Malware

President Obama can order a preemptive strike if there's credible evidence of a pending major cyberattack from abroad, a secret legal review reportedly has found. New policies will dictate how intelligence agencies can monitor remote computer networks elsewhere for signs of potential attacks on the ...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

NYT Hack Shows Gaping Holes in Traditional Security Systems

After The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal revealed last week that their systems had been compromised by Chinese hackers, the Journal reported that the FBI has been probing attacks on U.S. media -- part of a long-running pattern by a "foreign entity" to compromise security at major U.S. co...

The New York Times reported on Thursday that it was the victim of a four-month cyberattack that originated in China. The intrusions may have been part of a shift by Chinese hackers to apply the same sophisticated infiltration techniques on foreign media that have been used in recent years to steal d...

The United States Department of Homeland Security Computer Emergency Readiness Team has recently been advising computer users to update or switch off Java in browsers. Oracle's Java is a programming language that's used in browser plug-ins. It's used by vendors to make applications function across ...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Brace Yourself for the Post-PC Threat Era

It was inevitable. As computing has evolved, so has its nemesis: malware. "2012 is truly the year we entered the post-PC era as cybercriminals moved to embrace Android, social media platforms, and even Macs with their attacks," Trend Micro declared in its annual Security Roundup last week. A charact...

For Oracle and its Java programming language, the hurt just keeps on coming. Fresh vulnerabilities have been discovered less than a week after Oracle updated Java to address two security flaws being exploited by hackers -- but wait, there's more. Net bandits launched a phishing campaign pushing bog...

A court in Saudi Arabia reportedly has declined to hear the case of Raif Badawi, a liberal blogger who was accused of apostasy. Apostasy,defined as the abandonment of one's faith, is a particularly grievous charge in Islam. Had it been so inclined, the court that turned down the case could have sent...

DHS is urging computer users to disable or uninstall Java due to a serious flaw in JRE 7. The DHS' Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned Thursday evening that it was being exploited in the wild and could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems. CERT recommended that Java...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Stuxnet Strikes Again? Not Likely

Iran boasted last week that its malware fighters fended off another attack on its infrastructure by the notorious Stuxnet computer worm. Stuxnet targeted a power plant and some other industries in the southern part of the country, but Iranian computer experts were able to thwart the attack, a provin...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Uncle Sam Prefers to Receive Than to Give Security Information

The White House last week released its National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding without much fanfare. The document attempts to address a common complaint lodged against government when it comes to information sharing with the private sector: Uncle Sam likes to receive, but isn't so...

While Google is poised to agree to changes in the way it displays search results and skirt an antitrust investigation in the U.S., things are still unresolved with the European Commission. Google is reportedly still negotiating with European Commission antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia. The EC is app...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Study: Nefarious Apps Easily Slip Past Jelly Bean Security

The findings weren't very sweet when researchers tested Android 4.2 Jelly Bean's beefed-up security. Of the 1,260 malware samples the team at North Carolina State University tossed at the OS, only 15 percent of them were detected by Google's app verification service. By contrast, Android anti-malwar...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested 10 individuals from around the world, including the United States, which it alleges are part of an international cybercrime ring linked to the Yahos malware. Yahos is associated with the notorious Butterfly botnet, which compromised more than 11 milli...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Cops Seek Law Requiring 2-Year SMS Storage

A number of law enforcement groups are lobbying Congress to add provisions to a bill revamping the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act that would require wireless carriers to archive text messages for as long as two years. There may be reasons for companies to archive messages -- but simply f...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Stuxnet Spotted Stateside in Chevron Computers

Chevron was infected with the Stuxnet malware in 2010, the company revealed last week, raising concerns about the effectiveness of cyberweapons as a policy tool. Because of Stuxnet's design, it didn't do any damage to Chevron's computers, but the fact that a cyberweapon created to attack Iran's nucl...

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