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 […]
Tag: APT
New York Times Hack Puts Antivirus on Defensive
The big news this morning is the New York Times’ scoop on…well…itself. According to a report in today’s paper, the Times’s computer network was compromised for more than four months by attackers believed to be located in China. The attacks followed a Times exposé on the wealth accumulated by family members of China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao – one of a series of reports in Western media outlets that raised questions about corruption and influence peddling in China’s ruling Communist Party. Attackers planted 45 pieces of information-stealing malware on Times systems, despite the presence of antivirus software from Symantec Corp. protecting those systems before, during and after the hack. The story is fueling debate about the value of anti-virus software and prompted Symantec to issue a statement defending its technology, but warning that signature-based antivirus is not enough to stop sophisticated attacks. According to the Times report, the attacks used compromised systems on […]
Are Cyber Criminals Using Plus-Sized Malware To Fool AV?
Obesity is an epidemic in the United States. And it looks as if it may soon be a problem in malware circles, as well. After years watching malware authors pack their poison into smaller and smaller packages, one forum frequented by those seeking help with virus infections says that they’re seeing just the opposite: simple malware wrapped within obscenely large executables – in one case, over 200 megabytes. A post on the French-language web site Malekal.com on Thursday described what may be a nascent trend towards ‘plus size’ malware executables. In at least two cases in recent days, the forum has seen evidence of Trojan Dropper programs that deposit very large files – between 16 megabytes and 200 megabytes – on infected systems. In one case, the author discovered an exploit kit that deposited a very large file – around 16 megabytes- on infected systems. In a separate incident, he […]
Council of Foreign Relations Hackers Also Hit US-based Turbine Maker
The web site of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) may not have been the only target of sophisticated attackers who used a previously unknown (“zero day”) vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser to compromise the computers of those who visited the site, a new report claims. Eric Romang, a Luxembourg-based security expert at the firm Zataz.com said that he has discovered an almost identical compromise to the CFR hack on the web site of Capstone Turbine Corporation, a California-based manufacturer of small, energy-efficient power turbines. His investigation uncovered malicious files similar to those used on the CFR site that were used to launch a so-called “heap spray” attack against visitors using the Internet Explorer web browser, triggering the zero day vulnerability. Romang was among the first to isolate the script used to launch the drive by download attack used on the CFR web site. Writing on Wednesday, he said […]
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 […]
