Symantec

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With $8m In Funding, Confer Taps Cloud, Crowd To Secure Endpoints

A new endpoint security startup, Confer, pulled the covers off its technology on Wednesday, announcing a new services-based endpoint protection product that it claims will provide better protection against malicious software and advanced attacks. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Confer has been in existence for just over a year and has received $8 million in venture funding from North Bridge Capital and Matrix Partners. The company’s cloud- and endpoint-based software enables organizations to collaborate to stop sophisticated attacks by sharing attack and malware anonymously with other Confer customers. The company said its technology will appeal to enterprise customers who have grown weary of malware infections that manage to bypass or elude traditional anti virus software. Confer is just the latest company to see dollar signs in corporations’ waning enthusiasm for anti malware software. Modern anti malware products are still focused on securing Windows endpoints. They are geared for use in the […]

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Symantec Warns: Worm Can Target Internet of Things

Symantec, the security software firm, is reporting that its researchers have discovered a new, malicious “worm” that is spreading on the Internet and has been adapted to attack embedded devices running the Linux operating system, including many devices that are part of the Internet of Things. Writing on the Symantec research blog, Kaoru Hayashi, a threat analyst within Symantec’s Security Response organization, said that the company had uncovered the worm, dubbed Linux.Darlloz, spreading between more common PC systems. However, an analysis of the program revealed that its creators were thinking big: engineering the worm to be capable of attacking a “range of small, Internet-enabled devices in addition to traditional computers.” Specifically, Symantec’s team found variants of Darlloz for chip architectures common in devices ranging from home routers and set-top boxes to security cameras. The warnings about an “Internet of Things worm” were hypothetical, however. Hayashi said that no attacks against non-PC […]

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Gartner: Traditional IT Security Dead By End of Decade?

The analyst firm Gartner Inc. prides itself on its ability to identify emerging technology trends and talking up what’s next before it has even happened. The firm’s Hype Cycle maps the familiar path from promising new technology to ‘hot technology buzz word du jour,’ and (maybe) on to useful, less buzzy technology that’s actually being used. More important: the Gartner Magic Quadrant rates  technology companies (and their products) according to a set of criteria that includes how forward-looking (or “visionary”) the company is. Given the sway Gartner’s ratings have in companies’ willingness to invest in products, it’s a foregone conclusion that companies Gartner picks to ‘do well’ end up…umm…doing well. Gartner has an interest in finding the next big thing in every market – but also of preserving as much of the status quo as possible. (All those quadrants generate some serious cash!!) So I was interested to read about […]

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APT-For-Hire: Symantec Outs Hidden Lynx Hacking Crew

This site and others have been writing about the “Advanced Persistent Threat” problem, which has generally been treated as a euphemism for the government and military of The People’s Republic of China or – in some cases – Russia, Iran, North Korea or other un-friendlies. Firms like Mandiant have taken pains to separate the concept of APT from run of the mill cyber criminal hacking groups whose motivation is profit, rather than the acquisition of information that can be used to advance geopolitical or economic goals. Cyber criminal groups may well use “advanced” in their attack methods and “persistent” in their efforts to compromise victim networks, but they weren’t “APT.” Now Symantec Corp. has put a fly into that ointment: publishing a report that pulls the covers off an APT group dubbed “Hidden Lynx” that it claims is responsible for some of the most sophisticated and large scale hacks of […]

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Application Security ‘Precrimes’ Report: SQL Injection, Crypto Hacks in 2013

We have plenty of industry-provided reports that tell us what happened in the past. The annual Verizon Databreach Investigations Report is due out any day, providing data on breaches investigated by that company’s incident response professionals, as well as information from law enforcement agencies around the world. And, with the first quarter gone, its safe to assume that similar reports will follow from Symantec and others.   But what about the threats for 2013? That’s where Veracode’s State of Software Security (SoSS) report comes in. Released to the public today, SoSS documents the kinds of software vulnerabilities that company found during 2012. And, where there are vulnerabilities, there will be attacks, Veracode CTO Chris Wysopal says. So what’s on tap for 2013? SQL injection attacks are likely to be one of the main attack types against web-based applications this year, as they were last year, Veracode says. That’s because SQL […]

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