A planned talk that was to unveil a new and previously unknown (or “zero day”) vulnerability in Google’s Chrome web browser was cancelled on Saturday after the researcher, Ucha Gobejishvili, backed out, citing difficulties obtaining a visa to travel to New Dehli, India, where the Malcon hacking conference was held. The organizer of Malcon, Rajshekhar Murthy, confirmed in an email to Security Ledger that Gobejishvili cancelled his talk at the last minute. “(Ucha) did not come at (sp) the conference due to visa issues in the last minute,” Rajshekhar Murthy wrote in an e-mail to Security Ledger on Monday. “The issue stated was he was called in last minute (sp) by the military for compulsory service which conflicted with our event dates.” Gobejishvili did not respond to e-mail and instant message requests for comment. In a conversation with Security Ledger last week, he said he would use his talk at […]
Tag: software
Support Forums Reveal Soft Underbelly of Critical Infrastructure
We hear a lot about vulnerabilities in industrial control system (ICS) software. In fact, that’s all we seem to hear about these days. The truth is: there’s a lot to write about. In just the last month, the Department of Homeland Security’s ICS-CERT warned its members about the ability of sophisticated – and even unskilled – attackers to use tools like the Shodan and ERIPP search engines to locate and attack vulnerable industrial control systems (PDF) that are accessible from the public Internet. In the meantime, every couple of weeks brings revelations about serious and remotely exploitable software holes. Most recently, ICS-CERT warned about a critical vulnerability EOScada (PDF), a Windows-based Energy Management System that is used to configure and manage intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) used in electrical, water, sewage and gas applications. But what about real evidence of compromised SCADA and industrial control systems? That’s a taller order. After all: most […]
Medical Pumps Recall: Bug Causes Inaccurate Readings on Touchscreen
Mobile phones aren’t the only products to benefit from nifty touch screen displays. A whole range of medical devices now sport them, also – as any trip to your local emergency department (or dentist’s office) will reveal. Unfortunately, many of those devices are just as balky and bug ridden as your average mobile phone -despite the fact that patients’ lives can rely on them. And this week, there’s more evidence of the lurking epidemic of shoddy, IP enabled medical devices. The medical device maker Hospira issued a voluntary, nationwide recall of its Symbiq brand infusion systems after discovering a software error that caused the touch screen interfaces on the devices to respond incorrectly to user input. The problem could result in “a delayed response and or the screen registering a different value from the value selected by the user,” the company said in a statement. Symbiq is a drug infusion […]
Microsoft: Freeware, Pirate Software Supply Chain Leads to Infections
The Internet is a dangerous place, in general. And, depending on what you’re looking for online, it might be very dangerous, indeed, according to Microsoft. Writing in the company’s latest Security Intelligence Report, Microsoft said that its Malware Protection Center (MMPC) has observed an increase in malicious code infections that emanate from what it calls the “unsecure supply chain” – the informal network of legitimate and underground web sites that distribute freeware and pirated software. Freeware that promises to generate registration keys for popular products like Adobe’s Photoshop, Microsoft Windows and games such as Call of Duty were among the most commonly associated with malicious programs, Microsoft said. Internet users hoping to unlock pirated software download the key generators believing that they will produce a valid registration key, but often end up infecting their system in the process. But malware authors and cyber criminal groups will also wrap their creations in with […]
