Tag: software

One Reason Security Is So Hard? Really Bad Reports.

Security is hard. Everyone knows that. The question is: why? After all, our understanding of cyber threats improves with each day. The tools we use to secure our systems have also improved over time – antivirus software, firewalls, application firewalls, intrusion detection, data leak prevention, and so on. And yet, when we look at the data, there’s not much evidence that better understanding and better tools are leading to better security. According to Jonathan Grier, an independent security consultant, the answer to the question ‘Why aren’t we getting better at stopping attacks and protecting data?’ is that we’re not doing a good job of learning from the data we have. In a conversation with The Security Ledger, Grier, the founder of Grier Forensics,  said that, despite a wealth of security data, the security industry’s approach to analyzing it is immature. Grier likes working on the cutting edge of computer forensics and application security. […]

Continue Reading

DPRKurious: Is North Korea Really Behind Cyber Attacks On The South?

The news keeps coming out of South Korea, where a mysterious rash of hacks and virus infections early Thursday compromised tens of thousands of machines running at banks, broadcasters and other firms, erasing data and causing widespread disruption. Here’s the latest: South Korean Officials “Strongly Suspect” North Korea South Korean government officials made their most direct statements to date (albeit anonymously) on the possible source of the attack, saying that they had a “strong suspicion” that the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was responsible. Speaking to the YonHap News Agency, the official, identified as a “high ranking official in the office of President Cheong Wa Dae,” refused to elaborate. However, he may have been referring to the preliminary results of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) which traced the malicious code responsible for crippling computers at broadcasters and banks to an IP address in China. South Korean […]

Continue Reading

Update: Destructive Hacks Hit South Korean Media, Banks

Editor’s Note: Updated to include information from AlienVault on the attacks. – PFR 3/20/2013 Destructive cyber attacks against media outlets and banks in South Korea have ratcheted up tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with charges that the government of reclusive North Korea was behind the hacks. According to a report in South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, the attacks began at 2:00PM local time in South Korea and affected the computer networks of three broadcasters and two banks. Broadcasters KBS, MBC and YTN all reported that their computer networks were “halted” at that time. Shinhan Bank and Nonghyup made similar reports to the National Police Agency (NPA), according to Yonhap. Unlike past distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that are believed to have been launched by the DPRK against the South, the latest incursions come at a time of extreme military tension on the peninsula, and caused damages to South Korean […]

Continue Reading

With $Pi Million At Stake, Chrome Withstands Hacker Assault

With $3.14159 million in prize money at stake, Google’s Chrome OS has withstood attempts to hack it in the company’s semi-annual Pwnium contest in Vancouver, a Google spokeswoman told The Security Ledger. In a statement Thursday, Google spokeswoman Jessica Kositz said that the company did not receive any winning entries during the day-long contest, but that the company is evaluating work that may qualify for a partial prize:  a potentially infinite series of Google Wallet transfers in the amounts:  $1 followed by $.50 followed by $.25 followed by $.125 and so on. OK – We made that last part up. Pwnium runs alongside the better known pwn2own contest at CanSecWest. This year, Google is providing funding for both contests. However, in 2012 the company pulled its support for pwn2own, objecting to the lack of a requirement of “responsible disclosure” – in which entrants must disclose the details of their exploits to the […]

Continue Reading

EverNote Latest Site Hacked In Coordinated Attack

The online personal and business productivity service Evernote.com said on Saturday that it is the victim of a hack that exposed encrypted user password information, forcing password resets across a broad swath of the service’s 50 million registered users. The Redwood City, California-based firm revealed in a blog post that its internal security team discovered “suspicious activity on the Evernote network” that “appears to have been a coordinated attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service.” The company said it sent password reset messages to its users as a “precaution” but didn’t believe that stored information in users’ accounts or payment information had been exposed. The hack is just the latest of a prominent online firm. In recent weeks, Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have all reported compromises of their internal networks. Those intrusions were linked to attacks aimed at developers and relied on exploits of previously unknown “zero day” […]

Continue Reading
1 … 111 112 113 114 115 … 117