Imminent threats
How Koobface has evolved to stay a step ahead
March 4, 2010
By Byron Acohido
March 4, 2010 p2A, USA TODAY
The Koobface worm is a case study of how swiftly cybercriminals react to emerging trends. Koobface first appeared in the fall of 2008 just as social networks were getting hot. Its creators initially sent Facebook users friendly messages asking them to click on a link to see a video.
Doing so called up another message asking the recipient to click on …More
How Facebook phishers breached a corporate network
March 4, 2010
By Byron Acohido
USA TODAY P. 1A 04Mar2010
SAN FRANCISCO — “Hey Alice, look at the pics I took of us last weekend at the picnic. Bob”
That Facebook message, sent last fall between co-workers at a large U.S. financial firm, rang true enough. Alice had, in fact, attended a picnic with Bob, who mentioned the outing on his Facebook profile page.
So Alice clicked on the accompanying Web link, …More
FTC finds P2P networks rife with leaked identity data
February 22, 2010
The Federal Trade Commission today finally voiced concern about the long-known problem of data leaking into criminal hands via LimeWire, BearShare, Kazaa and dozens of other peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks.
The FTC put nearly 100 companies and agencies on notice that their employees appear to be regularly leaking large amounts of sensitive customer and employee data on popular P2P networks
The FTC did not name names, either of …More
How Google Buzz lowers the bar for privacy, security
February 16, 2010
More bad buzz about Google Buzz seems certain to play out in coming weeks. That’s because privacy and security can’t be separated. And despite two rounds of privacy-setting revisions, the search giant’s new social network, in its current configuration, markedly lowers privacy and security.
Coming on the heels of Facebook’s controversial privacy-setting revamp, the launch of Buzz has enervated privacy advocates and cybersecurity experts. They’ve long been …More
Servers used in Google attacks tied to Peng Yong, Dyn Inc.
February 1, 2010
Steve Ragan, security editor at The Tech Herald, has conducted an extensive examination of how Google and dozens of other tech, financial and media corporations got breached via the latest Windows Internet Explorer flaw. Ragan discusses his findings in a lengthy blog post that reads like Sherlock Holmes in the early stages of connecting the dots for a befuddled Mr. Watson, in this case …More
Chinese government might not be behind Google attack
January 26, 2010
Talk has begun percolating that Google’s threat to pull out of China could precipitate a Cyber Cold War.
But while all the marbles seem to be rolling in the direction of castigating China, there is an equally plausible perpetrator: garden-variety, profit-motivated cyber thieves out to amass industrial secrets which they can sell to the highest bidder.
“It is certainly a possibility that someone is doing this …More
Microsoft hustles out IE patch for zero-day vulnerability implicated in Google hack
January 19, 2010
The blowback from Google’s threat to leave China continues to escalate like a hyper-ventilated episode of Law & Order.
Microsoft has just announced that it will issue an emergency patch — something it rarely does – to staunch the Internet Explorer security hole implicated in recent data-stealing cyberattacks against Google, Adobe, Jupiter and dozens of other companies.
UPDATE: Microsoft has just announced that the patch will be …More