Oracle To Users: FUCK YOU

"Just five days after a Google researcher published information of an unpatched Java bug, a compromised song lyrics site is sending users to a Russian attack server exploiting the flaw to install malware, an antivirus firm said today.

"Last Friday, Google's Tavis Ormandy posted details of the Java vulnerability to the Full Disclosure security mailing list, spelling out how attackers could run unauthorized Java programs on a victim's machine by using a feature designed to let developers distribute their software. According to Ormandy, all versions of Java for Windows since SE 6 update 10 -- which debuted two years ago -- are vulnerable. Other operating systems running Java are unaffected, he said...

"Although Ormandy reported the flaw to Sun -- now part of Oracle -- he said the company declined to rush out a patch. `They informed me they do not consider this vulnerability to be of high enough priority to break their quarterly patch cycle,` Ormandy wrote on the mailing list. `I explained [to them] that I did not agree, and intended to publish advice to temporarily disable the affected control until a solution is available.`

"Oracle patched Java last week; its next regularly-scheduled update is slated for July."

More at ComputerWorld...

Microsoft's African Investments Start To Pay Off

"Imagine a network of virus-driven computers so infectious that it could bring down the world's top 10 leading economies with just a few strokes. It would require about 100 million computers working together as one, a `botnet` -- the cybersecurity world's version of a WMD. But unlike its conventional weapons equivalent, this threat is the subject of no geopolitical row or diplomatic initiative. That's because no one sees it coming -- straight out of Africa.

"Cybercrime is growing at a faster rate in Africa than on any other continent in the world, according to statistics presented at a conference on the matter in Cote D'Ivoire in 2008. Cybersecurity experts estimate that 80 percent of PCs on the African continent are already infected with viruses and other malicious software. And while that may not have been too worrisome for the international economy a few years ago, the arrival of broadband service to Africa means that is about to change. The new undersea broadband Internet cables being installed today will make Africa no further away from New York than, say, Boston, in the virtual world.

"Broadband Internet access will allow Africa's virus and malware problems to go global. With more users able to access the Internet (and faster), larger amounts of data can be transferred both out and inward. More spam messages in your inbox from Africa's email fraudsters will be only the beginning..."

More at ForeignPolicy.com...

Can You Hack Me now?

"Malware-tainted memory cards may have ended up on as many as 3,000 HTC Magic phones, a greater number than first suspected, Vodafone said today.

"The problem came to light earlier this month after an employee of Panda Security plugged a newly ordered phone into a Windows computer, where it triggered an alert from the antivirus software.

"Further inspection of the phone found the device's 8GB microSD memory card was infected with a client for the now-defunct Mariposa botnet, the Conficker worm and a password stealer for the Lineage game.

"Vodafone said it was an isolated incident, but an employee at Spanish security company S21sec discovered another phone with an infected card, which it sent to Panda. That phone was purchased directly from Vodafone's Web site in the same week as the first phone, according to Panda.

"It is unclear how the batch of memory cards became infected and an investigation is under way, said a spokesman for Vodafone in Spain."

More at ComputerWorld...

IE Users PWN3D By 0day... Again

"Hackers are exploiting the just-disclosed unpatched bug in Internet Explorer (IE) to launch drive-by attacks from malicious Web sites, security researchers said today.

"`This attack appears to be rather targeted at the moment, but as with other unpatched vulnerabilities in the past, this has the potential to explode now that the word is getting out,` said Craig Schmugar, a threat researcher at McAfee, in a blog post today.

"Attacks are launched from Web sites in a classic drive-by fashion, said Schmugar and others. `Visiting the page is enough to get infected,` Schmugar said."

From ComputerWorld...

Energizer Bunny Arrested, Charged With Battery

"A USB charger from Energizer uses software that contains a Trojan, according to US-CERT. The software was apparently developed outside the U.S. and may have been giving hackers access to PCs since 2007. An analyst said trust in the Energizer bunny may have led many consumers to install the DUO USB charger malware even with a warning.

"US-CERT researchers said Friday that the software that installs with the Energizer charger contains a Trojan horse that gives malicious hackers a back door into Windows machines.

"`An attacker is able to remotely control a system Relevant Products/Services, including the ability to list directories, send and receive files, and execute programs. The backdoor operates with the privileges of the logged-on user,` US-CERT said. `Removing the Energizer USB charger software will also remove the registry value that causes the backdoor to execute automatically when Windows starts.`"

More at NewsFactor.com...

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...

Adobe Says: "SUX 2B U"

"Adobe won't patch the newest critical vulnerability in its PDF viewing and editing software for another four weeks, even though attack code has been publicly released.

