specifically the PLA writes about the use of cyberwarfare as a means of countering this imbalance.
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January 2nd, 2009

Military contractor "cyber-defense" gold rush begins

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 11:38 am

Categories: Governments, Punditocracy, United States of America

Tags: Information Security, Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., Security, Adam O'Donnell

Sensing a shift in upcoming defense priorities, Lockheed and Boeing are both launching information security product divisions.
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December 12th, 2008

McCain sells off unwiped campaign BlackBerry to reporter for $20

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 12:52 pm

Categories: Data theft, Governments, Mobile (In)Security, Privacy, United States of America, Wireless

Tags: Information Security, Phone, Data Retention, RIM BlackBerry, McCain, Handhelds, Security, Hardware, Adam O'Donnell

A reporter picked up a used BlackBerry in the massive liquidation of the McCain campaign holdings. It turns out that someone forgot to wipe the contents of the Blackberry’s memory.
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December 9th, 2008

Think tank releases cybersecurity roadmap for Obama administration

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 9:47 am

Categories: Governments, Punditocracy, Research, United States of America

Tags: Administration, Identity Management, Cybersecurity, Government, Vertical Industries, Authentication/Encryption, Security, Enterprise Software, Software, Adam O'Donnell

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C. based think tank, has released their recommendations for a national cybersecurity policy for the incoming presidential administration. The policy guidelines, if implemented, will have a significant impact on the software landscape that reaches far beyond the borders of federal employment and purchasing.
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November 29th, 2008

Virus hits nearly 75% of systems on Afghanistan military base

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 2:06 pm

Categories: Anti Virus, Complex Attacks, Governments, Malware, People's Republic of China, Russia, United States of America, Viruses and Worms

Tags: Virus, Military, Details, Cyberthreats, Biotechnology, Security, Viruses And Worms, Adam O'Donnell

Earlier this month we saw the military ban the use of USB drives and other removable media. Apparently the virus outbreak that lead to this measure affected 75\% of all systems at the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
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November 24th, 2008

Facebook wins $873 million judgement against spammer

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 4:21 pm

Categories: Governments, Social Networking Applications, Spam and Phishing, United States of America

Tags: Facebook, Judgement, Spammer, E-mail World, E-mail, Spam, Social Networking, Cyberthreats, Online Communications, Security

Major news sources are reporting that Facebook has won a $873 million dollar judgement against a Canadian spammer. What this means for spam on social networks is not clear, however.
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November 18th, 2008

What really happened to the candidates' computers?

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 3:11 pm

Categories: Complex Attacks, Data theft, Governments, United States of America

Tags: BusinessWeek, Computer, Attack, Government, E-mail, Vertical Industries, Security, Online Communications, Enterprise Software, Software

Now that two weeks have passed since the end of the presidential campaigns, it is worthwhile to take a look at what I think should have one of the biggest cybercrime stories of the year. As Ryan blogged the day after the election, both the McCain and the Obama campaigns’ systems were compromised by an external party, and this compromise lead to a massive data exfiltration. If these reports turn out to be true, the attack is a huge coup for the attacking party.
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November 6th, 2008

Obama community blog redirecting to malware

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 3:45 pm

Categories: Anti Virus, Complex Attacks, Governments, Malware, United States of America, Web 2.0

Tags: Blog, Malware, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Cyberthreats, Viruses And Worms, Security, Adam O'Donnell

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Obama-related spam campaign comes the discovery that attackers are redirecting people from an official Barack Obama website to malware when they search for anti-virus to address the threat.

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November 5th, 2008

Obama-related spammed trojan propagating worldwide

Posted by Adam O'Donnell @ 11:30 am

Categories: Complex Attacks, Governments, Malware, Spam and Phishing, United States of America, Viruses and Worms

Tags: Cloudmark, President, Trojan Horse, Cyberthreats, Spam, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Security, Viruses And Worms, Spam And Phishing, Adam O'Donnell

Several security companies including F-Secure, Sunbelt, and my employer Cloudmark (disclosure) are reporting a large volume of Obama-related spam that links to malware. This is just the latest twist on the long-running theme of social engineering end users into installing web-based malware.
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