Last Quarter Saw a Surge in the Number of Bot-Infected PCs

Security experts warn that there has been a threefold increase in the number of hijacked 'zombie' PCs over the last quarter. Brian Krebs reporting on WashingtonPost: "The estimates come from Shadowserver, a group of volunteers that monitor activity from robot networks or 'botnets,' large armies of hacked personal computers used for spam, phishing and all kinds of criminal activity. Shadowserver saw a rise from roughly 100,000 botted PCs to about 400,000 over the past three months." The apparent increase may be partly due to Shadowserver's deployment of more sensors detecting botnet attacks however it is also noted that criminals are getting more advanced at hiding bots. more»

Toxic Information

U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly worried that hackers could wreak havoc on the financial system. Read the story here in National Journal. Not that we need it, but here's yet another reason to worry about havoc in financial markets: U.S. intelligence officials increasingly fear that computer hackers could wreck banks and large financial institutions, or send stock markets into one more panicked frenzy, by covertly manipulating data and spreading false information. more»

Cyberwar Against Britain Waged by Criminals and Terrorists

Britain's Government has warned that computer networks controlling electricity supplies, telecommunications and banking are under constant attack at a rate of thousands of times a day. According to reports, the cyberwar against Britain is waged by criminals and terrorists some of whom are backed by foreign stats. "If you take the whole gamut of threats, from state-sponsored organizations to industrial espionage, private individuals and malcontents, you're talking about a remarkable number of attempted attacks on our system -- I'd say in the thousands," Lord West of Spithead, the Security Minister said. "Some are spotted instantly. Others are much, much cleverer." more»

The Harsh Reality of Spam and Online Security… Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Working in the anti-spam and online malware fight can be depressing or at best invoke multiple personality disorder. We all know things are bad on the net, but if you want a dose of stark reality, check out Brian Kreb's fantastic 'Security Fix' blog on the Washington Post site... Speaking to an old friend who asked me what I was doing these days, I recently likened the fight against this relentless onslaught to having one's pinky in a dyke, and there are days when I don't even think we have a dyke! more»

Washington Debates: When is a Cyberattack an Act of War?

Cyberattacks against Georgia have started debates in Washington on whether the laws of war apply in cyberspace, Siobhan Gorman reports in the Wall Street Journal today. "Cyberweapons are becoming a staple of war. The Georgian conflict is perhaps the first time they have been used alongside conventional military action. Governments and private cyberwarriors can exploit Internet security gaps to not only take down government Web sites but also take control of power grids and nuclear reactors." One key deciding factor, according to one expert in the report, is whether the tools of cyberattacks are weapons? more»

DNS Hackers Target Domain Registrars

Hackers have launched distributed denial of service attacks against the Domain Name System (DNS) servers of a brace of domain name registrars over recent days. The motive for the separate attacks against VeriSign and Joker.com remains unclear.

VeriSign said the attack on its name servers caused a "brief degradation" in the quality of its service to customers for around 25 minutes on Tuesday afternoon, ComputerWorld reports. Domain registrar Joker.com is recovering from an attack on its name servers last week that lasted for six days up until last Sunday. Joker.com, which is based in Germany, handles the registration of approximately 550,000 domains. more»

Cyberattacks Will Be Disruptive, Not Destructive, Says Howard Schmidt

In a recent interview by Krish Raghav, from Wall Street Journal's LiveMint.com, Howard Schmidt, an information networks expert and a senior cyber-security adviser in the Bush administration, talked about several hot Internet issues, including net neutrality and cyber-attacks. In this report, Raghav starts with the following statement: "In the last 12 months, some 10 Indian government ministry websites have been targets of cyber-attacks. Recently, security experts with Boston-based Core Security Technologies said such attackers could "gain control
of countries' water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities". more»

U.S. Military to Spend $4.4M on Network Monitoring Upgrades in Wake of Sophisticated Cyber Attacks

