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Fix for critical IE flaw
NEWS
Secret Service dismantles web forums Sarah Hilley
T
he US Secret Service has arrested seven people, suspected of using the Internet to steal debit cards and PIN numbers. A total of 21 people have been arrested in the last three months. Further arrests are expected.
The authorities have been working undercover to disrupt Web forums, where criminals exchange stolen information to steal identities. They sell compromised credit card information, fake identity documents, and viruses and Trojans that let criminals break into people's PCs. The swoop is part of Operation Rolling Stone, which has been an undercover investigation since 2005. "Cyber crime has evolved significantly over the last two years, from dumpster diving and credit card skimming to full-fledged online bazaars full of stolen personal and financial information," said Brian Nagel of the U.S. Secret Service's Office of Investigations. He said that the force has to continiously create new techical ways of investigating crimes online to protect the American financial infrastructure. The suspects are being prosecuted by U.S. Attorneys' Offices in Nashville and Buffalo and by the District Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. The Secret Service comprises 15 Electronic Crimes Task Forces and nine Electronic Crimes Working Groups in the US.
Fix for critical IE flaw
A
s part of its monthly patch distribution, Microsoft has issued a series of new security updates, some of which are categorized as critical.
One is a fix for an unpatched security hole (known as the 'CreateTextRange' vulnerability) in Internet Explorer. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said: "Businesses have been chomping at the bit to patch against this latest vulnerability in Microsoft's code, as there were many instances of hackers attempting to exploit the flaw in the wild," said. "A security hole which allows hackers with malicious intentions to run unauthorized code on Windows computers is very serious, and all affected users should ensure they have put the right defenses in place." 20
Network Security
The anti-virus firm had reported last month how hackers were actively exploiting the vulnerabilty. At the time some computer users reported they were turning off Active Scripting or switching to alternative web browsers such as Firefox to ensure their systems were not at risk.
Small botnets are threat
B
otnet herders using zero day malcode to target small numbers of victims is emerging as a major threat du jour, Mikko Hyppönnen, chief research officer at F-Secure told attendees at Websec, in London.
Anti-virus companies, such as his own, are more and more running into the difficulty of unknown malware. Historically, AV vendors have been able to analyze malicious code samples from masses of affected customers. But now, for profit malcode is being deployed stealthily, under the radar of the AV experts. And it is being used against small numbers of well chosen targets. Hyppönnen instanced an attack which targeted members of the British Houses of Parliament earlier this year, using the WMF vulnerability. This was stopped before reaching its intended recipients, but F-Secure analyzed its Trojan payload - opening a back door entered from mainland China. As another example, he cited a spammed email seemingly from the Washington Post, and sent towards the end of 2005. This targeted recipients with .mil, .gov, and .hk addresses. It featured a Word attachment with an title intriguingly referring to intellectual property rights in China. Again, the point of ingress to the targeted computers was in mainland China. “Botnets are actually going down in size, in order to be used in under the radar attacks”, he said. Hyppönnen also warned delegates about: • competitive DDoS attacks (by one company on another) • ransom Trojans (demanding, say $20 to get files encrypted by criminals back) • man in the middle attacks against one time password systems • and mobile phone viruses “For profit mobile phone viruses, such as the RedBrowser Trojan, are a wave of the future”, he said. And, unlike computers, mobile phones have a built in billing system. “The main thing is that, since January 2003, the enemy has changed. It's no longer hobbyists, who have not totally disappeared, but for-profit criminals”, he said.
EVENTS CALENDAR 1-6 May 2006 DallasCon Information & Wireless Security conference Location: Dallas, Texas, USA Website: www.dallascon.com
22-24 May 2006 IFIP and SEC 2006 Location: Karlstad, Sweden Website: www.sec2006.org
12-14 June 2006 CSI NetSec '06 Location: Scottsdale, Arizona, USA Website: www.csinetsec.com
14-16 June 2006 Infosecurity Canada Location: Toronto, Canada Website: www.infosecuritycanada.com
25-28 June 2006 International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks 2006 Location: Philadelphia, Pa, USA Website: www.dsn.org
25-30 June 2006 18th Annual FIRST Conference Location: Baltimore, Maryland, USA Website: www.first.org/conference/2006
16-21 July 2006 IEEE CEC 2006 Special Session on Evolutionary Computation in Cryptology and Computer Security Location: Vancouver BC, Canada Website:http://163.117.149.137/cec2006s s.html
30 July - 2 August 2006 ISACA International Conference Location: Adelaide, Australia Website: www.isaca.org
20-25 August 2006 19th IFIP World Computer Congress Location: Santiago, Chile Website: http://www.wcc-2006.org/
April 2006
Secret Service dismantles web forums Sarah Hilley
T
he US Secret Service has arrested seven people, suspected of using the Internet to steal debit cards and PIN numbers. A total of 21 people have been arrested in the last three months. Further arrests are expected.
