On Thursday March 24, 2016 the courts unsealed an indictment on seven Iranian government contractors for committing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against 46 Wall Street financial institutions between 2011 and 2013. These same enemy combatants also penetrated a remote monitoring and control system (SCADA) that operates a dam some 20 miles outside of New York…
In September some of the most popular Chinese-developed apps in the iStore were found to have malicious software embedded in them. It turns out Chinese developers were fooled into using a compromised versions of Apple’s developer tool kit called Xcode. The affected apps are able to send data about the device, show fake alerts that…
Security researchers at Lookout found three new families of “auto-rooting adware” for Android. Each one can root the device and install itself as a system application. The infections are designed to survive even a “factory data reset”. Lookout found over 20,000 popular apps infected, and some of these apps appear to be legitimate, having titles…
The European Parliament passed a new bill preventing Internet service providers from blocking Internet traffic, but allows service providers to block or restrict traffic when required by law, or “necessary to manage congestion”. And what is or isn’t congestion is decided by the service providers. The bill allows the same service providers to offer different…
John Oliver’s report about net neutrality sending a call to arms for all commentators to send there comments to the FCC caused the FCC website to crash. I usually only report the facts but I have to say about Oliver’s editorial: FUCK YEAH!!!!! Watch the video here.
Cyber criminals have attacked Canada’s 14 main financial institutions with a ZeuS variant call “Maple”. The name refers to the maple leaf on the Canadian flag. These attacks started in January of 2014. The attacks have been reported by IBM’s Boston based security division, Trusteer. This variant of ZeuS has enhanced features such as an…
Sextortionists and fake antivirus software are not the only ones who hijack webcams anymore. Now the FBI is doing it. Only they have a method which does not turn on the indicator light that let’s you know the webcam is on. Of course, as long they are in your computer recording live feed, they also download files, photos,…
Skynet is a botnet based on the ZeuS Trojan that has been used to steal more than $945,000 worth of Bitcoins. German police have three people in custody for being involved with the malware. Although the Germans are not offering details, one of the detainees is believed to be the actual author of Skynet. The…
Linux.Darlloz, in addition to being able to attack Linux computers, has the ability to target small devices attached to the internet. Vulnerabilities in chips used in home routers, security cameras, set-top boxes like Apple TV, Roku, cable boxes and etc. and even industrial controllers are susceptible to this worm. The devices above utilize Linux services to…
There is a new email phishing scam impersonating Skype. The subject of the email reads “You received a new message from Skype voicemail service.” The scam email spoofs the address “Skype Communications” with the attachment Skype_Voice_Message-7776C24212.zip. In reality the attachment contains an executable, Skype_Voice_M_497564___random_numbers___872345.wav.exe, that installs a Trojan. The body of the email reads: This…
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