tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15458533004368711392024-03-17T02:15:00.250-07:00Cyber Information Communication Technology Services Information Security, Ethical Hacking, website Security, Database Security, IT Audit and Compliance, Security news, Programming, Linux and Security. Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.comBlogger3281125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-13813147787234493852019-08-14T13:44:00.000-07:002019-08-14T13:44:38.398-07:00Google Discloses 20-Year-Old Unpatched Flaw Affecting All Versions of Windows<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">A Google security researcher has just disclosed</span><span style="font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> </span>details of a 20-year-old unpatched high-severity vulnerability affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows, back from Windows XP to the latest Windows 10.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The vulnerability resides in the way MSCTF clients and server communicate with each other, allowing even a low privileged or a sandboxed application to read and write data to a higher privileged application.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">MSCTF is a module in Text Services Framework (TSF) of the Windows operating system that manages things like input methods, keyboard layouts, text processing, and speech recognition.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-size: 16px;">In a nutshell, when you log in to your Windows machine, it starts a CTF monitor service that works as a central authority to handle communications between all clients, which are actually windows for each process running on the same session.</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 28px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
"You might have noticed the ctfmon service in task manager, it is responsible for notifying applications about changes in keyboard layout or input methods. The kernel forces applications to connect to the ctfmon service when they start, and then exchange messages with other clients and receive notifications from the service," the researcher explained.</blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tavis Ormandy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> from Google's Project Zero Team </span><a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1859" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #345ed6; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">discovered</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> that since there is no access control or any kind of authentication in place for this interaction, any application, any user and even sandboxed processes can:</span><br />
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<ul style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 28px 0px 28px 50px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">connect to CTF session,</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">read and write the text of any window, from any other session,</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fake their thread id, process id, and HWND,</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">pretend as a CTF service, tricking other applications, even privileged ones, to connect to it, or</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">escape from sandboxes and escalate privileges.</li>
</ul>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 28px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
"There is no access control in CTF, so you could connect to another user's active session and take over any application, or wait for an Administrator to login and compromise their session," Ormandy explains in a <a href="https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/down-rabbit-hole.html" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #345ed6; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">blog post</a> published today.</blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 28px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
"It turns out it was possible to reach across sessions and violate NT security boundaries for nearly twenty years, and nobody noticed."</blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<div class="video-container" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 28px 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 30px 0px 203.732px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="210" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r3vrzzDpmhc" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; height: 233.732px; left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 362.19px;" width="280"></iframe></div>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<div class="video-container" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 28px 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 30px 0px 203.732px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="210" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/quenNNqoDBs" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; height: 233.732px; left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 362.19px;" width="280"></iframe></div>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">If exploited, the weakness in CTF protocol could allow attackers to easily bypass User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI), letting even an unprivileged process to:</span><br />
<br />
<ul style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 28px 0px 28px 50px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">read sensitive text from any window of other applications, including passwords out of dialog boxes,</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">gain SYSTEM privileges,</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">take control of the UAC consent dialog,</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">send commands to the administrator's console session, or</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">escape IL/AppContainer sandboxes by sending input to unsandboxed windows.</li>
</ul>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Ormandy has also published a proof-of-concept video demonstrating how the issue can be exploited to gain SYSTEM privileges in Windows 10.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-size: 16px;">Besides this, CTF protocol reportedly also contain many memory corruption flaws that, according to the researcher, can be exploited in a default configuration.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 28px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
"Even without bugs, the CTF protocol allows applications to exchange input and read each other's content. However, there are a lot of protocol bugs that allow taking complete control of almost any other application. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft decides to modernize the protocol," Ormandy says.</blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The researcher has also released a custom open-source "</span><a href="https://github.com/taviso/ctftool" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #345ed6; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">CTF Exploration Tool</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">" on Github that he developed and used to discover many critical security issues in the Windows CTF protocol.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2d41; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, "Segoe UI", Corbel, -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 28px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2d41; font-family: "roboto" , "segoe ui" , "corbel" , , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Ormandy responsibly reported his findings to Microsoft in mid-May this year and released the details to the public today after Microsoft failed to address the issue within 90 days of being notified</span>Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-66735178855130038022019-07-25T22:49:00.000-07:002019-07-25T22:49:33.538-07:00Joburg City Power hit by virus, affecting electricity purchases<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%;">
A computer virus which has hit City Power has resulted in a blackout to its internet technology system, leaving scores of Johannesburg residents unable to purchase electricity, as their kilowatts approach 0.00.</div>
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The power utility’s spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the virus had attacked its database and other software, impacting on most of its applications and networks.</div>
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The virus has also prevented those who had already bought their electricity from uploading it to their meter boxes.</div>
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The City Power website is also affected by the virus.</div>
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"It may also affect our response to some outages, as the system to order and dispatch material is affected. City Power IT team has been working since early morning 01:00 to fix this problem," Mangena said.</div>
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He said they hoped to have the glitch fixed by midday on Thursday.</div>
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On Wednesday, the utility announced that it was experiencing capacity constraints due to the cold weather in Johannesburg.</div>
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Mangena said cold weather conditions could result in unplanned outages, as the electrical system experienced overloading when demand increased.</div>
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He said plans were in place to deal with unplanned outages. The key focus of the plan was to attend to those areas that experienced repeated unplanned outages on the same day or week, he said.</div>
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"We have also increased the number of technicians in areas that are prone to repeated unplanned power outages.</div>
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"More teams have been put on standby so that they can be dispatched to attend to outages and respond to emergency calls," he said.</div>
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Residents have been urged to use electricity sparingly during this time.</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-70131802509493010372019-07-21T00:12:00.000-07:002019-07-21T00:12:26.491-07:00iNSYNQ Cloud Hosting Provider Hit by Ransomware Attack<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, "times new roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
Cloud computing provider iNSYNQ experienced a ransomware attack which forced the company to shut down some of its servers to contain the malware infection from spreading and affecting more customer data.</div>
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iNSYNQ is an authorized Microsoft, Intuit, and Sage host which provides customers with cloud-based virtual desktops designed to host business applications such as QuickBooks, Sage, Act & Office.</div>
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"iNSYNQ experienced a ransomware attack on 7/16/19 perpetrated by unknown malicious attackers. The attack impacted data belonging to certain iNSYNQ clients, rendering such data inaccessible," says a <a href="https://www.insynq.com/support/#status" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">status update</a> published on the company's support website.</div>
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"As soon as iNSYNQ discovered the attack, iNSYNQ took steps to contain it. This included turning off some servers in the iNSYNQ environment. This effort was made to protect our clients data and backups.</div>
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<img alt="iNSYNQ status" class="b-lazy b-loaded" height="526" src="https://www.bleepstatic.com/images/news/u/1109292/July%202019/iNSYNQ%20status.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="1108" /></div>
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The cloud hosting firm also says that it has hired cybersecurity experts to help restore access to affected customer data and to all clients' virtual desktops, with "major traction" to be made "by early next week" according to a letter sent to customers by iNSYNQ's CEO.</div>
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As iNSYNQ's CEO Elliot Luchansky also added in his letter, "Understandably, there have been many requests for backups I want to be very clear that we are not withholding data or backups, we simply cannot safely access them at this time.</div>
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"We'll still doing everything in our power to ensure that the backups are available to you once we have addressed the underlying problem. Our entire team is working diligently to protect and restore access to your impacted data [..]"</div>
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Luchansky also answered some of the questions asked by iNSYNQ's customers following the downtime caused by the ransomware attack stating that:</div>
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Unfortunately, these kinds of things are inevitable. No system is 100% impervious to malware, and we collectively were victims of an attack perpetrated by unknown malicious actors. We wish we had a quick-fix or a way to fully eliminate these risks. If we did, then obviously this kind of event would never happen.</div>
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He also said that a timeline for when the customers' environments will be back up is not yet available but the iNSYNQ team is accelerating the process of restoring the clients' data and getting all systems online.</div>
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<figure class="image" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="Letter from iNSYNQ's CEO" class="b-lazy b-loaded" height="433" src="https://www.bleepstatic.com/images/news/u/1109292/July%202019/Letter%20from%20iNSYNQ's%20CEO.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="1600" /><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Letter from iNSYNQ's CEO</span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> (h/t <a href="https://twitter.com/LooseCannon33" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">TC</a>)</em></figcaption></figure></div>
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"We turned off servers as soon as we identified that we were being attacked, and are currently working very closely with industry-leading experts that specialize in working through events like this, so that we are able to restore the access as quickly as we possibly can," added Luchansky.</div>
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"We contained the situation as soon as we became aware of it. There is no evidence to suggest that any of your files have been copied from the iNSYNQ environment. The issue at hand centers on being able to access your files that have been encrypted; it is not a matter of your data being stolen or copied," iNSYNQ's CEO also said.</div>
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While the letter sent by the CEO to the company's customers after the security incident provides some extra info on what happened, there is no mention of the ransomware attack that hit iNSYNQ on Luchansky's <a href="https://twitter.com/elliotluchansky" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Twitter account</a> or on the iNSYNQ account that is no longer accessible — a Google-cached version of the account's contents can be found <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PlKsZdXr6a0J:https://twitter.com/insynq%3Flang%3Den+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ro" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a>).</div>
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A customer who got in touch with the iNSYNQ team <a href="https://twitter.com/hockeygirlPDX/status/1151945932935585792" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">says</a> that the clients' data backups were stored on a separate server but on the same network affected by the cyber-attack. </div>
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The company also believes that all the customer data will be recovered and restored but it will take some time until all the backups will be checked to make sure that the malware did not affect them in any way.</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-64936498552042239012019-07-20T23:52:00.002-07:002019-07-20T23:52:58.464-07:00Russian FSB Intel Agency Contractor Hacked, Secret Projects Exposed<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, "times new roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
A contractor for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has been hacked and secret projects that were being developed for the intelligence agency were leaked to Russian Media. These projects detail Russia's attempt to de-anonymize users on the Tor network, collect data from social networks, and how to isolate the Russian portion of the Internet from the rest of the world.</div>
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On July 13th, 2019, a contactor for the Russia FSB named "Sytech" was claimed to be hacked by a hacking group named <a href="https://twitter.com/0v1ruS" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">0v1ru$</a>. As part of this hack, the group defaced the contactor's site to show an image of "Yoba-face", which they posted an image of on their Twitter feed.</div>
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<figure class="image" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="Yoba-face on Sytech's site" class="no_b_lazy" height="711" src="https://www.bleepstatic.com/images/news/security/r/russia/sitech-hack/Yoba-face.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="986" /><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Yoba-face on Sytech's site</span></figcaption></figure></div>
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In addition, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-49050982" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">BBC Russia reports</a> that the hackers stole 7.5TB of data from the contractor's network. This data includes information about numerous non-public projects that were being developed by Sytech on behalf of the Russian government and its intelligence agency.</div>
