Monday, April 7, 2008

Monday News Feed

Companies struggle as Safari pops up on networks





New Massive Botnet Twice the Size of Storm - 4/7/2008 8:00:00 AM 400,000-strong 'Kraken' botnet has infiltrated 50 Fortune 500 companies -- and now usurps Storm as world's biggest botnet





'Transient' Hacks Become Attackers' New Favorites - 4/4/2008 4:45:00 PM Some attackers now prefer making quick, precision strikes on a Website to evade detection -- and then moving on to another one





KeyCorp Unlocks Method for Extending Single Sign-on - 4/4/2008 4:15:00 PM Financial services firm looks to stretch SSO to business partners





Failure to patch flaw exposes data on 60,000 at Antioch





HP unveils encryption add-ons for storage products





Number of viruses to top 1 million by 2009





Olympic Committee accepts China's Internet-access assurances





Symantec confirms ActiveX bugs in its own consumer software





Adobe claims it knew of 'Pwn to Own' bug





The evolution of CyberCrime Inc.
Date: April 07, 2008
Source: Iht.com/By: Doreen Carvajal
PARIS: There is no storefront or corporate headquarters for Cybercrime Inc., but savvy salesmen in a murky, borderless economy are moving merchandise by shilling credit card numbers - "two for the price one.""Sell fresh CC," promised one salesman who offered teaser credit card numbers for samples in New Jersey and Canada. "Visa, MasterCard, Amex. Good Prices. Many countries!!!!!"Electronic crime is maturing, according to security experts, and with its evolution, clever criminals are adopting conventional approaches that reflect cold business sense - from supermarket-style pricing to outsourcing to specialists acting as portfolio managers, coders, launchers, miners, washers and minders of infected "zombie" computers."It's a remarkable development of a whole alternative business environment that's occurred over the last couple years," said Richard Archdeacon, a senior director of global services for Symantec, an Internet security company with 11 research centers around the world tracking crime trends. "What's been so astonishing is the speed with which it's developed and the effect with which the market has grown and matured."In the United States alone, victims of reported Internet fraud lost $239 million in 2007, with average losses running about $2,530 per complaint recorded by a special Web-based hot line operated by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, a nonprofit corporation focusing on electronic crime. Original article





Police probe 'new KGB poison attack'
dailymail.co.uk — Special Branch is investigating an alleged attempt to murder Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB double-agent who spied on Russia for British intelligence in the Cold War. The former Soviet colonel, who escaped to Britain in 1985, says he was poisoned by a Russian assassin at his secret safe-house in Surrey More… (World News)





April 7, 1964: IBM Bets Big on System/360
wired.com — 1964:IBM unveils the System/360 line of mainframe computers.In what some consider the biggest business gamble of all time, the International Business Machines Corp. invested $5 billion ($34 billion in today's dollars) in a family of six mutually compatible computers and 40 peripherals that could work together and be expanded in multiple combinationMore… (Tech Industry News)





As part of our regularly scheduled bulletin release, we’re currently planning to release:

· Five Microsoft Security Bulletins rated Critical and three that are rated as Important. These updates may require a restart and will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer.

As we do each month, the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool will be updated.

Finally, we are planning to release five high-priority, non-security updates on Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) as well as three high-priority, non-security updates on Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/







Internet Service Providers Test Increasingly Track Users' Keystrokes
The online behavior of a small but growing number of computer users in the United States is monitored by their Internet service providers, who have access to every click and keystroke that comes down the line. The companies harvest the stream of data for clues to a person's interests, making money from advertisers who use the information to target their online pitches. The practice represents a significant expansion in the ability to track a household's Web use because it taps into Internet connections, and critics liken it to a phone company listening in on conversations.
Every Click You Make, Washington Post, April 4, 2008.
Posted by EPIC on April 04, 2008.Permanent link to this item.






HP USB Keys Shipped with Malware for your Proliant Server





A review of Access Denied, edited by Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain, MIT Press: 2008.

Access Denied is a survey of the practice of Internet filtering, and a sourcebook of details about the countries that engage in the practice. It is written by researchers of the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), an organization that is dedicated to documenting global Internet filtering around the world.





Apple QuickTime Multiple Vulnerabilities





http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/
Beware Targeted Data-Stealing Tax Scam
A fresh round of targeted e-mail attacks is underway, arriving in messages that personally address both the recipient and his or her employer. One pretends to be sent from the IRS requesting more information about company tax filings. Another set of targeted e-mails purport to be sent from Microsoft, urging recipients to download and install a new security update. Both try to trick the user into installing software that steals personal and financial data from the victim's PC.
The messages spoofing the IRS are very convincing (you can see a copy of one sent to one of the corporate finance officer for Sunbelt Software at this link here). The attached file, a screensaver file made to look like an Adobe PDF file named "tax_refund_file.scr", when clicked, silently downloads malware and pops up a seemingly random PDF document as a diversion.





FBI: Cybercrime racks up more profitsNews Brief, 2008-04-04Damages from online fraud jumped more than 20 percent, according to the latest data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.






Europe asks ISPs to help battle cybercrimeNews Brief, 2008-04-02At a Council of Europe conference on cybercrime, Estonia and other countries push for more cooperation from Internet service providers to combat online attacks.







"If you use an insecure OS in the UK and someone drains your bank account, the banks say it's your fault. The Register reports: 'The Banking Code produced by the British Bankers' Association (BBA), and followed by most banks, makes it clear that banks will not be responsible for losses on online bank accounts if consumers do not have up to date anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall software installed on their machines.'"





A class of copyright thieves? A lawsuit over lecture notes
A case involving a professor, the University of Florida, and a lecture notes service highlights how complex the world of copyright is, now thanks to the presence of “multimedia” lectures and entrepreneurial professors. But where does this leave the students?
April 06, 2008 - 04:54PM CT - by John Timmer

Why modular Windows will suck for Microsoft and suck for you
There's a consensus forming that the next version of Windows will be "modular" in some manner. Here's a look at the possibilities for a modular Windows and why they mostly suck.
April 05, 2008 - 11:52PM CT - by
Peter Bright

US Air Force to China: Our geeks can beat up your geeks
The US Air Force's new Cyber Command will not only serve as a standing reminder that "cyber" should've died in the '90s with "multimedia," but it will also mount online counter-attacks in response to military and economic espionage.
April 05, 2008 - 10:49AM CT - by
Jon Stokes

Storm uses Blogspot to spread

April 7, 2008

Storm is using Blogspot to host it's latest campaign to infect more victims.







IC3 report: Internet crime up to $240 million in 2007
Jim Carr April 04, 2008
Internet-related criminal activities resulted in nearly $240 million in reported losses, according to the 2007 Internet Crime Report released by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and the FBI.






Spammers use Angelina, Britney gossip as lures
Sue Marquette Poremba April 04, 2008
Cybercriminals are playing off the interest in celebrity gossip by sending email that promises erotic pictures of stars such as Angelina Jolie and Britney Spears but are instead sending a trojan, Panda Security researchers have found.





2008 on pace for record number of breaches
Jim Carr April 04, 2008
In the first three months of 2008, the number of data breaches more than doubled over the same period last year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), a nonprofit that helps victims of identity theft.









Report finds IRS computer security flawsAP - 31 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - A week before the tax filing deadline, Treasury Department watchdogs are saying that inadequate controls over the IRS computer system could make confidential taxpayer information more vulnerable to hacking and theft.






Cybercrime Treaty Gains Momentum PC World - Sun Apr 6, 5:30 PM ET
Twice as many countries may sign onto the cooperative legal agreement this year, proponents say.

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