Security

Widely-known security firm McAfee has called last week's breaching of several major tech companies (including Google and Adobe) "the most sophisticated cyber attack... seen in years," even suggesting the operation could usher in a new age of cyber ... warfare. Attack a "Watershed Event," Says McAfee Discussing the attack on 34 tech companies in China last week, McAfee Chief Technology Officer George Kurtz was noted as saying, "I believe this is the largest and most sophisticated cyber attack we have seen in years targeted at specific corporations," adding, "What really makes this a ... (view more)

An Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability was used by hackers to get past the defenses of Adobe, Google, and about 32 other companies, says security firm McAfee. Until now, the IE flaw had been unknown to security researchers, while the attack had ... initially been blamed on an Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) vulnerability. According to McAfee, hackers used a variety of tactics, including spear-phishing (email spoofing with a specific target in mind), to unleash an incredibly effective "cocktail of zero-day vulnerabilities," that exploited flaws in company systems and left backdoor loopholes ... (view more)

Red Condor, a well-known email filtering company, is warning computer users everywhere about an email phishing campaign that spreads false Microsoft Outlook alerts. Those responsible for the malicious campaign are using the alerts to implant banking ... Trojans on PCs, leaving the door wide open for fraudulent money transfers. Over 1 Million Emails Intercepted by Noon One of the biggest concerns is the alarming rate at which these alerts are being sent out; in fact, Red Condor had blocked over a million kinds of these messages by noon just this past Friday. Researchers are almost certain that the ... (view more)

While most people in the media take this time to offer interesting retrospectives on the year that was, security company McAfee has prepared its predictions for hacker threats in 2010. It forecasts a troubling year for Adobe software, which McAfee ... believes will be heavily targeted in 2010. McAfee made the forecast in its 2010 Threat Predictions report, which argued that popular tools Adobe Reader and Flash would become big targets for hackers intent on spreading malware across the worldwide web. McAfee also predicts social networking sites and HTML 5 could be threatened, too. Adobe Offers ... (view more)

Hackers could soon be listening to your cellphone call. That's the word from the Chaos Communication Conference in Berlin, an annual get-together for hackers. Cryptographers at the conference say they've been able to crack a code that, on a normal ... day, prevents the interception of mobile phone calls by forcing those phones to consistently change frequencies across a list of about eighty channels. Since those not working for a cellphone company would have an almost impossible time knowing the sequence of this frequency change-up, hackers usually have no way of intercepting more than a few ... (view more)

Kisses have the power to alleviate pain, mend a broken heart and show someone you care. Now, thanks to a security researcher in Asia, "Kisses" also have the ability to rid your smartphone of malicious spyware. Kisses, a free software application, ... can detect spyware and hidden programs on most BlackBerry devices and tell users what is going on inside their mobile phone. Cell Phone Spyware a Big Problem The presence of spyware has become problematic in recent months, primarily due to the fact that many malicious spyware programs can be purchased for as little as $50. For that nominal ... (view more)

When security officials decide to "go after" computer malware, most conduct their actions from a defensive standpoint. For most of us, finding a way to rid a computer of the malware suffices -- but for one computer researcher, however, the change ... from a defensive to an offensive mentality is what ended the two year chase of a sinister botnet once and for all. For two years, Atif Mushtaq had been keeping the notorious Mega-D bot malware from infecting computer networks. As of this past November, Mega-D had forced more than 250,000 PCs to do its bidding via botnet control. That's when Mushtaq ... (view more)

With the holiday season attracting droves of online shoppers to Internet retail sites, a planned malicious online attack was almost inevitable. Fortunately, the distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attack that was supposed to wreak havoc on ... Wal-Mart, Amazon and a host of other major chain websites was limited to a select geographic location and resulted in minimal damage. The afternoon prior to Christmas Eve saw a number of online retail sites suspend their services without notice, at the height of the Christmas rush. The good news, however, is that the attack lasted about an hour and the ... (view more)

In an effort to improve security on their social networking platform, Facebook has rolled out a new feature that allows users to decide which friends are entitled to see which photographs, videos, and similar. Almost anyone who has a MySpace, ... Facebook or Twitter account can relate to having a few people on their friends list who are outside of their inner circle. As a token of understanding, Facebook is "tightening the reins" in regards to the amount of information certain friends are allowed to see. 350 Million People Affected In the coming days, all Facebook members will be required to ... (view more)

A new report suggests Microsoft has now pocketed a 6 per cent global market share for its new operating system (OS) Windows 7. That's good news for Microsoft, but it could spell big trouble for users in both the developed and developing world who ... don't make the upgrade from Windows XP. In a frightening new report earlier this week, Finland's most prominent security company F-Secure found that the global shift towards Windows 7 could open up a new gap between users of the new, more secure operating system and those stuck with the outdated and soon-to-be unsupported Windows XP. Shift to Win7 to ... (view more)