Phishing Archives

Phishing

New Search Engine Wants To Be A Google For Code

May 15, 2013 Paul Roberts

Researchers at The University of Cambridge in the UK have created a Google-like search engine that can peer inside applications, analyzing their underlying code. The search tool, named “Rendezvous,” has applications for a number of problems. It could be used to help reverse engineer potentially malicious files, copyright enforcement or to find evidence of plagiarism within applications, according to a blog post by Ross Anderson, a Professor of Security Engineering at the Laboratory. Rendezvous was unveiled in a seminar on Tuesday by Wei Ming Khoo, a doctoral student in the Security Group working at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory. The engine, which can be accessed here, allows users to submit an unknown binary, which is decompiled, parsed and compared against a library of code harvested from open source projects across the Internet. Code reuse has become a pressing security issue. The application security firm Veracode has named reused […]

Facebook Graph Search API Used To Brute Force Phone Numbers From Profiles

May 8, 2013 Paul Roberts

Facebook’s Graph Search feature hasn’t been released yet. But white hat hackers are already harnessing the powerful social search engine to gather sensitive information on Facebook users. A new module for Recon-ng an open source “web reconnaissance framework” allows anyone with a Facebook Developer account to use Graph Search and Recon-ng’s features to harvest phone numbers associated with Facebook user accounts. The tool, dubbed “Facebook Harvester” allows brute force searching by partial phone numbers, using brute-force techniques, according to a blog post by Rob Simon, a Canton, Ohio- based security professional. Simon, who counts penetration testing and reverse engineering among his skill set, wrote about his experiments using Graph Search on his blog, kc57.com. in April. In a phone interview with The Security Ledger, Simon said his work doing penetration testing drew him to the Graph Search API, which allows programmatic interaction with the Graph Search engine. He said the […]

Messy And Loud Hack In South Korea Doesn’t Look State Sponsored

March 22, 2013 Paul Roberts

A researcher who has studied the malicious software used in the attacks on media outlets and banks in South Korea this week said the attacks were coordinated, but messy and loud, without many of the hallmarks of a state sponsored hacking operation. Richard Henderson, a Security Strategist at Fortilabs at Fortinet Inc. said that the malware used in the attack was programmed to begin operating at 2:00pm local time, suggesting that those behind it had planned their operation for weeks or months before launching it. Still, Henderson said many details of the attack make it dissimilar from so-called “advanced persistent threat” or APT-style hacks that are carried out by foreign governments or groups working on their behalf. Henderson said that Fortinet analysts first obtained a copy of the malware on March 19, a day before the attacks. Researchers there had already identified the “time bomb” hidden in the code, which was […]

Twenty ISPs Responsible For Half Of All Spam

March 17, 2013 Paul Roberts

One of the lessons we’ve learned in recent years is that online attacks can come from anywhere. Viruses and spyware were more common to pornography and pirate download web sites five years ago. Today, even the most reputable web sites might be the source of online mayhem. In fact, so-called “watering hole” attacks that exploit legitimate web sites and use them as honey pots to lure the intended victims are all the rage among sophisticated attackers. (For evidence of this, see our recent story on the compromise at the web site of The National Journal, a publication for Beltway policy wonks.) But the Internet still has its dark alleys and bad neighborhoods. And they’re still the source of a lot of malicious activity – especially in connection to run of the mill crimes like spam and phishing attacks. That’s the conclusion of research done by students at the University of Twente’s […]

Malware’s Future Looks A Lot Like Its Present

February 28, 2013 Paul Roberts

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 […]