Another day , Another Breach - it is STAPLES('s) turn

From the Article

It appears likely that fraudsters have succeeded in stealing customer card data from some subset of Staples locations, including seven Staples stores in Pennsylvania, at least three in New York City, and another in New Jersey.


Follow this link for additional details:

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/10/banks-credit-card-breach-at-staples-stores/

Putting Windows XP to full use - By creating 500,000 PC Botnet

Well, Someone is putting it to good use

From the Article

What the attackers are after is online banking logins, which form half the business, and PCs that can be sold on to other criminals as compromised machines inside interesting organisations. These can also then be used a proxies for third-party attacks

Perhaps the real story is the incredible ease with which Qbot has found victims, 75 percent of which are based in the US. Significantly, 52 percent of these are running Windows XP, 39 percent Windows 7 with 7 percent Windows Vista.

Anyone who uses XP and still can't patch the old software on their system is probably beyond reach

Follow this link for additional details:

http://www.csoonline.com/article/2692528/cyber-attacks-espionage/windows-xp-flaws-help-russian-qbot-gang-build-500000-pc-botnet.html

USB Hack - Unfixable? - Once infected, computers and their USB peripherals can never be trusted again

Sometime back I pointed to an article "Can you or your computer detect a compromised USB device? - NO !!!"

So, if you were not careful before, change now !!

This is a follow-up.




(From the article)

Two security researchers, Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson, have reverse-engineered a popular USB firmware from Taiwanese firm Phison, which powers hundreds of millions of devices. With the right exploit, USBs can become an injection conduit for malicious code—so, a flash drive could emulate a keyboard and issue commands on behalf of the logged-in user, to exfiltrate files or install malware. Such malware, in turn, can infect the controller chips of other USB devices connected to the computer

The device can also spoof a network card and change the computer’s DNS setting to redirect traffic.


The two are replicating research from SR Labs’ Karsten Nohl, who gave a talk at the Black Hat security conference discussing the exploit, which he dubbed BadUSB. However, given the persistent nature of the issue, he decided not to release it.

“No effective defenses from USB attacks are known,” he said in his information page on the issue.


To make matters worse, cleanup after an incident is nigh impossible.

“Simply reinstalling the operating system – the standard response to otherwise ineradicable malware – does not address BadUSB infections at their root,” Nohl said. “The USB thumb drive, from which the operating system is reinstalled, may already be infected, as may the hardwired webcam or other USB components inside the computer. A BadUSB device may even have replaced the computer’s BIOS – again by emulating a keyboard and unlocking a hidden file on the USB thumb drive.”

In case we missed the point, he added, “Once infected, computers and their USB peripherals can never be trusted again.”


But the decision not to disclose is one that Caudhill and Wilson feel is a grand mistake. So now, they’ve thrown the exploit code up on Github to bring attention to the issue.

“The belief we have is that all of this should be public. It shouldn’t be held back. So we’re releasing everything we’ve got,” Caudill told the Derbycon audience in Louisville, Ky. Last week. “This was largely inspired by the fact that [SR Labs] didn’t release their material. If you’re going to prove that there’s a flaw, you need to release the material so people can defend against it.”

Government agencies and high-end espionage groups are probably already using it, Caudhill told WIRED.

The link below has more information:-
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/unfixable-usb-hack-threatens-life/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter



Previous Article

http://martin-news-bytes.blogspot.com/2014/08/can-you-or-your-computer-detect.html

Detailed review of iOS 8

There have been many short blogs but this one goes into a few fine details.




http://www.anandtech.com/show/8321/the-ios-8-review/

The most important Internet security group you’ve never heard of

Interesting....

From the Article

The FIDO Alliance includes technology heavyweights like Google, Lenovo, Microsoft and Samsung; payments giants Discover, MasterCard, PayPal and Visa; financial services companies such as Aetna, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs; and e-commerce players like Netflix and Salesforce.com. 

FIDO was founded by Lenovo, PayPal, and security technology companies AGNITiO, Nok Nok Labs and Validity Sensors

Two new authentication standards have been published for peer review, half a dozen companies showcased FIDO-Ready solutions at the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show (CES)

Follow this link for additional details:

http://www.zdnet.com/the-most-important-internet-security-group-youve-never-heard-of-7000033537/

You are not safe any more - Malvertising hits websites such as YouTube, Amazon and Yahoo

If three of the most popular sites are being targeted by Malware how, can a common man survive.

If you have not done this before , do it now. 

1. Install AV / Firewall 
2. Regularly patch your system (Free tools like PatchMyPC does a good job)
3. Take away admin privileges for your regular account and use "Run As" when you need admin rights
4. Use Browsers like Sandboxie.

A combination of all the above will still not stop all Malware but will be a powerful defence against most of them.

Oh , I forgot the most important thing.

Don't click on anything or any email that you receive ( this will help you a lot)

From the Article

The network has been nicknamed “Kyle and Stan” due to those names appearing in subdomains of more than 700 websites the attackers have set up to distribute the malware, Pelkmann wrote.

“The large number of domains allows the attackers to use a certain domain just for a very short time, burn it and move on to use another one for future attacks,” he wrote “This helps avoiding reputation and blacklist based security solutions.”

When a victim is redirected by one of the ads, the computer downloads a piece of malware with a unique checksum, making it harder for security software to detect. The download may also contain legitimate software such as a media player. 

Follow this link for additional details:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2604480/malicious-advertising-hits-amazon-youtube-and-yahoo-cisco-says.html

WireTapping - Now OutSourced

• We can't trust the ISP but we know them
• We can't trust Government but we know that,
• Now we have shady middle men (organization) that do the dirty work and we don't know them

From the Article

But when one Atlanta, Georgia-based Internet provider was served a top-secret data request, there wasn't a suited-and-booted federal agent in sight.

Why? Because the order was served on a so-called "trusted third-party," which handles the request, served fresh from the secretive Washington D.C.-based Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court. With permission from their ISP customers, these third-parties discreetly wiretap their networks at the behest of law enforcement agencies, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and even intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA).

By implementing these government data requests with precision and accuracy, trusted third-parties — like Neustar, Subsentio, and Yaana — can turn reasonable profits for their services.

Little is known about these types of companies, which act as outsourced data brokers between small and major U.S. ISPs and phone companies, and the federal government.

Follow this link for additional details:

http://www.zdnet.com/the-most-important-tech-companies-you-have-never-heard-of-7000032573/