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To prove they gained access to Sytech's servers, 0v1ru$ posted images of internal pages of Sytech's web site and of server drives and users in their Windows domain controller.</div>
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This stolen data was then passed on to another hacking group named <a href="https://twitter.com/D1G1R3V" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">DigitalRevolution</a>, who shared the data with Russian media. Digital Revolution claimed to have hacked the Russian research institute "Kvant" in 2018.</div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/D1G1R3V/status/1151717992583110657" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><img alt="Tweet from DigitalRevoluion" class="b-lazy b-loaded" height="499" src="https://www.bleepstatic.com/images/news/security/r/russia/sitech-hack/digitalrevolution-tweet.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="500" /></a></div>
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The stolen data seen by BBC Russia outlines a variety of projects being developed by Sytech. These projects include:</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Mentor </span>was allegedly being developed for the Russian military unit No. 71330, which is reportedly the radio-electronic intelligence of the FSB of Russia. This project would monitor selected email accounts at specified intervals in order to collect information related to certain phrases.</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Nadezhda</span>, or <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Hope</span> in English, is a project designed to visualize how Russia is connected to the rest of the Internet. This research is part of Russia's attempts to create a "sovereign Internet" where Russia can isolate itself from the rest of the Internet.</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Nautilus </span>is a project developed between 2009 and 2010 to collect information about users on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Nautilus-S </span>is research into de-anonymizing users on the Tor network by creating exit nodes that were controlled by the Russian government. This project was allegedly started at the request of the Russian Research Institute "Kvant".</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Reward </span>was being designed to penetrate and perform covert operations on peer-to-peer networks. This includes BitTorrent, Jabber, OpenFT, and ED2K</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Tax-3 </span>is the most recent project and was commissioned by "Chief Scientific Innovation Innovation Center JSC, reporting to the Federal Tax Service.". This project would provide the ability to manually remove information from the Federal Tax Service about people under state protection.</div>
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The site for Sytech (<a href="https://www.sytech.ru/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">www.sytech.ru</a>) has since been shut down and have not responded to inquiries by the BBC.</div>
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While this data breach is not nearly as concerning as the <a href="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/government/wikileaks-publishes-vault-7-collection-of-alleged-cia-hacking-tools/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Vault 7 WikiLeaks leak of NSA exploits</a>, the BBC has stated that this is the largest data leak in the history of Russian special services.</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-58089569422776267272019-07-20T23:39:00.000-07:002019-07-20T23:39:27.667-07:00ever, warn police Microsoft opens Dynamics 365 bug bounty with $20k top prize<div style="background-color: white; color: #080e14; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 21px; padding: 0px;">
Microsoft has launched one more bug bounty to its security rewards lineup. Now researchers will for the first time be able to hunt for bugs in <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-outlines-new-features-for-its-wave-2-dynamics-365-crm-and-erp-refresh/" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">Dynamics 365 ERP and CRM software</a> and get rewards of up to $20,000. </div>
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The<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/bounty-dynamics" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> Dynamics 365 Bounty program</a> opened two , inviting researchers to find and report vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Dynamics 365 applications with incentive rewards of between $500 and $20,000 for valid bugs. </div>
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There are dozens of online and on-premise Dynamics 365 applications: online apps include Dynamics 365 for sales, customer service, field service, talent, finance and operations, retail and more. The latest releases of on-premise Dynamics 365 apps are also in scope, including Dynamics AX, CRM, GP, NAV, and SL.<br />
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Microsoft has also updated its main <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/bounty?rtc=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Microsoft Bug Bounty Program</a> with simplified high-level requirements for them and extra links and resources. </div>
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And it's reorganized its bug bounties into three main categories: Cloud Programs; Platform Programs; and Defense Programs. </div>
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Dynamics 365 is the newest under the Cloud Programs section, which also includes Microsoft Identity services, such as Azure Active Directory. Also in this group are Azure DevOps Services, .NET Core and <a href="http://asp.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">ASP.NET</a> Core, andthe Microsoft Cloud Bounty. </div>
