FAQ: The rapid spread of SQL injection attacks
March 17, 2009
A criminal hacker’s epiphany: Why not automate SQL inject attacks and use botnets to launch them?
That stroke of genius dawned on a criminal coder, possibly Chinese, a little less than a year ago. The result: in just 10 months, botnet-driven SQL injection attacks have been used to plant infections on multi-millions of webpages. These infections now lurk in wait for anyone who happens to click to what appears to be …More
The cybersecurity mess on the White House front steps
March 16, 2009
Special to Threatpost
by Byron Acohido (LastWatchdog.com)
March 16, 2009, 7:55 AM
If President Obama thinks fixing the broken U.S. economy is a challenge, and ending the ground wars in the Middle East a conundrum, wait until he gets around to tackling cybersecurity.
Obama must reverse the abject lack of any sort of meaningful coordinated defense against intensifying and overlapping cyber attacks on U.S. citizens, businesses, schools, hospitals, governments and military from unseen …More
Unu revives hacking for bragging rights
March 12, 2009
Hacking for bragging rights is back in vogue. A Romanian coder, known as unu, has been grabbing headlines in a manner that evokes memories of MafiaBoy and Sven Jaschan.
Unu’s latest caper: defacing web pages of The Daily Telegraph and British Telecom, both big British corporations. The self-proclaimed ethical hacker has been using a technique called SQL injection, to penetrate websites of F-Secure, Kaspersky …More
Cyber-equivalent of Monroe Doctrine needed to repel Internet attacks
March 10, 2009
President Obama ought to invoke the cyber equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine to repel rising Internet attacks against America.
So testified Oracle’s tough-talking Chief Security Officer, Mary Ann Davidson, at a Congressional hearing today.
History refresher: Back in 1823, President James Monroe decreed that any attempt to extend foreign political systems onto U.S. soil would be considered an act of aggression requiring U.S. intervention. Simple as that. Monroe sought to …More
Beckstrom Q&A: Cybersecurity official explains how he was hamstrung by NSA
March 9, 2009
The sudden resignation of Rod A. Beckstrom, the Department of Homeland Security’s senior official tasked with unifying the federal government’s cybersecurity intiatives, bodes ill for a new age of transparency and collaborative problem-solving in government. Beckstrom was unable to maneuver around, much less partner with, the powerful National Security Agency (NSA).
In this stunningly frank March 5th resignation letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom, Director of the National …More
Koobface, Waledec worms slam Facebook; MySpace says it’s immune
March 5, 2009
Facebook appears to be taking the brunt of the onslaught of viral messages infesting the Internet. These viral messages are metastizing far and wide, carried by huge and growing botnet-driven worms, like Koobface and Waledec, that spread through email and, increasingly, via social network communication services. The bad messages try to steer you to tainted web pages or trick you into downloading something innocuous, like an Adobe …More
U.S cybersecurity review 30-day update: hearing scheduled March 10
March 5, 2009
A much-anticipated cybersecurity update will be delivered to Congress next week by Melissa Hathaway, the military collaboration expert assigned by President Obama to conduct a 60-day review of U.S. cybersecurity policy.
Hathaway is nearly half way into her assignment. Her status report to the House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, Science & Technology is titled “Reviewing the Federal Cybersecurity Mission,” and is set for March 10, 2 p.m. EDT, …More
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