Updated to include response from Accellion. 1/9/2013 A security researcher who was looking for vulnerabilities in Facebook’s platform instead stumbled on a much larger hole that could affect scores of firms who rely on a secure file transfer platform from Accellion. Writing on his blog on Monday, Israeli researcher Nir Goldshlager said he uncovered a security hole affecting Accellion’s Secure File Transfer service that could allow an attacker to take control of a user’s Secure File Transfer account with little more than the e-mail address associated with the account. Accellion Secure File Transfer is a service that allows enterprises to offer secure transfer and storage of large files (up to 100GB). In contrast to consumer-focused services like DropBox, Accellion offers comprehensive file tracking and reporting as well as data security features necessary to satisfy government regulations like HIPAA, GLBA, and SOX. Secure File Transfer is offered to companies as a private cloud, public […]
Threats
Does Your LinkedIn Profile Hold The Key To Your Password?
Say what you want about social media. The bare fact is that folks use it – more of them every day. In fact, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are growing – quickly – and have come to define our modern online experience. That said: the sites represent a huge security risk. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are increasingly used as platforms to circulate scams and malicious links. A larger and more nebulous threat is posed by all the information that organizations and their workers are spilling online. It’s already common knowledge that hackers and other “bad guys” comb through worker profiles or LinkedIn, Facebook and other sites to help craft targeted attacks. But could your social networking profile provide more useful information – like your password? Independent security researcher Itzik Kotler thinks so. Kotler is the creator of Pythonect, a new, experimental dataflow programming language based […]
Microsoft Rushes Fix for IE Hole Used in Attacks on DC’s Elite
Microsoft issued an emergency fix for its Internet Explorer web browser on Monday, just days after security researchers reported finding a previously unknown (zero day) vulnerability in IE that was being used in targeted attacks against members of Washington D.C.’s media, government and policy elite. Microsoft’s Security Response Center (MSRC) released the fix for IE versions 6, 7 and 8 on Monday following reports of sophisticated and targeted attacks using the vulnerability were detected on the web site of the Council of Foreign Relations, a leading think tank whose members include senior government officials. In a Security Advisory (#2794220), Microsoft described the flaw as a “remote code execution vulnerability” in code that governs the way that “Internet Explorer accesses an object in memory that has been deleted or (improperly) allocated.” The vulnerability could allow a malicious attacker to create a malicious web page that would exploit the vulnerability to corrupt memory in […]
Update: Popular WordPress Plugin Leaves Sensitive Data in the Open
Editor’s Note: Updated to add comments from Jason Donenfeld. – Paul A security researcher is warning WordPress uses that a popular plugin may leave sensitive information from their blog accessible from the public Internet with little more than a Google search. The researcher, Jason A. Donenfeld, who uses the handle “zx2c4” posted a notice about the add-on, W3 Total Cache on the Full Disclosure security mailing list on Sunday, warning that many WordPress users that had added the plugin had directories of cached content that could be browsed by anyone with a web browser and knowledge of where to look. The content of those directories could be downloaded, including directories containing sensitive data like password hashes, Donenfeld wrote. W3 Total Cache is described as a “performance framework” that speeds up web sites that use the WordPress content management system by caching site content, speeding up page loads, downloads and the […]
Update: Spammers abusing Google Rich Snippets to boost Scam Sites
Editor’s Note: Updated to add official comment from Google. Spammers prove the rule that says criminals will always stay one step ahead of the law. That’s why – despite predictions from some of the technology industry’s best and brightest (*ahem* Bill Gates) that spamming would be eradicated it survives (and thrives) even today. One way that spammers continue to stay in business is by latching on to new technology – any new technology – that might give them an edge in reaching more potential victims and luring them in. Spammers were among the first to recognize the importance of technologies like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in driving traffic to web sites. They’re willing to try any new social media platform – no matter how nascent. And they don’t cling to technology or methods that don’t work. When the Internet community got hip to how loosely monitored infrastructure like open proxies (PDF) contributed […]