"In an update yesterday to the security advisory it issued Tuesday, Adobe set the patch date as Jan. 12, 2010, which is also the next regularly-scheduled quarterly security update for Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. Most of the advisory was dedicated to confirming the bug -- which the company had first disclosed late Monday -- and providing instructions for blacklisting the JavaScript API call that contains the flaw.

"Other security experts have urged users to disable JavaScript in Reader and Acrobat to protect themselves until Adobe ships a fix."

From COMPUTERWORLD...

Gumblar Rides Again

"Security researchers are seeing a resurgence of Gumblar, the name for a piece of malicious code that is spread by compromising legitimate but insecure Web sites.

"In May, thousands of Web sites were found to have been hacked to serve up an iframe, which is a way to bring content from one Web site into another. The iframe led to the `gumblar.cn` domain. Gumblar would then try to exploit the user's PC via software vulnerabilities in Adobe Systems products such as Flash or Reader and then deliver malicious code.

"Gumblar has also now changed its tactics. Rather than hosting the malicious payload on a remote server, the hackers are now putting that code on compromised Web sites, vendors IBM and ScanSafe say. It also appears Gumblar has been updated to use one of the more recent vulnerabilities in Adobe's Reader and Acrobat programs, according to IBM's Internet Security Systems Frequency X blog.

"The hackers know that it's only a matter of time before a malicious domain is shut down by an ISP. The new tactic, however, `gives them a decentralized and redundant attack vector, spread across thousands of legitimate websites around the world,` IBM said."

From PCWorld...

Bank Botnet Bonanza

"The massive Zbot botnet that spreads the treacherous Zeus banking Trojan has been launching a wave of relatively convincing phishing attacks during the past few days -- the most recent of which is a phony warning of a mass Conficker infection from Microsoft that comes with a free "cleanup tool."

"The wave of attacks began early last week targeting corporations in the form of email messages that alerted victims of a `system upgrade.` Email is accompanied by poisoned attachments and links; in some cases it poses as a message from victims' IT departments, including their actual email domains, and alerts them about a "security upgrade" to their email accounts. The message then refers victims to a link to reset their mailbox accounts, and the link takes them to a site that looks a lot like an Outlook Web Access (OWA) page, but instead infects them with the Zeus Trojan.

"Today, researchers at F-Secure spotted the botnet spamming out malware-laden email that tries to trick recipients with a convincing lure messages that says, `On October 22, 2009 server upgrade will take place.`

"`What we're seeing is an evolving campaign of different lures to see which one works,` says Richard Wang, manager of Sophos Labs in the U.S.

"The Zbot botnet, which is made up of 3.6 million PCs in the U.S., or 1 percent of all PCs in the country, according to data from Damballa, spreads the deadly Zeus Trojan. Zeus, which steals users' online financial credentials, represents 44 percent of all financial malware infections today, according to Trusteer."

From DarkReading...

Microsoft Hacks Firefox Users

"An add-on that Microsoft silently slipped into Mozilla's Firefox last February leaves that browser open to attack, Microsoft's security engineers acknowledged earlier this week.

"One of the 13 security bulletins Microsoft released Tuesday affects not only Internet Explorer (IE), but also Firefox, thanks to a Microsoft-made plug-in pushed to Firefox users eight months ago in an update delivered via Windows Update.

"`While the vulnerability is in an IE component, there is an attack vector for Firefox users as well,` admitted Microsoft engineers in a post to the company's Security Research & Defense blog on Tuesday. `The reason is that .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installs a 'Windows Presentation Foundation' plug-in in Firefox.`

"What was particularly galling to users was that once installed, the .NET add-on was virtually impossible to remove from Firefox..."

More at Computerworld...

No Comment

"A huge majority of user-generated comments to blogs and forums are malicious, while tools are largely ineffective.

"Websense's biannual `State of the Internet` report revealed that 95 per cent of user-generated comments to blogs, chat rooms and message boards are spam or malicious. Websense Security Labs also identified a 233 per cent growth in the number of malicious websites in the last six months and a 671 per cent growth during the last year.

"Looking at Web 2.0 security trends, the report found that the websites are increasingly being used to carry out a wide range of attacks, and claimed that `efforts to self-police these Web 2.0 properties have also been largely ineffective`.

"The report said: `Websense research during the period showed that community-driven security tools (asking users to report inappropriate content) on sites like YouTube and BlogSpot are 65 per cent to 75 per cent ineffective in protecting web users from objectionable content and security risks.`"

From SC Magazine...

New Trojan Balances Your Checkbook

"New malware being used by cybercrooks does more than let hackers loot a bank account; it hides evidence of a victim’s dwindling balance by rewriting online bank statements on the fly, according to a new report.