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The Platform Programs cover Microsoft Hyper-V, the Windows Insider Preview, Windows Defender Application Guard, the Edge on Windows Insider Preview, and Office Insider. </div>
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The Defense Programs currently only includes the 'Mitigation Bypass and Bounty for Defense', which offers the highest rewards of up to $100,000.</div>
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The extra resources include links to frequently asked questions, examples of low and <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/bounty-example-report-submission?rtc=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">high quality reports</a>, <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-details-for-the-first-time-how-it-classifies-windows-security-bugs/" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">the Windows security servicing criteria</a>, a <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">directory of Azure Services</a>, <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Microsoft product documentation</a>, and a link to <a href="https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/category/srd/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">the Microsoft Security Research & Defense blog</a>. </div>
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The Dynamics 365 top payout is in line with the top reward for the Microsoft Cloud Bounty, <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-our-bug-bounty-payouts-hit-2m-in-2018-and-were-offering-more-in-2019/" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">which recently got bumped up to $20,000 from $15,000</a>. </div>
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Earlier this year Microsoft <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-our-bug-bounty-payouts-hit-2m-in-2018-and-were-offering-more-in-2019/" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">handed off payment-processing responsibilities</a> to <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/faqs-bounty?rtc=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">third-party bug bounty platform HackerOne and has since added Bugcrowd</a> to its payment roster. Microsoft continues to handle triage of bug reports and deciding on the value of rewards, but moved to HackerOne and Bugcrowd in order to speed up payments to researchers offer different payment options, including in cryptocurrency. </div>
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Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-498157797400531192019-07-14T15:06:00.000-07:002019-07-14T15:06:27.812-07:00 MUST READ: ZDNet is giving away $1,000 in Amazon gift cards Hacker discloses Magyar Telekom vulnerabilities, faces jail term<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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An ethical hacker who reported serious vulnerabilities in Magyar Telekom has been arrested and faces years behind bars for "disturbing a public utility."</div>
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Magyar Telekom, a Hungarian telecommunications company, filed a complaint against the hacker who is now being defended by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU/TASZ).</div>
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<a href="https://hungarytoday.hu/ethical-hacker-faces-8-years-in-prison-for-exposing-vulnerability-in-telekoms-system/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">According to local media</a>, the man discovered a severe vulnerability in the telecom provider's systems in April 2018. These findings were reported to the company and both parties met.</div>
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The idea of working together was floated but never came into fruition, and in the meantime, the researcher continued probing Magyar Telekom's networks.</div>
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In May, the hacker found another vulnerability which the publication says, if exploited, could have been used to "access all public and retail mobile and data traffic, and monitor servers."</div>
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<a href="https://index.hu/belfold/2017/07/26/telekom_t-systems_biztonsagi_res_nni_etikus_hekker_rendorseg_nni_orizetbe_vetel/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">According to Index.hu</a>, the first vulnerability allowed the hacker to obtain an administrator password through a public-facing service. The second bug allowed him to "create a test user with administrative privileges."</div>
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On the same day, the company noticed strange activity on their network and reported a cyberintrusion to the police, leading to the man's arrest.</div>
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The trial has already begun. Hungary's prosecution service is requesting a prison term, while the HCLU has fought back, claiming that the indictment is "incomplete" as "it is not clear what exactly he has done."</div>
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Magyar Telekom <a href="https://www.napi.hu/tech/hacker-telekom-ugyeszseg-borton-tasz.677573.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">told Napi.hu</a>:</div>
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"The hacker, beyond the limits of ethical hacking, launched new attacks after the first attack, and began to crack additional systems with the data he had acquired so far."</div>
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A plea deal was on the table. If the man admitted his 'guilt,' he would be given a two-year suspended sentence. However, this was refused and now the researcher is being charged with an upgraded crime -- the "disrupting the operation of a public utility" -- and could end up behind bars for up to eight years.</div>
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Ethical hacking is often considered outside of criminal law as intrusions can benefit companies and society as a whole, a "good faith" concept which is argued as part of HCLU's defense strategy.</div>
