There's An App For That

"Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

"Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

"U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance."

More at THE WALL STREET JOURNAL...

Much Ado About Diddly Squat

"Denial-of-service attacks against government Web sites in this country and South Korea appear to have had little impact and are not particularly sophisticated, experts say.

"`It’s a very noisy attack,` said Rick Howard, intelligence director at VeriSign iDefense, which provides cybersecurity and intelligence services for private- and public-sector organizations. `Everyone in government says it didn’t affect them that much.`

"`It’s been more of a nuisance,` said Phil Neray, vice president of security Strategy at Guardium. `We have countermeasures for denial-of-service attacks.`

"Several security companies have obtained the malicious code used to carry out the attacks. Symantec Corp. identified it as W32.dozer and a variant of the MyDoom worm that has infected a large number of computers."

More at Federal Computer Week...

MS Hacks Firefox Behind Your Back

"The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 update, pushed through the Windows Update service to all recent editions of Windows in February 2009, installs the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant firefox extension without asking your permission.

"This update adds to Firefox one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities present in all versions of Internet Explorer: the ability for websites to easily and quietly install software on your PC. Since this design flaw is one of the reasons you may've originally choosen to abandon IE in favor of a safer browser like Firefox, you may wish to remove this extension with all due haste..."

More at annoyances.org...

"Mystery Virus" Pwns Govt. Nets

"Law enforcement computers were struck by a Mystery computer virus Thursday, forcing the FBI and the U.S. Marshals to shut down part of their networks as a precaution.

"The U.S. Marshals confirmed it disconnected from the Justice Department's computers as a protective measure after being hit by the virus; an FBI official said only that that agency was experiencing similar issues and was working on the problem..."

More at Yahoo Tech...

All Your Grid Are Belong To Us

"The hackers who reportedly planted malware on key parts of the U.S. electrical grid, perhaps with the intent to cripple the country's power infrastructure, most likely gained access like any other cybercriminal -- by exploiting a bug in software such as Windows or Office, a security researcher said today.

"`Any computer connected to the Internet is potentially vulnerable,` said Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG Technologies USA Inc. `Getting to the actual infrastructure devices directly -- that's always possible, but a whole lot less likely. In any industry, critical or not, there are always plenty of PCs that have been compromised.`"

Source: ComputerWorld...

US Government Systems "Under Constant Attack"

"Reports of cyberattacks on U.S. government computers jumped by 40 percent in 2008, records indicate.

"U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team figures show reports of attacks by people trying to plant malicious software intended to allow them to control or steal sensitive government data have been climbing steadily, USA Today reported Tuesday.

"`Government systems are under constant attack,` Joel Brenner, counterintelligence chief in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the newspaper. `We're seeing a dramatic, consistent increase in cybercrime (and) intelligence activities.`"

Source: MarketWatch...

Islamocyberhacktivists Attack

"MANILA, Philippines -- The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)’s website has been defaced, INQUIRER.net has learned Saturday.

"Based on this screenshot of the agency’s website, the website has been vandalized by supposed foreign hackers.

"The website currently contains cryptic messages from a hacker called 'x55x'.

"The hacker has also placed 'General Palestine' in the defaced website and a flag of Palestine plus a message at the end of the page that says, 'Don’t forget Palestine.'

"Officials of the agency are currently unavailable for comment at this writing."

More...

Security "Researcher": 9/11 Was A Cakewalk

"A widely recognized computer security guru and cyber terrorism expert said cyber terrorism is more dangerous than any other form of terrorism.

"According to him, many countries these days rely heavily on their computers and related technology to carry out daily activities. He said cyber terrorism can involve attacks on computers that can make them inaccessible for weeks and intrusions into unauthorized sensitive personal data such as the bank accounts."

More nonsense at CXO Today...