BBN Technologies, an advanced technology solutions firm, has been awarded $4.4 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for a Scalable Network Monitoring program. "Scalable networking monitoring has become necessary as cyber attacks have grown more subtle and sophisticated," says BBN's announcement. "New technologies and applications provide new attack routes and have made traditional signature-based and anomaly detection-based defensive measures inadequate in both speed and sensitivity. To be effective in today's networks, detection algorithms must operate quickly, efficiently, and effectively in large, content-rich environments. To meet this challenge, the BBN team will develop a complete solution that is intrinsically scalable, designed for ultra high-speed deployment, and produces events that can be correlated with other network events to provide true positive alerts." more»

U.S. Congress Fears Cyberattack on Electric Power Grids

The potential for "cybersecurity" attacks on the United State's electric power grids has spurred politicians to consider legislation to broaden federal authority over electric companies.

Congress already has been consulting with federal agencies and industry associations over how to craft such legislation. On Thursday, legislators sought further input at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce's subcommittee on energy and air quality. more»

Software Security Hole Exposes Critical Utilities to Internet attack

Internet attackers could gain control of water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities because of a vulnerability in the software that runs some of those facilities, security researchers reported Wednesday. Experts with Boston-based Core Security Technologies, who discovered the deficiency, said there's no evidence anyone else found or exploited the flaw. Citect Pty. Ltd., which makes the program called CitectSCADA, patched the hole last week, five months after Core Security first notified Citect of the problem. more»

Secret Service, IBM, Others Form Alliance to Fight Cyber Crime, Identity Theft

A coalition of leading corporate, government and academic institutions today announced the formation of the Center for Applied Identity Management Research (CAIMR). CAIMR plans include developing research and solutions for identity management challenges such as cyber crime, terrorism, financial crimes, identity theft and fraud, weapons of mass destruction, and narcotics and human trafficking. The Center brings cross-disciplinary experts in criminal justice, financial crime, biometrics, cyber crime and cyber defense, data protection, homeland security and national defense to address identity management challenges that impact individuals, public safety, commerce, government programs and national security. more»

Cybersecurity Lacking Coordinated Strategy for Sharing Intelligence

During yesterday's cyber security hearing held by the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, experts expressed concern over lack of coordinated strategy or mechanism for sharing intelligence about intrusions with companies as well as the need for a systematic way for companies to share information with the government. "U.S. intelligence agencies are unable to share information about foreign cyber attacks against companies for fear of jeopardizing intelligence-gathering sources and methods," reports Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post. Telecom companies may monitor and collect data to protect their own networks, but they cannot share that information freely with the federal government absent a court order, said James A. Lewis, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) commission program manager. more»

DDoS Attacks Getting More Powerful, ISPs Report Concern Over New Threats and Budget Pressures

Massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against ISPs and their customers have almost doubled over the past year, according to a new security report. Attacks on networks making them unavailable to intended users -- also known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks -- exceeded 40 gigabits in the last year according to Arbor Networks' annual survey of ISPs from North America, South America, Europe and Asia. more»

Security Experts Caution Against Latest Strom Warm Campaign Claiming U.S Invasion of Iran

Recent blast of emails linked to Strom Warm attempt to exploit client-side vulnerabilities by stating that the U.S. army has invaded Iran. The email is also reported to contain links to videos. The text reads:

“Just now US Army’s Delta Force and U.S. Air Force have invaded Iran. Approximately 20000 soldiers crossed the border into Iran and broke down the Iran’s Army resistance. The video made by US soldier was received today morning. Click on the video to see first minutes of the beginning of the World War III. God save us.” more»

Defense Science Board Urges Obama to Take Immediate Cybersecurity Measures

According to a report by the Defense Science Board, the President-elect Barack Obama will inherit a cybersecurity infrastructure that is ill-prepared for advanced cyberattacks which will be of particular challenge for the new leaders... Reporting today on eWeek, Roy Mark writes: "The Bush administration has been widely criticized by security experts as de-emphasizing cyber-security and hamstringing the authority of officials in charge of government-wide cyber-security" said Roy Mark in a report eWeek." more»