In-brief: a California company that makes wearable cameras that are used by law enforcement and the military said a report that it shipped cameras infected with the Conficker virus were “distressing,” but that it was unable to locate the malware on its devices or within its environment.
In-brief: The nation’s top law enforcement agency is warning companies that they may not be able to get their data back from cyber criminals who use Cryptolocker, Cryptowall and other malware without paying a ransom.
In-brief: A truce hammered out between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in September hasn’t kept hacking groups that are believed to be affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from playing offense, according to a report from the security firm Crowdstrike. (Updated to add comment from Ken Westin of Tripwire. PFR 10/19/2015)
A mysterious piece of software, dubbed Wifatch, has been infecting tens of thousands of Linux-based home routers and, according to experts at Symantec, attempts to secure them from attack. But Wifatch’s benevolent intentions shouldn’t obscure its malicious actions, or the security problems that it takes advantage of. The malicious software runs on vulnerable, Linux-based home routers. There, it removes other malware infections, disables vulnerable services like Telnet and even prompts users to update their administrator user name and password to prevent compromise, according to a post on Symantec’s blog. But the malware is still spreading between vulnerable systems without the owners consent and could easily be pressed into service distributing spam or malicious software, experts note. According to Symantec, Wifatch is likely spreading between infected devices by targeting exposed Telnet interfaces and using brute force password attacks to gain access to the devices. Tens of thousands of devices may have been infected […]
In-brief: DARPA is directing $36m for the first stage of a program called LADS – Leveraging the Analog Domain for Security, which is looking into analog methods of cyber threat detection, including power consumption monitoring.
