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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»
In part 1, I talked about some of the risks associated with BYOD. But there are actions you can take to greatly reduce this risk. One effective method for limiting the risk of BYOD is to employ DNS-based security intelligence techniques. DNS-based security intelligence makes use of an enterprise's caching DNS server to monitor and block DNS queries to known botnet command and control (C&C) domains. more»
Last month, a California court awarded social networking giant Facebook $873 million (U.S.) in damages arising from the activities of a single spamming organization. The decision garnered headlines in Canada because the spammer targeted in the lawsuit operates out of Montreal. While Facebook acknowledges it is unlikely to recover much of the awarded damages, the case has put the spotlight on Canada's failure to introduce long-overdue antispam legislation. more»
Security researchers and PandaLabs have issued a security alert today revealing a direct correlation between the recent stock market volatility and the growth of new threats. According to firm, the two are tied together much more closely than previously thought and recent stock market instability has accelerated the volume of targeted cyber attacks and their relative impact on the economy over the last month and a half. In addition, analysts believe the recent spike in malware could be related to cybercriminals now having fewer possible targets as a result of consolidation within the banking industry. more»
According to experts, organized cybercrime is one "industry sector" that is not unhappy about the current global economic crisis. "One thing we've seen is financially based cybercrime is recession-proof," says Darren Mott, supervisory special agent for the FBI's Cyber Division. "With [this] changing economy, the only thing that changes is the way they go about obtaining their information." more»
China has been accused of sponsoring cyber attacks at the International Crime Science Conference held in London, UK recently. Security expert, John Walker, CTO of forensics consultancy Secure-Bastion, said that the Chinese government was behind the 'Titan Rain' attacks on the US and the UK. Titan Rain is codename given by the U.S. government to a series of coordinated attacks on American computer systems where hackers gained access to many U.S. computer networks, including NASA. The attacks were identified as being Chinese in origin, however the Chinese government has not been officially accused of being behind the assault. more»
Security experts warn the "clickjacking" attack on Twitter service last week is part of growing trend of social engineering attacks via social networks. VP of security firm RSA, Sam Curry, calls the social networking attacks "orthogonal attacks." As users have become aware of phishing attacks and other efforts to get at their personal data, hackers have turned to social networks and "brand attacks," like the recent CNN.com-spoofing Cease-Fire Trojan to spread malware that goes after the same information once installed on the victim's computer. more»
A report released over the weekend by Information Warfare Monitor along with an exclusive story by the New York Times, revealed a 10-month investigation of a suspected cyber espionage network (dubbed GhostNet) of over 1,295 infected computers in 103 countries. 30% of the infected computers are labeled as high-value targets, including ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs. Greg Walton, editor of Information Warfare Monitor and a member of the Toronto academic research team that is reporting on the spying operation, writes... more»
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»
"DNS is now a major vector for DDOS," Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher said, referring to distributed denial-of-service attacks. "The bar has been lowered. People with fewer resources can now launch potentially crippling attacks."
Just as in any DDOS attack, the target system -- which could be a victim's Web server, name server or mail server -- is inundated with a multitude of data coming from multiple systems on the Internet. The goal is to make the target unreachable online by flooding the data connection or by crashing it as it tries to handle the incoming data. more»
The number of cybercrimes committed in the UK soared last year driven by a huge increase in online financial fraud, according to a report released by online identity firm Garlik. "Our annual UK cybercrime report in collaboration with leading criminologists indicates that online financial fraud grew significantly jumping nearly twenty percent to 250,000 incidents in 2007 compared with 207,000 in 2006." more»
In an article titled "A Cyber-Attack on an American City", Bruce Perens writes: "Just after midnight on Thursday, April 9, unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes serving the Northern California city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported. That attack demonstrated a severe fault in American infrastructure: its centralization. The city of Morgan Hill and parts of three counties lost 911 service, cellular mobile telephone communications, land-line telephone, DSL internet and private networks, central station fire and burglar alarms, ATMs, credit card terminals, and monitoring of critical utilities..." more»
Microsoft is trying to put some pressure on the criminals responsible for the worst Internet worm outbreak in years, offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Conficker's creators. The software vendor said it was also working with security researchers, domain name registrars and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to try to take down the servers that have been launching the Conficker attacks. ICANN is the nonprofit corporation that oversees Internet addresses. more»
Web security company, ScanSafe reports that, in the past quarter, companies in the Energy industry faced the greatest risk of Web-based malware exposure, at a 196% heightened risk compared to other verticals. The Pharmaceutical and Chemicals industry faced the second highest risk of exposure at 192% followed by the Construction & Engineering industry at 150%. The Media and Publishing industry were also among those at highest risk, with a 129% heightened risk compared to other verticals. more»
In an article on CSO.com.au a report from Sophos Australia is reported on. The anti-virus software company had bought 50 usb drives for analyses at a public transport auction of devices left on the Sydney trains. When they wrote that 66% was infected with malware, I presumed that they were left behind consciously, but were they? more»
