Malware Archives

Malware

Report: Home Depot Fallout Reveals History of Lax Security, Hiring

September 23, 2014 Paul Roberts

Its a truism in cyber security that behind every great hack often lies a string of bad decisions and missed opportunities. Its also true that when you dig into the details of damaging cyber incidents, the root causes are personal and psychological as often as they are technical in nature. Organizations -even sophisticated and wealthy organizations – end up making bad decisions for all the wrong reason: failing to properly assess their risk, or pursuing short term savings when long term investment is needed. Home Depot learned via law enforcement that a breach of transaction data exposed as many as 52 million credit card transactions, the largest retail credit card breach to date. But as more comes out about the breach at home improvement giant Home Depot, it starts to look a lot more like the root causes there may have started in the HR department rather than the data center. The […]

Cisco Updates ASA Security Appliance To Tackle Zero Day Malware

September 17, 2014 Paul Roberts

We’re used to writing about all the things that are changing in the security field: the onslaught of mobile devices and connected ‘stuff,’ the advent of ‘advanced’ and ‘persistent’ adversaries, the destruction of the network perimeter. But all this talk about change can obscure the fact that so much has not changed. Companies still maintain perimeters, after all, and they rely on nuts-and-bolts technologies to defend them. But these days, those products need to do more – especially in the area of ‘advanced threats’ that are likely to slip past traditional antivirus and IDS products. Enter Cisco Systems, which on Tuesday announced a new version of its ‘next generation firewall‘: the Cisco ASA (Adaptive Security Appliance) with FirePOWER Services. The appliance is the first to make full use of technology from Cisco’s acquisition of Sourcefire last year. Specifically, the latest ASA integrates Sourcefire’s Advanced Malware Protection (or AMP) technology, which gives the […]

Concept Worm Could Spread Between Networked Attached Storage Systems

September 16, 2014 Paul Roberts

Kelly Jackson Higgins over at Dark Reading has a really interesting story about a researcher who is building a NAS worm. That’s right: some automated malware that will be capable of roaming the Internet finding and compromising consumer network attached storage (NAS) devices. Higgins interviewed Jacob Holcomb, a security analyst at the firm Independent Security Evaluators, has rolled more than two dozen previously unknown and undiscovered (‘zero day’) software vulnerabilities in NAS products into a proof-of-concept, self-replicating worm. According to Higgins, the worm scans for vulnerable services running on NAS systems — mostly web servers — and identifies the type of NAS device and whether it harbors the bugs. If a known, vulnerable platform is discovered, the worm launches the corresponding exploit from its quiver to take control of the device. Compromised devices are then used to scan for other, similar devices. Holcomb has already informed affected vendors – a list that includes […]

Samsung Expanding Mobile Management To Court Enterprise

September 10, 2014 Paul Roberts

Editor’s Note: this story was updated to note that Centrify is now known as Delinea. PFR Sept. 18, 2022 Apple stole the show this week, unveiling its new, larger iPhones and a smart watch that everyone is just calling iWatch, whether that’s the product’s name or not. But the rush of new products from Cupertino doesn’t change the fact that, behind the scenes, the battle for the hearts and minds of business users (aka “enterprises”) rages on between Apple, Google, Microsoft and Blackberry. iPhone 6 or no, the outcome of that battle is anything but clear. Case in point: Samsung will roll out new features this week for its KNOX-powered Android phones and tablets that are designed to appeal to security and privacy conscious business users. The new KNOX solution offerings, which will become public on Thursday, promise enterprises and government organizations the tools to simplify the implementation of BYOD (or Bring Your Own Device) programs. In […]

Home Depot Acknowledges Breach of Payment Systems

September 8, 2014 Paul Roberts

Almost a week after public reports named Home Depot as a possible victim of a sophisticated cyber attack, the home improvement giant has acknowledged that it was hacked. In a statement on Monday, Home Depot said that an internal investigation confirmed a “breach of our payment data systems” took place. The breach affects the company’s U.S. and Canadian stores, though not its Mexican locations or online transactions, the company said. The incident also appears to have been long-lived. Home Depot estimates that the breach dates to April, 2014. The company did not say when it was finally shut down – though that date could be as late as July. Home Depot has been investigating the incident since it was first disclosed by Brian Krebs at the blog Krebsonsecurity. Krebs was alerted to the incident after large quantities of stolen credit cards began appearing on cyber criminal forums. Sources at […]