Other – Page 12 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2017 14:09:22 +0000

Online extortion, tech support scams and phishing attacks that spoof the boss were among the most costly cyber scams reported by consumers and businesses last year, according to new figures from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The IC3 report released Thursday correctly identifies some of the most prevalent and insidious forms of cybercrimes today, but the total financial losses tied to each crime type also underscore how infrequently victims actually report such crimes to law enforcement.

Independent Krebs

June 22, 2017 admin

Why So Many Top Hackers Hail from Russia

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:29:11 +0000

Conventional wisdom says one reason so many hackers seem to hail from Russia and parts of the former Soviet Union is that these countries have traditionally placed a much greater emphasis than educational institutions in the West on teaching information technology in middle and high schools, and yet they lack a Silicon Valley-like pipeline to help talented IT experts channel their skills into high-paying jobs. This post examines the first part of that assumption by examining a breadth of open-source data. The supply side of that conventional wisdom seems to be supported by an analysis of educational data from both the U.S. and Russia, which indicates there are several stark and important differences between how American students are taught and tested on IT subjects versus their counterparts in Eastern Europe.

Independent Krebs

June 17, 2017 admin

Credit Card Breach at Buckle Stores

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2017 14:07:08 +0000

The Buckle Inc., a clothier that operates more than 450 stores in 44 U.S. states, disclosed Friday that its retail locations were hit by malicious software designed to steal customer credit card data. The disclosure came hours after KrebsOnSecurity contacted the company regarding reports from sources in the financial sector about a possible breach at the retailer.

Independent Krebs

June 15, 2017 admin

Inside a Porn-Pimping Spam Botnet

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 14:35:27 +0000

For several months I’ve been poking at a decent-sized spam botnet that appears to be used mainly for promoting adult dating sites. Having hit a wall in my research, I decided it might be good to publish what I’ve unearthed so far to see if this dovetails with any other research out there. In late October 2016, an anonymous source shared with KrebsOnSecurity.com a list of nearly 100 URLs that — when loaded into a Firefox browser — each displayed what appeared to be a crude but otherwise effective “counter” designed to report in real time how many “bots” were reporting in for duty. Here’s a set of archived screenshots of those counters illustrating how these various botnet controllers keep a running tab of how many “activebots” — hacked servers set up to relay spam — are sitting idly by and waiting for instructions.

Independent Krebs

June 13, 2017 admin

Microsoft, Adobe Ship Critical Fixes

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2017 19:47:31 +0000

Microsoft today released security updates to fix almost a hundred security flaws in its various Windows operating systems and related software. One bug is so serious that Microsoft is issuing patches for it on Windows XP and other operating systems the company no longer officially supports. Separately, Adobe has pushed critical updates for its Flash and Shockwave players, two programs most users would probably be better off without.

Independent Krebs

June 6, 2017 admin

Following the Money Hobbled vDOS Attack-for-Hire Service

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2017 12:12:47 +0000

A new report proves the value of following the money in the fight against dodgy cybercrime services known as “booters” or “stressers” — virtual hired muscle that can be rented to knock nearly any website offline. Last fall, two 18-year-old Israeli men were arrested for allegedly running a vDOS, perhaps the most successful booter service of all time. The pair were detained within hours of being named in a story on this blog as the co-proprietors of the service (this site would later suffer a three-day outage as a result of an attack that was alleged to have been purchased in retribution for my reporting on vDOS). That initial vDOS story was based on data shared by an anonymous source who had hacked vDOS and obtained its private user and attack database. The story showed how the service made approximately $600,000 over just two of the four years it was in operation. Most of those profits came in the form of credit card payments via PayPal. But prior to vDOS’s takedown in September 2016, the service was already under siege thanks to work done by a group of academic researchers who teamed up with PayPal to identify and close accounts that vDOS and other booter services were using to process customer payments. The researchers found that their interventions cut profits in half for the popular booter service, and helped reduce the number of attacks coming out of it by at least 40 percent.

Independent Krebs

June 1, 2017 admin

OneLogin: Breach Exposed Ability to Decrypt Data

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2017 12:55:33 +0000

OneLogin, an online service that lets users manage logins to sites and apps from a single platform, says it has suffered a security breach in which customer data was compromised, including the ability to decrypt encrypted data. Headquartered in San Francisco, OneLogin provides single sign-on and identity management for cloud-base applications. OneLogin counts among its customers some 2,000 companies in 44 countries, over 300 app vendors and more than 70 software-as-a-service providers.

Independent Krebs

May 31, 2017 admin

Credit Card Breach at Kmart Stores. Again.

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2017 02:27:12 +0000

For the second time in less than three years, Kmart Stores is battling a malware-based security breach of its store credit card processing systems. Last week I began hearing from smaller banks and credit unions who said they strongly suspected another card breach at Kmart. Some of those institutions received alerts from the credit card companies about batches of stolen cards that all had one thing in comment: They were all used at Kmart locations. Ask to respond to rumors about a card breach, Kmart’s parent company Sears Holdings said some of its payment systems were infected with malicious software: