Interesting start of the afternoon. Twitter has been hit by an XSS exploit which makes use of Javascript mouseover function in a browser, so that every time people browsed over a tweet, it opened a screen, sent an RT which propagated the vulnerability. The purpose was spam, the browser would Read more
Much virtual ink has been spent in describing the breaking of hostilities between Google and the Chinese government, after the search engine company claimed that it had been the victim of a targeted attack in order to obtain information about Chinese dissidents. In condemning the attack, Google clearly pointed an Read more
(Thanks to Lilian for inspiring the title). August 5 2009 could very well come to be known as the Day of the Zombie. Earlier in the day, the press reported that Twitter had been knocked offline by a large distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). Besides the obvious comments about Read more
Are hackers a real threat to the security of nations? The Pentagon seems to think so, which is why it is updating its computer security systems to respond to more sophisticated threats. This at the time that the U.S. Secretary of Defense warns that his country is under constant “cyberattacks”, Read more
An interesting development in the latest cybercrime trends has been a marked increase in attacks against online games and virtual worlds, as I have posted previously. One element that I have missed in the discussion about game hacking has been the methods with which cyber-criminals obtain login details and passwords Read more
xkcd once more manages to distil complex issues in an understandable and undeniable manner. The weakest point in any computer security system is the carbon-based element managing the keys.
Some years ago, headlines describing global virus infections were commonplace. Does anyone remember the ILOVEYOU virus, the Melissa worm, and Code Red? Lately, while virus and worm threats have not diminished, their reporting has become less prominent. Have you heard about Nyxem, XSS and Sotrm? Neither had I. The less Read more
The BBC is reporting that there is a new fatal flaw with Internet Explorer that allows hackers to gain access to a computer and steal passwords. In other news water is wet, politicians lie and Windows Vista is a huge disappointment. Seriously though, this is usually the perfect opportunity for Read more
An interesting cybercrime and politics story came out this week. Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account was hacked by a group called Anonymous and screenshots were posted in WikiLeaks. Hacking may be too strong a word, what seems to have occurred is more akin to social engineering, as the hackers admitted Read more
Hacking is back in the news. The BBC reports that hackers in the U.S. infiltrated the computer networks of several companies and stole over forty million credit and debit card numbers. What is unusual about the case is that the hackers targeted their victim’s secure wireless access points, and therefore Read more