Mobile

Malware’s Future Looks A Lot Like Its Present

SAN FRANCISCO – What does the future of malicious software look like? Depressingly like the present, according to a panel of leading experts. Phishing attacks, spam and even self-propagating worms will continue to plague technology users in the years ahead, just as they have for much of the last two decades, according to experts at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. However, the malware will operate across a far more crowded landscape of mobile devices, virtual machines, cloud-based computing resources and Internet connected “stuff” – complicating the job of securing sensitive information. The panel, “50 Minutes into the Future: Tomorrow’s Malware Threats” asked the experts to look into the crystal ball and predict what malicious software would look like in the near- and distant future. The answer was: much like it looks today. Dave Marcus, the director of security research and communications at McAfee Labs, said that the […]

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FTC Forum Will Tackle Mobile Device Threats

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is continuing to focus its energies on protecting the growing number of consumers using smart phones and other mobile devices. Next up: a public forum to discuss threats to mobile devices. The FTC announced the one-day public forum on Friday and said it hopes to use the event to address problems like “malware, viruses and similar threats facing users of smartphones and other mobile technologies.” The event will take place on June 4th at the FTC’s offices on New Jersey Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. The public forum is just the latest effort by the nation’s leading watchdog to reign in a free-wheeling mobile application marketplace, and put stronger consumer and privacy protections in place. Earlier this month, the agency released a Staff Report that called on mobile OS, mobile device and mobile application firms to provide clearer guidelines to consumers about how their information […]

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Are Mobile App Developers Prey In A Massive Watering Hole Attack?

Say you’re a “bad guy” and what you really want to do is compromise the systems of some high value targets – like software developers working a prominent, Silicon Valley firms like Facebook and Twitter.   Breaking through the front door isn’t easy – these companies mostly have the technology chops to protect their networks and employees. Phishing e-mails are also a tough sell: the developer community is heavy on Apple Mac systems and – besides – application developers might be harder to phish than your average Fortune 500 executive. A better approach might be to let your prey come to you – attacking them passively by gaining control of a trusted third party web site – a so-called “watering hole.” That’s a scenario that has played out in a number of recent, high profile attacks, such as the so-called “VoHo” attacks documented by Symantec and RSA. It may also be […]

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Adobe Pushes Fix For Flash Player, Cites Attacks On Windows, Mac, Android

Adobe released an urgent fix on Thursday for recent versions of Flash Player, citing ongoing attacks against both Windows, Apple Mac, Linux and Android systems. Adobe released the security updates to fix a vulnerability, CVE-2013-0633 in Flash Player, noting that the vulnerability is being exploited “in the wild” (that is: on the public Internet) in targeted attacks. The attacks involve both web based attacks via malicious or compromised web sites and e-mail based attacks. The web based attacks use malicious Flash (SWF-format) content and target vulnerable versions of the Flash Player for the Firefox and Safari web browsers. The e-mail attacks use a malicious Microsoft Word document delivered as an e-mail attachment. The document contains malicious Flash (SWF) content and the email tries to trick the recipient into opening it. The vulnerability in question, CVE-2013-0633 is described as a buffer overflow in Adobe Flash Player that “allows remote attackers to execute […]

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Weekend Security Reads – Our Picks

This was another eventful news week in the security world – stories about hacks on two, prominent newspapers, and a widespread hole in UPnP, a technology that all of us use, but never pay much attention to. (Always a dangerous combination.) Let’s face it, Friday is a time for decamping from the office, not taking on some weighty new mental project or thought provoking issue. But, come Sunday morning over coffee, you might just be ready to switch your higher cognitive functions on again. If so, here are some Security Ledger picks for good weekend reads: Hacking the Old Gray Lady – Slate.com The top security story this week was the string of revelations about sophisticated, targeted attacks against leading U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post may also have been infiltrated, according to a report on Krebsonsecurity.com. The attacks by so-called […]

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