"The sophisticated hack uses a Trojan horse program installed on the victim’s machine that alters html coding before it’s displayed in the user’s browser, to either erase evidence of a money transfer transaction entirely from a bank statement, or alter the amount of money transfers and balances.

"The ruse buys the crooks time before a victim discovers the fraud, though won’t work if a victim uses an uninfected machine to check his or her bank balance.

"The novel technique was employed in August by a gang who targeted customers of leading German banks and stole Euro 300,000 in three weeks, according to Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of computer security firm Finjan."

More at Wired...

Twit PWNAG3 "Rampant"

"Social networks are rapidly becoming a primary channel to market for malware distributors and other cyber-criminals as the use of popular sites such as Twitter continues to take off, and the communications vehicles subsequently create new opportunities for attackers to hide their threats using features such as so-called link shorteners.

"Attackers have been working to infiltrate and abuse social networks for years, but the issue is becoming truly pervasive nowadays as they shift even more of their efforts away from more traditional electronic messaging systems and distribute a greater share of their nefarious content over so-called Web 2.0 sites, in particular Twitter, according to Symantec security researcher Ben Nahorney.

"The distribution of malware infection links over Twitter has become particularly problematic of late, Nahorney noted in a recent blog post. Since the 140 character limit for posts to made over micro-blogging platform has lead to widespread use of URL-shorteners obscure address details, and even savvy users of Twitter are likely taking bigger risks, the implication appears to be..."

More at eWeek...

If You Can't BEAT 'EM, SUE 'EM!

"Microsoft has filed what are believed to be the first lawsuits designed to stop the growing practice of malvertising

"The company has filed five suits against unnamed individuals who it has accused of posting malicious and deceptive code through ads on its MSN advertising network.

"The suits allege that individuals using the business names Soft Solutions, Direct Ad, qiweroqw.com, ITmeter INC, and ote2008.info used malvertisements to distribute the malicious software or present deceptive websites that peddled scareware to unsuspecting online users.

"Associate general counsel Tim Cranton said that although Microsoft doesn't know the names of the specific individuals involved, by filing the civil suits in a US court it hoped to uncover the individuals responsible and prevent them from continuing to deploy malvertising.

"`We hope that today's filings will help deter malvertising in the future,` Cranton said in a blog post. The documents were filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle, Washington."

More...

Patch Tuesday Brings 0day Relief

"A critical ActiveX vulnerability used by hackers to exploit Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser is a prime candidate for another Conficker-scale attack, security experts said.

"On July 6, just hours after security companies reported that thousands of compromised sites were serving up exploits, Microsoft acknowledged the flaw in the ActiveX control that can be accessed using IE. The bug has been used by hackers since at least June 9.

"Microsoft said it will issue a patch for the flaw on July 14..."

More at ComputerWorld...

REPORT: Exploits At All Time High

"The number of exploits being written to target specific software vulnerabilities could be at all-time highs, new threat figures have suggested.

"Fortinet's Threatscape report for June, which actually covers the period between 21 May and 20 June, reveals that of the 108 new vulnerabilities added to its firewall intrusion detection system in the period, 62 were being actively exploited.

"This is equivalent to a 57.4 percent exploit rate, a rise over previous months and in line with increasing percentages and absolute numbers for recent months. For comparison, April-May exploit rates stood at 46.4 percent, with March-April at 31.3 percent..."

From TECHWORLD...

"High Profile" FTP Sites PWN3D

"Security researchers have found a treasure chest of FTP passwords, some from high profile sites, on an open cybercrime server.

"Jacques Erasmus, CTO at security tools firm Prevx, stumbled across a site where a Trojan is uploading FTP login credentials captured from compromised machines. So far, Erasmus has found logins for ftp.bbc.co.uk, ftp.cisco.com, ftp.amazon.com, ftp.monster.com and, even security sites including ftp.mcafee.com and ftp.symantec.com along the extensive list of more than 68,000."

More...

Conficker Researchers: Still CLUELESS

"The Conficker worm is finally doing something--updating via peer-to-peer between infected computers and dropping a mystery payload on infected computers, Trend Micro said on Wednesday.

"Researchers were analyzing the code of the software that is being dropped onto infected computers but suspect that it is a keystroke logger or some other program designed to steal sensitive data off the machine, said David Perry, global director of security education at Trend Micro.

"The software appeared to be a .sys component hiding behind a rootkit, which is software that is designed to hide the fact that a computer has been compromised, according to Trend Micro. The software is heavily encrypted, which makes code analysis difficult, the researchers said."

From cnet.com...