Killer Robot In Custody

"An 81-year-old Australian man has shot himself dead with an elaborate suicide robot built using plans he downloaded from the Internet.

"The Gold Coast man, who lived alone, left notes of his plans and thoughts as he struggled to come to terms with demands by interstate relatives that he move out his home and into care.

"He spent hours searching the Internet for a way to kill himself, downloaded what he needed and then built a complex machine that would remotely fire a gun.

"He set the device up in his driveway about 7 a.m. Wednesday, placed himself in front of it and set it in motion.

"His notes explained that he chose the driveway as he knew there were tradesmen working next door who would find his body. The plan worked as the workmen heard the gunshots and ran to investigate.

"The machine was attached to a .22 semi-automatic pistol loaded with four bullets.

"It was able to fire multiple shots into the man's head after he activated it."

From FOX News...

USA NUMBER ONE!!!!!

"Insecurity outfit McAfee has named the US as the most likely source of cyber attacks, beating out the widely perceived favourites China and Russia.

"McAfee conducted a study that questioned 600 IT and security executives from various countries to discuss, rate and rank their biggest Internet security concerns. Most of the report just states the bleedin' obvious, except for the finding that the Americans are the most feared by the others.

"With the recent scuffles between Google and the Chinese government it comes as no surprise that almost 75 per cent of respondents believed that the Chinese government was involved in cyber attacks against their country. However, the figures for both the US and Russia were identical at 60 per cent. The UK government came in third from last with only 50 per cent or so believing that it was involved in naughty cyber aggression activities.

"Probably the most startling discovery was that it is the US, not China or Russia, that is feared the most. The majority of countries in the West listed the US ahead of China and Russia as the country `of most concern` when it came to attacks."

More at the Inquirer...

More Internet Explorer Fun

"Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) could inadvertently allow a hacker to read files on a person's computer, another problem for the company just days after a serious vulnerability received an emergency patch.

"The problem was actually discovered as long as two years ago but has persisted despite two attempts by Microsoft to fix it, said Jorge Luis Alvarez Medina, a security consultant with Core Security Technologies. He is scheduled to give a presentation at the Black Hat conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3.

"The issue could allow a hacker to read files on a person's computer but not install other code. Nonetheless, the problem represents a serious security issue, Medina said. It affects all of Microsoft's operating systems from Windows NT through Windows 7 and every version of IE, including the latest one, IE8."

More at ComputerWorld...

Google's Downfall: Social Networking

"People behind the China-based online attacks of Google and other companies looked up key employees on social networks and contacted them pretending to be their friends to get the workers to click on links leading to malware, according to a published report on Monday.

"`The most significant discovery is that the attackers had selected employees at the companies with access to proprietary data, then learnt who their friends were,` the Financial Times reported. `The hackers compromised the social network accounts of those friends, hoping to enhance the probability that their final targets would click on the links they sent.`

"`We're seeing a lot more up-front reconnaissance, understanding who the players are at the company and how to reach them,` George Kurtz, chief technology officer at security firm McAfee, told the Financial Times. `Someone went to the trouble to backtrack: 'Let me look at their friends, who I can target as a secondary person.'`"

"The attackers used a popular instant-messaging program to distribute the malware link to target employees, Kurtz said. The malware exploited a hole in Internet Explorer that Microsoft patched just last week."

More at CNET...

AV Spending Seen As Pointless

"Following the highly publicized and successful malware attacks on Google, Symantec, Adobe, Dow Chemical, and others, business and government executives are questioning the value of their AntiVirus subscriptions. Their unprecedented skepticism will grow even more intense as more executives learn that all of these successful attacks were easily preventable.

"`In almost every meeting I’ve had since the mainstream media started reporting on these highly visible failures, executives and IT personnel have criticized their AntiVirus computer protection. This Aurora/Hydra outbreak could spark a big change in 2010 enterprise IT security spending, a multi-billion dollar change`, predicts Mike Fumai, CEO of Blue Ridge Networks.

"There’s nothing particularly novel about the exploitable vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer this month, or those in Adobe Acrobat Reader last month. These are merely new entries in a formulaic story re-written almost monthly. Last week’s out-of-cycle security patch from Microsoft is just a less frequently seen plot twist. Until now, these recurring stories only served to increase spending on AntiVirus software from well-known security vendors. However, these targeted organizations with deep pockets and large IT security staffs were successfully attacked because their name-brand AntiVirus software did not have signatures to detect the malware attack code."

More at PRWeb...

ID Theft Ring Included City Employees

"In a six-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court, federal prosecutors assert a Seattle Municipal Court employee passed account information into an identity theft ring in which four people are presently charged.

"Federal prosecutors claim Diamond Wendell Alexander Jr. and Crystal Loren Lee recruited others to copy credit card information from their places of employment and forward that information to them.

"Alexander and Lee would then use that credit card information to make purchases, chiefly Wal-Mart gift cards, according to prosecutors statements to the court. In total, they attempted to fraudulently charge more than $300,000 in gift cards and other merchandise using `skimmed` credit cards.

"Among those recruited for the scheme was a Seattle Municipal Court employee who handled payments, prosecutors allege. That employee would then pass on credit card numbers -- referred to by prosecutors as `access device information` -- to Alexander and Lee.

"Identified only by initials in court documents, the city employee is considered an unindicted co-conspirator in the scheme.

"`The Seattle Municipal Court employee would print access device information pertaining to people who used their cards to pay for traffic tickets and other transactions with the court,` according to a grand jury indictment filed Wednesday."

More at seattlepi.com...

Firefox, Opera Benefit From IE Schadenfreude

"Mozilla yesterday reported a `huge increase` in downloads of Firefox in Germany after that country's computer security agency urged users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) to dump the browser and run a rival instead.

"German downloads of Firefox during a four-day stretch starting last Friday jumped by about 300,000 over normal, said Ken Kovash, Mozilla's director of analytics, on the company's `Blog of Metrics.` `Over the past few days there has been a huge increase in the number of Firefox downloads from IE users in Germany,` Kovash claimed.

"Norwegian browser maker Opera Software said that downloads in Germany of its desktop application were double the usual rate last weekend, and downloads in Australia were up 40% over normal.

"Mozilla and Opera cited recommendations by German, French and Australian authorities to stop using IE as the cause for the jump. Last Friday, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security, known by its German initials of BSI, and France's CERTA each called for users to stop running IE until Microsoft patches a critical vulnerability. `Pending a patch from the publisher, CERT recommends using an alternative browser,` a translation of the French advisory stated."

More at ComputerWorld...