New attack bypasses virtually all AV protection

This looks ominous...
New attack bypasses virtually all AV protection • The Register

Bank Worker Pleads Guilty to Hacking 100 ATMs

Bank Worker Pleads Guilty to Hacking 100 ATMs Threat Level Wired.com

Marc Maiffret--the quick rise of a teen hacker

Insightful interview with March Maiffret who wrote Retina:
Marc Maiffret--the quick rise of a teen hacker (Q&A) InSecurity Complex - CNET News

Spy Eye trojan kills Zeus

Not for the first time, one trojan tries to kill another:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9154618/New_Russian_botnet_tries_to_kill_rival/

China shuts down training website for hackers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/as-a-pacific/8503637.stm

Attack of the open source zombies

A cluster of web servers serving both legitimate content and malware:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/12/linux_zombies_push_malware/

RSA whitepaper on security implications of virtualised environments

Although fairly VMWare/EMC centric in the solutions section, this paper raises some important considerations with regards to security in a virtualised environment related to:

1. Platform hardening,
2. Configuration and change management,
3. Administrative access control,
4. Network security and segmentation,
5. Audit logging.

Registration required:
https://rsa-email.rsa.com/servlet/campaignrespondent?_ID_=rsa.4696&WPID=10393

Your mobile number available to anyone?

This looks like a genuine worry:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/8091621.stm

This potentially opens the door to more SMS spam to find its way to your inbox.

This should be an opt in service rather than opt out.

You can either send a text to 118800 or do it on their website, which must be hammered as it is down:
http://www.118800.co.uk/

The Guardian seems to confirm this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jul/13/mobile-phone-directory-suspended

Kon Boot illustrates why physical security still matters most

http://www.piotrbania.com/all/kon-boot/

This little utility allows modification of the Windows and LINUX kernel whilst booting to allow log on without knowing the password.

IIS 6 privilege elevation using WebDAV

Disable WebDAV for the moment:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/971492.mspx

We truly never learn!

Laptop left in boot of car overnight in Edinburgh contained information about thousands of soldiers...
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Army39s-stolen--laptop-sparks.5283785.jp

I use a Mac so I'm ok

Java vulnerability on Mac is still not patched 6 months on:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/19/unpatched_apple_vulnerability/

It sounds like it is being actively exploited. The mitigation is to disable the browser's Java applets as well as the "Open safe files after downloading" setting in Safari.

What took them so long to get infected?

The U.S. Marshals Service, a division of the Department of Justice, recently got crippled by Neeris. The virus was first discovered on 12th September 2007. The service was running anti malware, but that had not been updated for three years, and Windows patches had not been applied either.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/052109-marshall-malware.html?hpg1=bn

CSI Stick me baby

This is sooooooo cool, I want one, I want one, gimme, gimme.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10028589-83.html

Now off to practice my slight of hand and magic fingers so I can connect it to phones without people seeing! :)

dD

"Lloyds is Pants" no good enough PWD

This made me laugh, apparently abusing a service provider via your password is not appropriate: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/7585098.stm

However, what is more disconcerting is the apparent ability in some cases, for business users only, Employees of Lloyds can read your complete password. This seems somewhat ridiculous as businesses surely would have more money flowing through their accounts than an individual, so would become a richer target! IT MAKES NO SENSE (as Tim Westwood would say).

dD

P.S. Thanks to Schneier

Bad security by design/stupidity

Heads up to the great god schneier for pointing us to this one. Looks like the Tornado Plus encrypted USB drive is the perverbial pile of poo. Check out this rather scathing write up on Tech republic by Tom Olzak.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=573&tag=nl.e019

dD

Red Hat with a Red Face

Unfortunately writing and maintaining open source does not protect one from malicious minds:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-August/msg00012.html

It sounds like they are doing the "right" thing by revoking old package signing keys and generating new ones.

2008 Information Security Breaches Survey

This survey is published every other year, and the results were published at the Infosecurity exhibition in London this week.

The executive summary and the full report can be found here:
http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/publications/berr_information_security_breaches_survey_2008.html

Privilege escalation in Windows

MS released an advisory last week which makes for interesting reading:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/951306.mspx

Vulnerable version start with XP all the way to Windows Server 2008.

SNMP Walking

Really interesting experiment from the GNUCitizen folks: 2.5 million random IP addresses were scanned via SNMP, 5320 IP addresses responded including: Windows 2000 Servers returning a list of usernames, BT Voyager router leaking ISP credentials and password, etc...
http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/exploring-the-unknown-scanning-the-internet-via-snmp/