The authorities have been working undercover to disrupt Web forums, where criminals exchange stolen information to steal identities. They sell compromised credit card information, fake identity documents, and viruses and Trojans that let criminals break into people's PCs. The swoop is part of Operation Rolling Stone, which has been an undercover investigation since 2005. "Cyber crime has evolved significantly over the last two years, from dumpster diving and credit card skimming to full-fledged online bazaars full of stolen personal and financial information," said Brian Nagel of the U.S. Secret Service's Office of Investigations. He said that the force has to continiously create new techical ways of investigating crimes online to protect the American financial infrastructure. The suspects are being prosecuted by U.S. Attorneys' Offices in Nashville and Buffalo and by the District Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. The Secret Service comprises 15 Electronic Crimes Task Forces and nine Electronic Crimes Working Groups in the US.
Fix for critical IE flaw
A
s part of its monthly patch distribution, Microsoft has issued a series of new security updates, some of which are categorized as critical.
One is a fix for an unpatched security hole (known as the 'CreateTextRange' vulnerability) in Internet Explorer. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said: "Businesses have been chomping at the bit to patch against this latest vulnerability in Microsoft's code, as there were many instances of hackers attempting to exploit the flaw in the wild," said. "A security hole which allows hackers with malicious intentions to run unauthorized code on Windows computers is very serious, and all affected users should ensure they have put the right defenses in place." 20
Network Security
The anti-virus firm had reported last month how hackers were actively exploiting the vulnerabilty. At the time some computer users reported they were turning off Active Scripting or switching to alternative web browsers such as Firefox to ensure their systems were not at risk.
Small botnets are threat
B
otnet herders using zero day malcode to target small numbers of victims is emerging as a major threat du jour, Mikko Hyppönnen, chief research officer at F-Secure told attendees at Websec, in London.
Anti-virus companies, such as his own, are more and more running into the difficulty of unknown malware. Historically, AV vendors have been able to analyze malicious code samples from masses of affected customers. But now, for profit malcode is being deployed stealthily, under the radar of the AV experts. And it is being used against small numbers of well chosen targets. Hyppönnen instanced an attack which targeted members of the British Houses of Parliament earlier this year, using the WMF vulnerability. This was stopped before reaching its intended recipients, but F-Secure analyzed its Trojan payload - opening a back door entered from mainland China. As another example, he cited a spammed email seemingly from the Washington Post, and sent towards the end of 2005. This targeted recipients with .mil, .gov, and .hk addresses. It featured a Word attachment with an title intriguingly referring to intellectual property rights in China. Again, the point of ingress to the targeted computers was in mainland China. “Botnets are actually going down in size, in order to be used in under the radar attacks”, he said. Hyppönnen also warned delegates about: • competitive DDoS attacks (by one company on another) • ransom Trojans (demanding, say $20 to get files encrypted by criminals back) • man in the middle attacks against one time password systems • and mobile phone viruses “For profit mobile phone viruses, such as the RedBrowser Trojan, are a wave of the future”, he said. And, unlike computers, mobile phones have a built in billing system. “The main thing is that, since January 2003, the enemy has changed. It's no longer hobbyists, who have not totally disappeared, but for-profit criminals”, he said.
EVENTS CALENDAR 1-6 May 2006 DallasCon Information & Wireless Security conference Location: Dallas, Texas, USA Website: www.dallascon.com
22-24 May 2006 IFIP and SEC 2006 Location: Karlstad, Sweden Website: www.sec2006.org
12-14 June 2006 CSI NetSec '06 Location: Scottsdale, Arizona, USA Website: www.csinetsec.com
14-16 June 2006 Infosecurity Canada Location: Toronto, Canada Website: www.infosecuritycanada.com
25-28 June 2006 International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks 2006 Location: Philadelphia, Pa, USA Website: www.dsn.org
25-30 June 2006 18th Annual FIRST Conference Location: Baltimore, Maryland, USA Website: www.first.org/conference/2006
16-21 July 2006 IEEE CEC 2006 Special Session on Evolutionary Computation in Cryptology and Computer Security Location: Vancouver BC, Canada Website:http://163.117.149.137/cec2006s s.html
30 July - 2 August 2006 ISACA International Conference Location: Adelaide, Australia Website: www.isaca.org
20-25 August 2006 19th IFIP World Computer Congress Location: Santiago, Chile Website: http://www.wcc-2006.org/
April 2006