Wednesday 09/23/09

Cisco releases massive wave of advisories for their IOS:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/products_security_advisories_listing.html

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September 23, 2009 12:13 PM PDT
Twitter phishing scam spreads via direct messages

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PCI survey finds some merchants don't use antivirus software http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/5740684/6339517/222172/0/

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First porn star apps OK'd for iPhone
You might not be able to view the Kama Sutra via your iPhone, but now you can keep tabs on a pair of adult entertainers. Read full story

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Microsoft to release free security software soon

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7 Ways Security Pros DON'T Practice What They Preach
IT security pros spend oodles of time trying to hammer best practices into the heads of fellow employees. But in an informal poll conducted by CSOonline, many admitted they don't always follow their own advice.

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Most Businesses READY for Flu Pandemic?
Results of a survey from the Pandemic Prevention Council finds continuity plans include H1N1 considerations in most organizations.

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MIT Experiement Reveals Sexual Orientation of Social Network Users
A student research project conducted in 2007 is said to reveal sexual orientation of Internet users based on social network contacts. The research project was produced as part of a course assignment that students based upon a principle that people of like interests will form relationships. There is an effort underway to publish the research findings in a scientific journal. Analysis of social networking service users is an ongoing part of the research done by Internet service providers to place meaning and context to the behavior of users for commercial purposes and to enhance the experience of users. The lack of transparency on what is being collected about users and how that information will be used is a critical part of the privacy debate.

Project 'Gaydar', Carolyn Y. Johnson, Boston Globe, September 20, 2009

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Maine Firm Sues Bank After $588,000 Cyber Heist
A construction firm in Maine is suing a local bank after cyber thieves stole more than a half million dollars from the company in a sophisticated online bank heist.

On Friday, Sanford, Maine based Patco Construction Co. filed suit in York County Superior Court against Ocean Bank, a division of Bridgeport, Conn. based People's United Bank. The lawsuit alleges that Ocean Bank did not do enough to prevent cyber crooks from transferring approximately $588,000 to dozens of co-conspirators throughout the United States over an eight-day period in May.
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The complaint says the company has recovered or blocked $243,406 of the fraudulent transfers, but that it is still missing at least $345,000 in stolen funds. In addition, because Patco's available funds in its account were less than the total fraudulent withdrawals, the bank drew $223,237.83 on Patco's line of credit to cover the bogus transfers. Patco claims it has been paying interest on that amount in order to avoid being declared in default on its loans, and as a result, it is seeking recovery of interest paid to date on that line of credit.

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Monopoly Sets for WWII POWs: More Information
I already blogged about this; there's more information in this new article:
Included in the items the German army allowed humanitarian groups to distribute in care packages to imprisoned soldiers, the game was too innocent to raise suspicion. But it was the ideal size for a top-secret escape kit that could help spring British POWs from German war camps.
The British secret service conspired with the U.K. manufacturer to stuff a compass, small metal tools, such as files, and, most importantly, a map, into cut-out compartments in the Monopoly board itself.

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Eliminating Externalities in Financial Security
This is a good thing:
An Illinois district court has allowed a couple to sue their bank on the novel grounds that it may have failed to sufficiently secure their account, after an unidentified hacker obtained a $26,500 loan on the account using the customers' user name and password.

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Windows 7 Bests Snow Leopard Says Mac Hacker
Charlie Miller, of Baltimore-based Independent Security Evaluators, who managed to hack Mac OS X Leopard in record time in the past, indicated that the security Apple built into Snow Leopard is inferior not only to Windows 7, but also to Windows Vista, a three-year old operating system released at the end of January 2007.
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The difference Miller argues, according to TechWorld, is made by Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), a feature underdeveloped in Snow Leopard. “ASLR moves images into random locations when a system boots and thus makes it harder for shell code to operate successfully. For a component to support ASLR, all components that it loads must also support ASLR. For example, if A.EXE consumes B.DLL and C.DLL, all three must support ASLR. By default, Windows Vista will randomize system DLLs and EXEs, but DLLs and EXEs created by ISVs must opt in to support ASLR,” Microsoft reveals, and the same is valid not just for Vista, but also for Windows.

The security researcher indicated that Apple failed to introduce a fully fledged and fully functional, for that matter, ASLR in Snow Leopard. The largest problem related to ASLR according to Miller was the fact that Apple did nothing to improve the technology from Leopard to Snow Leopard. The latest versions of Mac OS X feature an ASLR that continues to ignore key components of the platform when it comes to randomization. Miller pointed out that the Snow Leopard ASLR fails to randomize the heap, the stack and the dynamic linker, delivering a wider attack surface than the ASLR in Windows Vista or in Windows 7.

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Windows 8 already? Early clues
Mary Jo Foley: Even though Windows 7 isn't out in the public, planning sessions were well underway for Windows 8. And of the 12 working groups created, "eight or nine revolve around management."
Special Report: Windows 7

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The lucrative MS08-067 flaw
Ryan Naraine: From Gimmiv to Conficker: The critical MS08-067 vulnerability used by the Conficker worm to build a powerful botnet continues to be a lucrative security hole for cyber criminals.

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How to save the PC
Jason Hiner: There's a simple way to avoid losing user data during an OS failure - the world's primary OS developers, Microsoft and Apple, must adopt a little trick that IT pros have been using for over a decade.

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IRS Scam Still Ongoing
September 22, 2009
A malicious IRS campaign has been continuing for several weeks.

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AV Tests Find That Reputation Really Does Count
PC World – Mon Sep 21, 6:50 pm ET
New reputation-based antivirus systems are doing a better job of blocking malicious software than did their predecessors.

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Time For A Quick Lesson In Why The DMCA Safe Harbors Are Important And Make Sense

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Survey: Most organizations struggling to secure data
Angela Moscaritolo September 23, 2009
Sixty percent of IT security professionals polled in a recent study said their organization does not have sufficient resources to become PCI compliant.

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Rogue AV scam targets Google users
Chuck Miller September 22, 2009
An ongoing attack on Google users is sending victims to rogue AV software sites, according to researchers at eSoft's Threat Prevention Team.

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Comcast Launches New DNS Health Portal
ISPs starting to fight back against OpenDNS?

In an apparent bid to lure back those customers who've made the switch to OpenDNS (along with those users' DNS redirection ad dollars), Comcast this month announced in our forums that they've launched a new portal for tracking DNS server uptime. "The new DNS cache query tool will allow customers to run queries against not only our National Domain Helper cache servers but also the No Redirect caching servers as well," says a Comcast employee. "You can also run a custom query against other third party DNS servers," they note.

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