The Security Ledger with Paul F. Roberts

Recent Posts

Microsoft Fixes 18 Year-Old Windows Hole Used In Attacks

November 12, 2014 Paul Roberts

At this late date, you’d like to think that all the really nasty vulnerabilities in legacy Windows systems have been identified. Wishful thinking. On Tuesday, Microsoft issued a patch for a critical, remotely exploitable vulnerability affecting Windows systems going back to Windows 95, one of 14 software fixes the company released. The vulnerability in Microsoft’s OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) code is associated with CVE-2014-6332 and is already being used in targeted attacks online. It is among the most serious discovered in recent years, exposing Windows systems to remote attacks that can bypass Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) and Enhanced Protected Mode sandbox in the Internet Explorer browser. The vulnerability was discovered six months ago and patched, officially, on Tuesday with MS14-064, which fixes a related OLE vulnerability, CVE-2014-6352). Microsoft has also released a stop-gap tool that customers can use in lieu of the full patch. Microsoft has also issued an […]

IoT Security: The Next-Generation Matters Now

November 11, 2014 Marc Blackmer

As a cyber security professional, I spend most of my days speaking with customers and colleagues about all of the nefarious ways “the bad guys” can wreak havoc and how we can best defend ourselves. The topics we discuss often include situational awareness, defense-in-depth, threat intelligence, and new cyber security paradigms we may find ourselves adopting as the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves. I would assert that these are extremely important topics to sort out. But there’s a very important element not being discussed: the question of who will sort them out. Simply put: what difference does it make if you have the world’s greatest technology if nobody in your organization knows what to do with it? Cisco estimates that there will be a deficit of one million skilled cyber security professionals over the next five years. By 2015, 90 percent of jobs in the developed world will require some set of […]

Discrete Malware Lures Execs At High-End Hotels

November 10, 2014 Paul Roberts

Kaspersky Lab has a fascinating write-up of malware it is calling “DarkHotel.” The information-stealing software is believed to target traveling executives. Curiously, Kaspersky says the malware may be almost a decade old and is found only on the wireless networks and business centers of select, high-end hotels. Reports about targeted attacks on traveling executives are nothing new. However, the Kaspersky report (PDF version here) may be the most detailed yet on a specific malicious software family that is devoted to hacking senior corporate executives. According to Kaspersky, the DarkHotel malicious software maintained a presence on hotel networks for years, with evidence of its operation going back as far as 2007. The malware used that persistent access to target select hotel guests, leveraging check-in/check-out and identity information on guests to limit attacks to high value targets. Targeted guests were presented with iFrame based attacks that were launched from the hotel’s website, […]

Retailers Demanding Federal Action on Data Breach

November 10, 2014 Paul Roberts

Add retailers to the chorus of voices calling for federal legislation on cyber security and data protection. In an unusual move, retail groups from across the U.S. sent a letter to Congressional leaders that urged them to pass federal data protection legislation that sets clear rules for businesses serving consumers. The letter, dated November 6, was addressed to the majority and minority party leaders of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and signed by 44 state and national organizations representing retailers, including the National Retail Federation, the National Grocers Association, the National Restaurant Association and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, among others. “The recent spate of news stories about data security incidents raises concerns for all American consumers and for the businesses with which they frequently interact,” the letter reads. “A single federal law applying to all breached entities would ensure clear, concise and consistent notices to all […]

FBI Seizes Dozens of Online ‘Dark Markets’

November 7, 2014 Paul Roberts

The news yesterday was that the FBI arrested a 26 year-old San Francisco man responsible for operating Silk Road 2.0 – an anonymous, online marketplace for illicit goods. The news on Friday is that Silk Road was just the tip of the iceberg. On Friday, the FBI and announced that it has seized dozens of other so-called “dark market” websites offering a range of illegal goods and services for sale on the “Tor” network. The coordinated take downs are the “largest law enforcement action to date against criminal websites operating on the ‘Tor’ network,” the FBI said in a statement. “We shut down the original Silk Road website and now we have shut down its replacement, as well as multiple other ‘dark market’ sites allegedly offering all manner of illicit goods and services, from firearms to computer hacking,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara The take-downs were part of a coordinated law enforcement action […]