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However, there are still rules which should be observed, such as making sure no private data is taken and day-to-day operations are not disrupted due to testing and probes.</div>
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This encapsulates the prosecutor's case. Law enforcement claim that the hacker crossed an ethical line and his actions may have posed a "danger to society," and therefore he can be charged under the country's criminal laws.</div>
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However, there is no evidence that the man in question disregarded these rules, and in a separate statement, the company said itself that the customer data was "safe and secure."</div>
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"If someone finds a mistake on a system of Magyar Telekom Group and reports it to Telekom immediately, it does not use it in any way (eg does not modify, delete, save information, etc.), cooperates with Telekom's own investigation and does not publish (this endangers the system), Telekom will not file a complaint against it," Magyar Telekom added.</div>
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The case is ongoing</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-85423633953786442762019-07-14T14:48:00.000-07:002019-07-14T14:48:07.741-07:00Engineer flees to China after stealing source code of US train firm<div style="background-color: white; color: #080e14; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 21px; padding: 0px;">
Insider threats are a common problem for companies now increasingly reliant on computers and electronic systems, with the risk of intellectual property theft a constant worry. </div>
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For one locomotive manufacturer in Chicago, a software engineer handed the keys to the kingdom became the ultimate example of how much data can be stolen by a single individual -- and where it may end up. </div>
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According to newly unsealed <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/newly-unsealed-federal-indictment-charges-software-engineer-taking-stolen-trade-secrets-china" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">federal indictment charges</a> revealed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday, Xudong "William" Yao is currently in hiding after allegedly stealing a vast array of information belonging to his former employer. </div>
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The unnamed locomotive manufacturer hired Yao in 2014. US prosecutors say that within two weeks of starting his new job, Yao downloaded over 3,000 electronic files containing "proprietary and trade secret information relating to the system that operates the manufacturer's locomotives."</div>
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This was not the end of the matter. Over the course of the next six months, the software engineer allegedly continued to download and steal more files containing corporate and intellectual property.</div>
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Notably, this included nine complete copies of the company's control system source code and the technical blueprints which described how the source code worked in depth.</div>
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While Yao pilfered the US company's trade secrets, the engineer also reportedly accepted a job with a business in China that specializes in automotive telematics. </div>
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In February 2015, Yao was fired for reasons which were not related to theft by the US locomotive firm. In July 2015, following his dismissal, Yao made copies of the stolen data, traveled to China, and began working for his new employer. The engineer then traveled to Chicago with the stolen intellectual property in his possession before once again returning to China. </div>
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Since his last known movements, the engineer has not been traced, but US law enforcement believes Yao is on the run in the country. A federal warrant was issued in 2017 but the engineer is yet to be apprehended. </div>
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Yao is charged with nine counts of theft of trade secrets. If found and convicted, the software engineer faces up to 10 years in prison. </div>
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Earlier this month, a 64-year-old electrical engineer was found guilty of conspiring to smuggle <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/engineer-found-guilty-of-trying-to-sell-military-chips-to-china/" style="color: #1174c7; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">military-grade semiconductor chips</a> to China. The engineer and co-conspirators posed as customers to gain access to custom processors, and the physical products were then shipped to a Chinese company. The processors are used by clients including the US Air Force and DARPA.</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-57650581596651689892019-07-14T14:33:00.000-07:002019-07-14T14:33:36.495-07:00UK Home Secretary doubles down on cops' deeply flawed facial recognition trials<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arimo, Arial, FreeSans, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
As if further indication was needed of Britain's slide into a surveillance state, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has backed highly flawed police trials of facial recognition cameras.</div>
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Speaking at the launch of tools to be used to combat online child abuse, he said it was right for forces to "be on top of the latest technology".</div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">"I back the police in looking at technology and trialling it," he </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48959380" style="color: #57798e; text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">told the BBC</a><span style="text-align: center;">. Javid added that "different types of facial recognition technology is being trialled especially by the Met at the moment and I think it's right they look at that,"</span></div>
