Tag: portfolio-cond

Millions of dymanic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains

Microsoft Millions of legitimate servers that rely on dynamic domain name services from No-IP.com suffered outages on Monday after Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users. Microsoft enforced a federal court order making the company the domain IP resolver for the No-IP domains. Microsoft said the objective of the seizure was to identify and reroute traffic associated with two malware families that abused No-IP services. Almost immediately, end-users, some of which were actively involved in Internet security, castigated the move as heavy handed, since there was no evidence No-IP officially sanctioned or actively facilitated the malware campaign, which went by the names Bladabindi (aka NJrat) and Jenxcus (aka NJw0rm). “By becoming the DNS authority for those free dynamic DNS domains, Microsoft is now effectively in a position of complete control and is now able to dictate their configuration,” Claudio Guarnieri, co-founder of Radically Open Security, wrote in an e-mail to Ars Technica. “Microsoft fundamentally swept away No-IP, which has seen parts of its own DNS infrastructure legally taken away.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Millions of dymanic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains

Serious Android crypto key theft vulnerability affects 10% of devices

Kevlangdo Researchers have warned of a vulnerability present on an estimated 10 percent of Android phones that may allow attackers to obtain highly sensitive credentials, including cryptographic keys for some banking services and virtual private networks, and PINs or patterns used to unlock vulnerable devices. The vulnerability resides in the Android KeyStore , a highly sensitive region of the Google-made operating system dedicated to storing cryptographic keys and similar credentials, according to an advisory published this week by IBM security researchers. By exploiting the bug, attackers can execute malicious code that leaks keys used by banking and other sensitive apps, virtual private network services, and the PIN or finger patterns used to unlock handsets. The advisory said Google has patched the stack-based buffer overflow only in version 4.4, aka KitKat, of Android. The remaining versions, which according to Google figures run 86.4 percent of devices , have no such fix. In an update, IBM said the vulnerability affected only version 4.3, which runs on about 10.3 percent of handsets. There are several technical hurdles an attacker must overcome to successfully exploit the vulnerability. Android is fortified with modern software protections, including data execution prevention and address space layout randomization, both of which are intended to make it much harder for hackers to execute code when they identify security bugs. Attackers would also have to have an app installed on a vulnerable handset. Still, the vulnerability is serious because it resides in KeyStore, arguably one of the most sensitive resources in the Android OS. In an e-mail, Dan Wallach , a professor specializing in Android security in the computer science department of Rice University, explained: Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Serious Android crypto key theft vulnerability affects 10% of devices

Apple releases iOS 7.1.2 with iBeacon, mail attachment encryption fixes

Andrew Cunningham Apple today released iOS 7.1.2, the second minor update to iOS 7.1 . The list of changes is short and focused mainly on minor bugs—it “improves iBeacon connectivity and stability,” patches a security hold whereby at-rest e-mail attachments could be accessed by an attacker if he or she had physical access to your phone, and fixes a problem with data transfers from accessories “including barcode scanners.” The e-mail attachment bug is probably the most important thing addressed by the update—it was reported widely back in April when Andreas Kurtz wrote about it on his blog . Kurtz was able to access e-mail attachments using standard tools on several different iOS devices running versions 7.1.1 and 7.0.4. As part of the iBeacon update, iOS 7.1.2 also re-enables Bluetooth on iOS devices, which we verified on an iPhone 5S by disabling Bluetooth before installing the update. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases iOS 7.1.2 with iBeacon, mail attachment encryption fixes

