Editor's News

A new Trojan which is based on the binary of GameOver Zeus (GOZeus) binary has been detected.   According to a blog by Malcovery, this was distributed as the attachment to three spam email templates which claim to have come from NatWest bank. Malcovery analysts confirmed with the FBI and Dell SecureWorks, who aided in the takedown last month, which the original GameOver Zeus was still "locked down".   The company said that it was able...

The number of users with an unpatched Microsoft operating system decreased this year, while more than two-thirds of PC users were found to have an end-of-life version of Adobe Flash Player installed.   According to statistics from Secunia, Adobe Flash Player remains the most insecure program through Q1-Q2 of 2014, based on scans by the Secunia Personal Software Inspector between 1st April and 31st June 2014.   Kasper Lindgaard, director of research and security at...

Microsoft updated its Certificate Trust List (CTL) for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows to remove the trust of mis-issued third-party digital certificates.   According to Dustin Childs, group manager, response communications at Microsoft, these certificates could have been used to spoof content and perform phishing or man-in-the-middle attacks against web properties. “With this update, most customers will be automatically protected against this issue and will not need to take any action,” he said.  ...

Multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were directed towards major banks, insurance companies and the largest telecommunications company in Norway.   According to Softpedia, the hackers claimed to be part of Anonymous Norway and started in the morning, when the country’s largest financial services group DNB announced that their website was partially down because of junk traffic affecting their systems. The hackers deployed attacks later against the websites of Norges Bank, Sparebank 1, Storebrand, Gjensidige, Nordea,...

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are always changing, and there are enough open servers on the internet to enable huge amplification attacks.   Speaking to IT Security Guru, Gary Newe, senior systems engineering manager for UK, Ireland and South Africa at F5 Networks, said that there were volumetric attacks, and these could be enabled by an attacker with a 3G connected phone, but now the capability to launch a 300 400GB attack was possible.   “Every...

Microsoft has settled with No-IP after the sinkhole debate which saw websites lose days of online presence. According to an updated statement, Microsoft said that it has reached a settlement with No-IP's parent Vitalwerks Internet Solutions. It said: “Microsoft has reviewed the evidence provided by Vitalwerks and enters into the settlement confident that Vitalwerks was not knowingly involved with the subdomains used to support malware. Those spreading the malware abused Vitalwerks’ services. “Microsoft identified malware...

Only 15 per cent of information security professionals say that they are “very prepared” for a targeted attack, yet one in five have experienced such an incident.   According to a study of 1,220 security professionals by ISACA, 66 per cent believe it’s only a matter of time before their enterprise is hit by an APT. Despite one in five being a victim, only one in three could determine the source.   Steven Babb, international...

A third of IT security professionals are sending sensitive data outside of their organisation without any form of encryption.   According to a survey of 200 professionals at this year's Infosecurity Europe, 36 per cent admitted to sending sensitive data outside of their organisations without using any form of encryption to protect it.   Terence Spies, CTO at Voltage Security, said: “This statistic is cause for alarm, particularly given that encryption provides protection for companies...

Microsoft released six patches last night to cover 29 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer.   With two rated as critical, three rated as important and one rated as moderate in severity, Tyler Reguly, manager of security research at Tripwire, recommended TT teams to focus on the two critical issues affecting Internet Explorer and Windows Journal first.   “If you cannot apply updates immediately, there are workarounds for both of these critical flaws,” he...

Accommodation booking service Hotel Hippo was closed by its parent and “it will not reopen” according to its founder.   In a statement posted on pastebin by founder and managing director Chris Orrell, he said that the site was “little used” but security, safety and privacy was “of the utmost importance to us”. Following the revelations of security failings by Scott Helme, Orrell said he was “very alarmed to hear that our valued customers should...