Virus Information News

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Schneier on Security: Security Risks of Embedded Systems

schneier.com

January 16, 2014

We're at a crisis point now with regard to the security of embedded systems, where computing is embedded into the hardware itself -- as with the Internet of Things.

These embedded computers are riddled with vulnerabilities, and there's no good way to patch them. It's not unlike what happened in the mid-1990s, when the insecurity of personal computers was reaching crisis levels. Software and operating systems were riddled with security vulnerabilities, and there was no good way to patch them. Companies were trying to keep vulnerabilities secret, and not releasing security updates quickly. And when updates were released, it was hard -- if not impossible -- to get users to install them. This has changed over the past twenty years, due to a combination of full disclosure -- publishing vulnerabilities to force companies to issue patches quicker -- and automatic updates: automating the process of installing updates on users' computers. The results aren't perfect, but they're much better than ever before. But this time the problem is much worse, because the world is different: All of these devices are connected to the Internet. The computers in our routers and modems are much more powerful than the PCs of the mid-1990s, and the Internet of Things will put computers into all sorts of consumer devices. The industries producing these devices are even less capable of fixing the problem than the PC and software industries were.

'World's most wanted hacker' SLAMS Obamacare site security

dailycaller.com

by Patrick Howley

January 17, 2014

The man formerly known as "The World's Most Wanted Hacker" told Congress that the HealthCare.gov Obamacare enrollment website clearly "did not consider security as a priority."

"It would be a hacker's wet dream to break into healthcare.gov," said Kevin Mitnick, once the world's most wanted cybercriminal and now a top cyber security consultant, in written testimony before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. "After reading the documents provided by David Kennedy that detailed numerous security vulnerabilities associated with the healthcare.gov web site, it's clear that the management team did not consider security as a priority," Mitnick wrote.

Get the VPN that protects your privacy and fights NSA spying.

getavpn.org

January 17, 2014

A VPN is the only practical way to stop the NSA from knowing what sites you visit. VPNs will unblock censored websites and block bittorrent lawsuits (along with those annoying copyright warning letters) all for just 10 cents a day.

This VPN installs in minutes, runs in the background, and even works on smartphones. Since the proceeds fund Fight for the Future's activism campaigns, you won't just be protecting yourself, you'll be fighting for a better Internet: one that's free of censorship and spying. A VPN runs silently in the background, sending your entire Internet connection over a secure, encrypted channel. To the outside world, all your traffic comes from a single IP address (in, say, New Jersey... or Switzerland) that thousands of others share.

Selling a Google Chrome Extension is Easy but Monetizing is Tricky

labnol.org

January 18, 2014

When Google decided the pull the plug on Google Reader, I quickly made the switch to Feedly since it was (and still is) the best alternative to Google's RSS Reader.

The one important piece that Feedly did not offer was a Chrome extension that would let users subscribe to RSS feeds on any web page with a click. Since the extension was something that I needed for my own workflow, I wrote one (writing a Chrome extension is easy) and also published it to Google Chrome store. The last time I checked my Chrome developer dashboard, the extension had gained 30000+ users on Chrome.

DNS poisoning slams web traffic from millions in China into the wrong hole

theregister.co.uk

by John Leyden

January 21, 2014

ISP blames unspecified attack for morning outage

A widespread DNS outage hit China on Tuesday‪, leaving millions of surfers adrift.‬ DNS issues in China between 7am and 9am GMT left millions of domains inaccessible. Two-thirds of China's DNS (Domain Name System) infrastructure was blighted by the incident, which stemmed from a cache poisoning attack. Chinese netizens were left unable to visit websites or use social media and instant messaging services as a result of the screw-up, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports.

If You Used This Secure Webmail Site, the FBI Has Your Inbox

Wired.com

by Kevin Poulsen

January 27, 2014

While investigating a hosting company known for sheltering child porn last year the FBI incidentally seized the entire e-mail database of a popular anonymous webmail service called TorMail.

Now the FBI is tapping that vast trove of e-mail in unrelated investigations. The bureau's data windfall, seized from a company called Freedom Hosting, surfaced in court papers last week when prosecutors indicted a Florida man for allegedly selling counterfeit credit cards online. The filings show the FBI built its case in part by executing a search warrant on a Gmail account used by the counterfeiters, where they found that orders for forged cards were being sent to a TorMail e-mail account: "platplus@tormail.net." Acting on that lead in September, the FBI obtained a search warrant for the TorMail account, and then accessed it from the bureau's own copy of "data and information from the TorMail e-mail server, including the content of TorMail e-mail accounts," according to the complaint (.pdf) sworn out by U.S. Postal Inspector Eric Malecki.

Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Yahoo release US surveillance requests

theguardian.com

by Spencer Ackerman and Dominic Rushe

February 3, 2014

Limited disclosure, part of transparency deal made last month, shows tech giants turn over data from tens of thousands of accounts

Tens of thousands of accounts associated with customers of Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo have their data turned over to US government authorities every six months as the result of secret court orders, the tech giants disclosed for the first time on Monday. As part of a transparency deal reached last week with the Justice Department, four of the tech firms that participate in the National Security Agency's Prism effort, which collects largely overseas internet communications, released more information about the volume of data the US demands they provide than they have ever previously been permitted to disclose. But the terms of the deal prevent the companies from itemising the collection, beyond bands of thousands of data requests served on them by a secret surveillance court. The companies must also delay by six months disclosing information on the most recent requests - terms the Justice Department negotiated to end a transparency lawsuit before the so-called Fisa court that was brought by the companies.

Internet Activist Recovers Deleted Video of Police Assault, This is How We Win!

thefreethoughtproject.com

March 3, 2014

The power of the internet knows no bounds. It is our most powerful weapon against corruption and has helped to shed light on the ones that wish to remain in the darkness.

The story below is another wonderful example of how the internet is helping to exonerate the innocent whilst bringing justice to the corrupt. A man was assaulted by police and his video of the incident confiscated. He was then jailed for 10 days after false charges were brought against him. A year later he received his phone back only to find that the files had been corrupted and the video unplayable. He reached out to the internet, and the internet answered. One of the files was repaired by a reddit user, which shows the assault on video. He explains what happens in the story below.

5-year-old Ocean Beach exposes Microsoft Xbox vulnerability

10news.com

by Michael Chen

April 3, 2014

An Ocean Beach boy is in the spotlight after he discovered a back door in to one of the most popular gaming systems in the world.

When 5-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel is playing his Xbox, his feet don't touch the ground. But something he did has made the smartest guys at Microsoft pay attention. "I was like yea!" said Kristoffer. Just after Christmas, Kristoffer's parents noticed he was logging into his father's Xbox Live account and playing games he wasn't supposed to be.

NSA Knew About Heartbleed, Did Nothing, Sources Say

tomsguide.com

by Jill Scharr

April 11, 2014

Did the NSA know about the Heartbleed bug for the past two years? Two anonymous sources told Bloomberg News the agency did.

Did the National Security Agency (NSA) know about the Heartbleed Internet security flaw for the past two years? That's what two anonymous sources told Bloomberg News reporter Michael Riley. The NSA not only said nothing about the serious bug that compromised the OpenSSL encryption library used by millions of websites, but it also used the bug to gather intelligence, Riley's sources told him. If the NSA did know about Heartbleed, it could have used the bug to get data from any Internet-facing server using a vulnerable version of OpenSSL since the flaw was accidentally implemented in January 2012. Such data would include usernames, passwords, encryption keys, search history, private messages and more.

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