Verizon Wireless employee stole 900 phones, made $270,000 profit on eBay

A Verizon Wireless account executive who pleaded guilty to stealing more than 900 cell phones and selling them on eBay for a profit of $272,290 was sentenced this week to 27 months in prison. James Hopkins, 35, committed the fraud throughout most of 2009 while working as a business-to-business account executive at a Verizon Wireless branch office in Trevose, PA, according to a criminal complaint. He was charged with mail fraud and sentenced in US District Court in New Jersey, where Verizon is based. “From February through November 2009, Hopkins placed numerous orders for Verizon Wireless cellular telephones, handheld devices and accessories in the names of existing Verizon Wireless customers without their knowledge,” the US Attorney’s office in New Jersey wrote in an announcement. “After arranging for the merchandise to be shipped to the home of a relative in New Jersey, the defendant manipulated Verizon’s computer database to conceal the fraudulent orders and shipments. Hopkins received $328,517 worth of stolen Verizon Wireless merchandise, which he sold on eBay for a profit of $272,290.” That amounts to a profit of about $300 for each stolen phone. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon Wireless employee stole 900 phones, made $270,000 profit on eBay

NASA melds vacuum tube tech with silicon to fill the terahertz gap

Vacuum tubes in a guitar amplifier. Shane Gorski The transistor revolutionized the world and made the abundant computing we now rely on a possibility, but before the transistor, there was the vacuum tube. Large, hot, power hungry, and prone to failure, vacuum tubes are a now-forgotten relic of the very earliest days of computing. But there’s a chance that vacuum tube technology could make its way back into computers—albeit without the vacuum—thanks to NASA research that has put together nanoscale “vacuum channel” transistors that can switch at more than 400GHz. Vacuum tubes have three important components: two electrodes—the negative, electron-emitting cathode, and the positive, electron-receiving anode—and a control grid placed between them. The flow of current between the cathode and the anode is controlled by the grid; the higher the voltage applied to the grid, the greater the amount of current that can flow between them. All three parts are housed in an evacuated glass tube or bulb and look somewhat like a kind of overcomplicated light bulb. The thing that made vacuum tubes so hot and power hungry was the cathode. Electrons can be encouraged to cross gaps by using very high voltages, but these tend to be difficult to work with. Instead, a phenomenon called thermionic emission is used—heat a piece of metal up enough, and the thermal energy lets the electrons escape the metal. Vacuum tubes have heating elements to make the cathode hot enough to emit electrons. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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NASA melds vacuum tube tech with silicon to fill the terahertz gap

Mint 17 is the perfect place for Linux-ers to wait out Ubuntu uncertainty

The team behind Linux Mint unveiled its latest update this week—Mint 17 using kernel 3.13.0-24, nicknamed “Qiana.” The new release indicates a major change in direction for what has quickly become one of the most popular Linux distros available today. Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, and this decision appears to have one major driver.  Consistency.  Like the recently released Ubuntu 14.04, Mint 17 is a Long Term Support Release. That means users can expect support to continue until 2019. But even better, this release marks a change in Mint’s relationship with Ubuntu. Starting with Mint 17 and continuing until 2016, every release of Linux Mint will be built on the same package base—Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. With this stability, instead of working to keep up with whatever changes Ubuntu makes in the next two years, Mint can focus on those things that make it Mint. With major changes on the way for Ubuntu in the next two years, Mint’s decision makes a lot of sense. Not only does it free up the Mint team to focus on its two homegrown desktops (Cinnamon and MATE), but it also spares Mint users the potential bumpy road that is Ubuntu’s future. Read 53 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Mint 17 is the perfect place for Linux-ers to wait out Ubuntu uncertainty

IE users get new protection against potent form of malware attack

a_codepoet Microsoft developers have fortified Internet Explorer with new protections designed to prevent a type of attack commonly used to surreptitiously install malware on end-user computers. The “isolated heap for DOM objects” made its debut with last week’s Patch Tuesday . Just as airbags lower the chance of critical injuries in automobile accidents, the new IE protection is designed to significantly lessen the damage attackers can do when exploiting so-called use-after-free flaws in the browser code. As the name suggests, use-after-free bugs are the result of code errors that reference computer memory objects after they have already been purged, or freed, from the operating system heap. Attackers can exploit them by refilling the improperly freed space with malicious code that logs passwords, makes computers part of a botnet, or carries out other nefarious behavior. Use-after-free flaws are among the most commonly exploited, often at great expense to end users. Recent in-the-wild attacks that targeted IE versions 9, 10, and 11 capitalized on a use-after-free bug. The bug class has been at the heart of many other real-world attacks on IE that are too numerous to count . (They have also been known to bring down Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.) Wei Chen, an exploit developer with Rapid 7’s Metasploit vulnerability framework, likens use-after-free exploits to sneaking tainted cookies into an already-opened bag of Oreos. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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IE users get new protection against potent form of malware attack

