The hacker who claims to have breached the Democratic National Committee’s computers is now taking credit for hacking confidential files from a related campaign group.Guccifer 2.0 alleged on Friday that he also attacked the servers of the Democractic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). He posted some of the purported files on his blog, and is promising journalists "exclusive materials" if they contact him directly.Although Guccifer 2.0 claims to be a lone hacktivist, some security experts believe he's actually a persona created by Russian government hackers who want to influence the U.S. presidential election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers have found a way to steal a PC’s data by using the mechanical noise coming from the hard disk drives inside.It’s not a very practical hack, but the scheme has been designed for “air-gapped” systems, or computers that have been sectioned off from the Internet.The researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel have been studying how to use sound to extract information from air-gapped computers. In June, they showed that even a PC’s cooling fans can be controlled to secretly transmit data, including passwords and encryption keys.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the wake of increased terror incidents Europe is starting to look seriously at ways to read encrypted messages that officials there say are instrumental to carrying out attacks.France and Germany apparently are teaming up to formulate a plan for enabling law enforcement there to read encrypted communications, according to a report in Le Monde. But it’s unclear exactly what the two countries will discuss.France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve says an international effort is needed to deal with the issue and he plans to meet with his German counterpart later this month to discuss it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. The term "advanced persistent threat" is tossed around so frequently that some people might think that every cyberattack results from an APT. This is far from the case. In fact, APTs represent a very dangerous category of cyber threats that use sophisticated resources and techniques to evade detection and that are tenacious in their mission, whether it's to steal information or disrupt normal operations.NIST defines advanced persistent threat by describing three characteristics. The APT:1. Pursues its objectives repeatedly over an extended period of timeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cybersecurity staffing continues to be a problem, a new report has found. Intel Security says a massive 82 percent of IT professionals that it surveyed are battling a shortage in workers specializing in cybersecurity.It’s proving to be a major deficit and is resulting in serious damage. Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico, U.S. and U.K. are all hurting for hires, the study says.Market research specialist Vanson Bourne performed the survey and interviewed IT decision makers working in cybersecurity in developed countries.+ Also on Network World: Closing the cybersecurity talent gap, one woman at a time +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Pakistan’s National Assembly has passed a cybercrime bill that provides for censorship of the internet and could also be misused by the vagueness of some of its provisions.Section 34 of the new Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act gives authorities the power to remove or block access to a variety of content.It provides for such action in “the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court or commission of or incitement to an offence under this Act, ” according to a copy of the bill on the website of the Digital Rights Foundation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Millions of Volkswagens built over the past 20 years can be broken into with a hack that exploits the cars’ remote control key systems, security researchers have found.
Most VWs built since 1995 use one of a handful of electronic “master keys” to remotely open and lock the doors, and those keys can be extracted by reverse engineering the firmware, the researchers wrote in a new paper.
That alone isn’t enough to break into a car -- the master key has to be combined with a unique code generated by each remote key device. But the researchers also devised a way to do that, assembling a piece of radio hardware costing around $40.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft just offered a masterclass on why building back doors into secure systems are a bad idea.
Two security researchers who go by the handles @never_released and @TheWack0lian on Twitter recently announced in a blog post that malicious actors can bypass Windows’ Secure Boot feature on vulnerable machines, as first reported by ZDNet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
“Privacy is dead,” has been a mantra, for different reasons, for generations. In the cybersecurity community, it has been conventional wisdom for at least a decade. But Edward Snowden and Andrew “bunnie” Huang apparently think they can revive it a bit, at least if you own an iPhone 6.
Their goal, they say in a white paper titled, “Against the Law – Countering Lawful Abuses of Digital Surveillance,” is to create an add-on hardware component that will protect “front-line journalists” in repressive regimes where governments have demonstrated the capability to track people through their smartphones even if the devices are set to “Airplane Mode.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Responding to security incidents that involve deployments within Amazon Web Services is a lot different from responding to incidents that happen on corporate-owned gear, and two researchers have come up with free tools to make that process easier.Obtaining forensic evidence is different, primarily because security pros can’t obtain physical access to the machines on which their AWS instances are running.+More on Network World: Black Hat: 9 free security tools for defense & attacking+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
White hat hackers see companies at their worst. It is, after all, their job to expose weaknesses. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently chatted with penetration testing expert Josh Berry, Senior Technology Manager at Accudata Systems, an IT consulting and integration firm based in Houston, to learn more about the attack techniques he encounters and what he advises clients do to fight back.
Josh Berry, Senior Technology Manager, Accudata SystemsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Commonly installed Trane thermostats were vulnerable to hacking for a while, says a security firm. The Internet of Things-connected gadgets had been liable to provide burglar-friendly, private information because their authentication system was weak and they use hardcoded credentials, Trustwave claims in its SpiderLabs blog.Trane is an Ingersoll Rand brand that specializes in heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC). Ireland-based Ingersoll Rand is a “$13 billion global business,” it proclaims on its website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple’s acquisition this past week of Turi, a Seattle machine learning company that has its roots in the open source GraphLab project, brings to six the number of deals Apple has made this year that have gone public. So while Apple’s $2.5 billion in R&D spending during its recently completed second quarter represented a 25% increase over the year-ago period and indicates that Apple is building plenty of futuristic technology in-house, the company continues to buy startups at roughly the same pace it has for the past three years, during which it has snapped up 9 to 15 businesses annually – at least that we know about.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter is not liable for providing material support to the Islamic State group, also referred to as the ISIS, by allowing its members to sign up and use accounts on its site, a federal judge in California ruled Wednesday.The lawsuit against Twitter filed by the familes of two victims of a terror attack in Jordan is similar to another filed by the father of a victim of the Paris attack in November against Twitter, Google and Facebook for allegedly providing material support to terrorists by providing them a forum for propaganda, fund raising and recruitment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet has serious security problems that need to be fixed. Despite many calls to action over the years for the industry to band together and work on solutions, progress has been mild. What’s needed isn’t necessarily more security technology. What’s needed are better tools for developers so that they can improve the security of their code.In his keynote at Black Hat in Las Vegas, Dan Kaminsky, chief scientist and co-founder of White Ops, advocated for environments and coding frameworks that make it easier for developers to implement security without compromising usability or stifling creativity. His keynote, “The Hidden Architecture of Our Time: Why This Internet Worked, How We Could Lose It, and the Role Hackers Play,” called on the security industry to think about how new programming environments could have basic functionality and security features built in and turned on by default.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Crumbling wallsImage by Steve TraynorDespite billions of dollars invested in cybersecurity, businesses lose critical data daily. We’ve secured our organizations like fortresses, building layers of walls around networks, applications, storage containers, identity, and devices. But when an unhappy employee moves high-value designs onto a USB drive or sends important email attachment outside the “secure” network, those walls crumble the moment we need them the most.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researcher Salvador Mendoza demonstrated a flaw in Samsung Pay at Black Hat last week, in which the tokens used to secure transactions could be predicted, and used to authorize fraudulent payments.
Samsung responded with a statement calling the report "simply not true."
"Samsung Pay is safe, secure and consumers can be assured that there is no known risk associated to using our payment service," the company said.
But then, in a separate, more detailed document, Samsung admitted that it is possible to capture a token, but said that it was extremely difficult to do so.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As the U.S. presidential election nears, Donald Trump is emerging as the clear winner -- at least when it comes to having his name used in spam messages.Spammers and cyber attackers are using Trump's name far more than Hillary Clinton's in emails pushing get rick quick schemes or phishing for personal information, according to an analysis from Proofpoint.The security firm scanned the subject line of emails received by its customers in June and July looking for occurrences of "trump" or "clinton," and found that the Republican nominee appeared in 169 times as many emails as his Democratic opponent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A flaw in the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) used by Linux since late 2012 poses a serious threat to internet users, whether or not they use Linux directly.That's the key finding of a research study that's scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the USENIX Security Symposium in Austin, Texas.The TCP weakness, identified by researchers from the University of California at Riverside, enables attackers to hijack users’ internet communications completely remotely. It could be used to launch targeted attacks that track users’ online activity, forcibly terminate a communication, hijack a conversation between hosts or degrade the privacy guarantee of anonymity networks such as Tor, the researchers said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here