65500939
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Oracle could have saved mountains of cash and bad press if Click-to-Play was enabled before Java was hosed by an armada of zero day vulnerabilities, Adobe security boss Brad Arkin says. The simple fix introduced into browsers over the last year stopped the then zero day blitzkrieg in its tracks by forcing users to click a button to enable Java.
65246713
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Aussie hacker Peter Fillmore has created an Android app that can clone contactless credit cards and process transactions that result in errors, not fraud detections.
The Aussie boffin probed the protocols behind Visa and Mastercard payment cards and proved the viability of an attack by successfully using cloned versions of his credit cards to shop at supermarket chain Woolworths, and buy beer at a Sydney pub.
Fillmore (@typhoonfilsy) demonstrated how a modded Nexus 4 could steal data from Paywave and Paypass cards that could be introduced into cloned cards. He said the phone could be subsituted with a larger suitcase-sized and a remote server for added ownage.
64392475
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
A security pro has released a Metasploit module that can take over computers running the Ammyy Admin remote control software popular among "Hi this is Microsoft, there's a problem with your computer" tech support scammers.
The hack detailed in Matthew Weeks' technical post works from the end-user, meaning victims can send scammers the hijacking exploit when they request access to their machines. Victims should provide scammers with their external IP addresses rather than their Ammyy identity numbers as the exploit was not yet built to run over the Ammyy cloud, according to the exploit readme.
63850869
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Three million webpages are set to become hacker fodder according to research that could predict what websites will become vulnerable ahead of time.
The research by Kyle Soska and Nicolas Christin of Carnegie Mellon University used an engine which divined the future by looking at the past — more specifically, by trawling the Way Back Machine with its 391 billion stored pages for sites that had become malicious.
It determined [PDF] that of 4,916,203 current benign webpages (tied to 444,519 websites) about 3 million would become vulnerable within a year.
63691203
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
More than 140,000 internet-of-things devices, from routers to CCTV systems contain zero-day vulnerabilities, backdoors, hard coded crackable passwords and blurted private keys, according to the first large scale analysis of firmware in embedded devices. Four researchers from EURECOM France found the flaws when conducting a simple but systematic, automated, and large-scale analysis of 32,356 firmware images running on embedded systems within thousands of different devices.
Of these, 693 had at least one vulnerability while 38 contained active (or possibly recently patched) zero day flaws.
63357141
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
A string of documents detailing the operations and effectiveness of the FinFisher suite of surveillance platforms appears to have been leaked. The documents, some dated 4 April this year, detail the anti-virus detection rates of the FinFisher spyware which German based Gamma Group sold to governments and law enforcement agencies. The dump also reveals Windows 8 users should opt for the Metro version of Skype rather than the desktop client because it cannot be tapped by FinFisher.
63285071
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Honeypots are the perfect bait for corporate IT shops to detect hackers targeting and already within their networks and now a guide has been published to build a dirt cheap battalion of the devices from Raspberry Pis. "By running honeypots on our internal network, we are able to detect anomalous events. We gain awareness and insight into our network when network hosts interact with a Raspberry Pi honeypot sensor," the author explained.
61823951
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Forensics and industry experts have cast doubt on an alleged National Security Agency capability to locate whistle blowers appearing in televised interviews based on how the captured background hum of electrical devices affects energy grids. Divining information from electrified wires is a known technique: Network Frequency Analysis (ENF) is used to prove video and audio streams have not been tampered with, but experts weren't sure if the technology could be used to locate individuals.
60937399
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Microsoft has left Windows 7 exposed by only applying security upgrades to its newest operating systems. Researchers found the gaps after they scanned 900 Windows libraries using a custom diffing tool and uncovered a variety of security functions that were updated in Windows 8 but not in 7. They said the shortcoming could lead to the discovery of zero day vulnerabilities. The missing safe functions were part of Microsoft's dedicated libraries intsafe.h and strsafe.h that help developers combat various attacks. (Video, slides).
59945129
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Criminals could potentially cause black-outs and mess with power grid configurations by exploiting flaws in a popular solar panel management system used by thousands of homes and businesses. The threat is substantial because, as the company boasts, its eponymous management system runs globally on roughly 229,300 solar plants that typically pump out 566TWh of electrical energy, or so we're told.
59854043
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
At least 2500 website administrators have made their previously secure sites vulnerable to Heartbleed more than a month after the bug sent the world into a hacker-fearing frenzy.
Opera Software developer Yngve Pettersen discovered the bungle while probing for Heartbleed vulnerable systems in the weeks after the bug was disclosed on April 7. He pinged half a million separate servers of sites rated as popular by Alexa and found hapless admins had, presumably in a panic, updated their then-unaffected-or-possibly-new boxes to the latest offering and in doing so introduced the Heartbleed bug.
59812919
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Intel security subsidiary McAfee may be in hot water after it allegedly scraped thousands of records from the Open Source Vulnerability Database instead of paying for them. The slurp was said to be conducted using fast scripts that rapidly changed the user agent, and was launched after McAfee formally inquired about purchasing a license to the data. Law experts say site's copyright could be breached by individuals merely downloading the information in contravention to the site's policies, and did not require the data to be subsequently disseminated.
59787225
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
4chan's Moot has launched a bug bounty for the site after it was hacked, but is offering a meagre $20 in "self-serve ad spend" for all bugs. The bounty programme was launched after the website and Moot's Amazon accounts were hacked. The intrusion spelled the end for DrawQuest which was closed after Moot decided it was not worth spending money to ensure the unprofitable but popular drawing platform was secure.
59562171
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Felons wanting to thwart forensic investigators need only perform a factory reset of any current model iPhone including the 4s, 5c and 5s.
Apple's decision to encrypt data on the iPhone is responsible for this state of affairs because a factory reset not only wipes data but also erases the decryption key required to reveal the handset's contents. Forensic investigators will need to wait until the release of a jailbreak for the devices in order to image the phones.
59513543
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
A user has discovered an embarrassingly simple security security vulnerability affecting the latest version of Ubuntu, which allows snoops to bypass the lock screen. Password protection on machines running Ubuntu 14.04 could be bypassed by simply holding the enter key for about 30 seconds, crashing Unity. Developers worked quickly to issue a fix for the flaw described as 'critical'.