At least 32,000 servers broadcast admin passwords in the clear, advisory warns

An alarming number of servers containing motherboards manufactured by Supermicro continue to expose administrator passwords despite the release of an update that patches the critical vulnerability, an advisory published Thursday warned. The threat resides in the baseboard management controller (BMC), a motherboard component that allows administrators to monitor the physical status of large fleets of servers, including their temperatures, disk and memory performance, and fan speeds. Unpatched BMCs in Supermicro motherboards contain a binary file that stores remote login passwords in clear text. Vulnerable systems can be detected by performing an Internet scan on port 49152. A recent query on the Shodan search engine indicated there are 31,964 machines still vulnerable, a number that may not include many virtual machines used in shared hosting environments. “This means at the point of this writing, there are 31,964 systems that have their passwords available on the open market,” wrote Zachary Wikholm, a senior security engineer with the Carinet Security Incident Response Team. “It gets a bit scarier when you review some of the password statistics. Out of those passwords, 3,296 are the default combination. Since I’m not comfortable providing too much password information, I will just say that there exists a subset of this data that either contains or just was ‘password.'” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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At least 32,000 servers broadcast admin passwords in the clear, advisory warns

Tell a lie, remove the gear: How the NSA covers up when cable taps are found

Der Spiegel via Edward Snowden via NSA Sometimes, the spooks do get caught. German magazine Der Spiegel yesterday revealed a new slide  (PDF) from the Edward Snowden document cache that offers a tantalizing glimpse of what it looks like when someone stumbles on an intelligence agency cable tap. The NSA’s Special Source Operations (SSO) branch isn’t in the business of computer hacking but of cable tapping; its logo shows an eagle flying above the globe and clutching a string of wires in its talons. These taps, each obscured with a codename, are often made deep within the network of telecom providers and often with the cooperation of key executives. But sometimes non-cleared people start raising questions about just what might be going on, as was the case with AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, who revealed an NSA “secret room” in San Francisco . On March 14, 2013, an SSO weekly briefing included a note regarding such a discovery. The unit had been informed two days earlier that “the access point for WHARPDRIVE was discovered by commercial consortium personnel. Witting partner personnel have removed the evidence and a plausible cover story was provided. All collection has ceased.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tell a lie, remove the gear: How the NSA covers up when cable taps are found

Hacker infects Synology storage devices, makes off with $620,000 in Dogecoin

One of the affected Synology devices. Synology A hacker generated digital coins worth more than $620,000 by hijacking a popular type of Internet-connected storage device from Synology, security researchers said. The incident, which was documented in a research report published Tuesday by Dell SecureWorks, is only the latest hack to steal other people’s computing resources to perform the computationally intense process of digital currency mining. The cryptographic operations behind the process often draw large amounts of power and produce lots of heat. People looking to acquire a large war chest of digital coins typically must pour large amounts of money and effort into the endeavor. One way malicious actors get by this requirement is by compromising large numbers of devices operated by other people. The devices then perform the work at the expense of the unsuspecting end users and pass on the proceeds to the attacker. According to researchers from SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit, the attackers exploited four separate vulnerabilities contained in the software of Synology network-attached storage boxes. The vulnerabilities were documented in September and fixed in February by Synology . By then, large numbers of people began complaining their Synology devices were running sluggishly and extremely hot . It turns out that at least some of them were running software that mined large sums of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Hacker infects Synology storage devices, makes off with $620,000 in Dogecoin