Friday, March 27, 2009

Friday 03/27/09

March 26, Spamfighter – (Montana) Mountain West Bank consumers targeted by phishing scam.
http://www.spamfighter.com/News-12077-Mountain-West-Bank-Consumers-Targeted-by-Phishing-Scam.htm

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March 26, Associated Press – (New York) ‘Super’ test at ORNL. A high-tech power cable designed to prevent rolling blackouts caused by everything from a wayward squirrel to terrorists is being readied for New York City’s financial district. Now undergoing final tests at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the superconductor cable to be installed in Manhattan next year could prove key to the smart, secure, super grid of the future. Scientists fired 60,000 amps through a cable during a critical test on March 24 — an electrical jolt comparable to turning on the air conditioning in 2,000 homes at the same time. It was enough juice to lift a 1,000-pound bundle of conventional cable two feet off the ground. But nothing seemed to happen. No sparks, no sound, no movement. Chilled by liquid nitrogen to minus-321 degrees Fahrenheit, this cable becomes super-efficient when cool, carrying up to 10 times more electricity than a copper cable of the same diameter. It also has a unique, built-in, surge-suppressing capability. Power distribution now follows a hub-and-spoke design. That means the failure of a single power station can put a cluster of neighborhoods in the dark. This latest superconductor cable promises to link power stations so they can operate "more like an Internet" and back each other up. The $39 million project will lay superconductor cable linking two large Consolidated Edison Corp. substations about 1,000 feet apart serving thousands of people on Manhattan’s west side. Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/mar/26/super-test-at-ornl/

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March 26, Economic Times – (International) Software labs warn of ATM virus that steals money from banks. Russia’s leading computer security labs have warned of a new software virus which infects Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) to steal money from bank accounts of their users. Two leading anti-virus software producers ‘Doctor Web’ and ‘Kaspersky Lab’ claimed to have discovered a new virus, in the networks of several bank ATMs, which is able to collect information from bank cards. "This is a malicious program intended to infect and survive in ATMs. It is possible that new software will appear, aimed at illegitimately using banking information and removing funds," an official of the Kaspersky Lab was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency. He said the virus is a Trojan which is able to infect the popular American Diebold brand of ATMs, used in Russia and Ukraine. Judging by the programming code used, there is a high probability that the programmer comes from one of the former Soviet republics, he added. The computer security experts say the number of infected ATMs is minimal but individual bank cardholders will not be able to detect whether an ATM is infected or not. Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/ATM-virus-that-steals-money/articleshow/4319363.cms

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March 26, Jakarta Post – (International) Bird flu suspect dies in Pekanbaru. A two-year-old boy, who had been intensively, treated for a suspected birdflu case, died in an isolated room at Arifin Achmad Hospital in Pekanbaru, Riau early Thursday morning. The boy was admitted as birdflu suspect last Friday after he had been treated at another hospital for six days. The hospital has yet to announce whether the boy died of birdflu because it was still waiting for nasal and throat swab test results from the health ministry laboratory in Jakarta. Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/03/26/bird-flu-suspect-dies-pekanbaru.html

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March 26, IDG News Service – (International) Firefox fix due next week after attack is published. Online attack code has been released targeting a critical, unpatched flaw in the Firefox browser. The attack code, written by a security researcher, was published on several security sites on March 25, sending Firefox developers scrambling to patch the issue. Until the flaw is patched, this code could be modified by attackers and used to sneak unauthorized software onto a Firefox user’s machine. Mozilla developers have already worked out a fix for the vulnerability. It is slated to ship in the upcoming 3.0.8 release of the browser, which developers are now characterizing as a "high-priority firedrill security update," thanks to the attack code. That update is expected sometime early next week. "We... consider this a critical issue," said the Mozilla director of security engineering in an e-mail. The bug affects Firefox on all operating systems, including Mac OS and Linux, according to Mozilla developer notes on the issue. By tricking a victim into viewing a maliciously coded XML file, an attacker could use this bug to install unauthorized software on a victim’s system. This kind of Web-based malware, called a drive-by download, has become increasingly popular in recent years. While the public release of browser attack code does not happen all that often, security researchers do not seem to have much trouble finding bugs in browser software. Last week, two hackers at the CanSecWest security conference dug up four separate bugs in the Firefox, IE, and Safari browsers. Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/032609-firefox-fix-due-next-week.html

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March 26, Bit-Tech.net – (International) Worm targets Linux routers. Users of Linux-based routers are being warned of a new worm in the wild which attempts to take control and add their device to a growing botnet.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/03/26/worm-targets-linux-routers/1

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