Editor's News

Intelligence agents have been described as good people trying to do the right thing by Edward Snowden, who were “worried about the same things I was”.   In a live Q&A session, Snowden said that he felt that the USA would recover from the NSA story as “what makes our country strong is our system of values, not a snapshot of the structure of our agencies or the framework of our laws”. He also said...

Security professionals are so focused on tools that they forget about the human element, and what people and process can add.   Speaking at an industry roundtable hosted by Websense, Mark Brown, director or risk advisory at EY, said that the accountancy industry spent 300 years trying to get to a shared qualification, but security professionals are trying to achieve that in a generation in “a leap of faith, but they are worried about making...

Security B-Sides London returns in 2014, and is delighted to welcome back platinum sponsors Nebulas, MWR Security and Tenable Network Security.   Held on Tuesday, 29th April under the banner of “Connecting People & Agents of All Kinds”, the community-driven event will again be held at Kensington Town Hall, conveniently located next to High Street Kensington tube station and a short tube ride from Earls Court.   Martyn Ruks, technical director at MWR Security, said: “At...

A new Twitter spam campaign has been detected, which gets around safety blocks within the direct messaging (DM) functionality.   According to Malwarebytes researcher Christopher Boyd, the tactic sees attackers compromise legitimate accounts and send links to Tweets posted by spam profiles / other compromised accounts, rather than send a direct URL.   “They are compromising legitimate accounts then sending links to Tweets posted by spam profiles/other compromised accounts. The linked Tweet will then send...

LogMeIn has announced that it is to end its free remote access product to unify its product range,   In a blog post, LogMeIn said that it will only offer a paid-for product and offer “what we believe to be the best premium desktop, cloud and mobile access experience available on the market today”.   It said: “Starting in January, we will gradually migrate users of LogMeIn branded remote access offerings and Ignition branded remote access offerings to...

A recent malware campaign targeted American journalists and activists from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).   According to the Register, the attacks were by “state-aligned actors” from Vietnam and targeted against foreign activists and journalists. The attack, using an email lure, invited activists to an Oxfam conference in Asia. The malware contained malicious links and attachments and was only detected by one anti-virus technology in 47, according to VirusTotal.   EFF attributed the attacks to a group...

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) should move from issuing monetary penalties to a stronger form of punishment for data loss and bad behaviour.   Speaking to IT Security Guru, privacy consultant Martin Hoskins asked what the fines had achieved, and said that they are not achieving their purpose. “If it is not changing behaviours, then it should not be allowed to continue as it is not fit for purpose. I’ve always been one for getting...

Senior executives at South Korean banks and credit card firms have resigned following a breach which may affect up to 20 million people.   In this case, an employee from personal credit ratings firm Korea Credit Bureau (KCB) was arrested and accused of stealing data from the customers of three credit card firms while working for them as a temporary consultant.   According to the South China Morning Post, the stolen data included customer names,...

Greater transparency of surveillance activities is to be introduced by the NSA, while the duration personal information can be held is to also be introduced.   Delivering a speech on Friday on the NSA, President Obama said that it will review decisions about intelligence priorities and sensitive targets on an annual basis, so that its actions are regularly scrutinised by the senior national security team.   As well as this, a new Presidential directive will...

Security B-Sides London will return to the UK in 2014, to be held on Tuesday the 29th April.   Under the banner of “Connecting People & Agents of All Kinds”, the community-driven event will again be held at Kensington Town Hall. Past speakers at B-Sides London have included penetration testers, industry analysts and leading consultants from the information security space.   Security B-Sides London welcomes all content for presentation ideas from prospective speakers; talks are...