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"If they want to take it further it's also right that they come to government, we look at it carefully and we set out through Parliament how that can work."</div>
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However, <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/04/met_police_slammed_for_facial_recognition_practice/" style="color: #57798e; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">a report by researchers at the University of Essex</a> into the Met's facial recognition trials last week found that just eight correct matches were made out of 42 suggested.</div>
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The researchers were granted unprecedented access to the final six tests and concluded that not only is the technology highly inaccurate but its deployment is likely to be found "unlawful" if challenged in court.</div>
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An individual in <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/13/cardiff_man_legal_challenge_south_wales_police_facial_recognition/" style="color: #57798e; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Cardiff has already mounted a legal challenge</a> to the use of facial recognition tech in public areas by South Wales Police - this was the first such case to be launched in the UK.</div>
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Javid's comments come hot on the heels of remarks by the head of London's Metropolitan Police union that the authoritarian Chinese government's use of facial recognition was "spot on".</div>
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Speaking on the BBC Essex Breakfast Show, <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/08/facial_recognition_metropolitan_police_china/" style="color: #57798e; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Ken Marsh said</a>: "Although China is a very intrusive country and I don't agree with a lot of what they do, they've got it absolutely correct. They're recognising individuals per second and they've got it spot on."</div>
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The Information Commissioner, the UK's data watchdog, has also raised concerns about the technology, saying forces have to demonstrate that it is effective and less intrusive alternatives are not available.</div>
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Javid was speaking at the launch of new tools costing £1.7m designed to counter online child abuse.</div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">They include a fast-forensic tool to analyse seized devices and find images already known to law enforcement; an image categorisation algorithm to assist officers to identify and categorise the severity of illegal imagery; and a capability to detect images with matching scenes to help identify children in indecent images in order to safeguard victims.</span></div>
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Javid said: “This game-changing tech will help us do this and will be vital in the fight against online child abusers.” </div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-33878421811309357802019-07-14T13:09:00.000-07:002019-07-14T13:10:58.540-07:00TrickBot returns with new attack that compromised 250 million email addressesThe TrickBot malware, which earlier this year worked in tandem with the Ryuk ransomware to siphon millions of dollars for hackers, is back with a new attack that may have compromised as many as 250 million email accounts.<br />
<br />
<br />
In a report by Deep Instinct, the cybersecurity company revealed a new variant of TrickBot that teams it up with a malicious, email-based infection and distribution module dubbed TrickBooster.<br />
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The new attack starts the same as in previous methods, with TrickBot infiltrating a victim’s computer. The malware then forces the machine to download TrickBooster, which reports back to a dedicated command and control server with lists of email addresses and log-in credentials harvested from the victim’s inbox, outbox, and address book. Afterwards, the TrickBooster server instructs the infected machine to send out malicious infection and spam emails, with the emails deleted from the outbox and trash folder to remain hidden from the victim.<br />
<br />
In Deep Instinct’s investigation of TrickBooster and its associated network infrastructure, the cybersecurity firm discovered a database containing 250 million email accounts that were harvested by TrickBot operators. The addresses were likely also targeted with the malicious emails.<br />
<br />
The recovered email dump includes about 26 million addresses on Gmail, 19 million on Yahoo, 11 million on Hotmail, 7 million on AOL, 3.5 million on MSN, and 2 million on Yahoo U.K. The compromised accounts also involved many government departments and agencies in the United States, including but not limited to the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Others affected include government organizations and universities in the United Kingdom and Canada.<br />
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<br />Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-15283295507612941212019-01-06T10:07:00.003-08:002019-01-06T10:07:50.711-08:00 Nigeria -- Banks, PSPs race to comply with CBN risk-based cyber security framework<img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-715234 lazyload" data-lazy-loaded="true" height="225" src="https://guardian.ng/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/CyberSecurity.-AFP.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="400" /> <br />
Central
Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released a risk-based cybersecurity framework
and guidelines for Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and Payment Service
Providers (PSPs) which they must comply with by January 1, 2019.
<br />
This is in line with its new licensing regime as well as in compliance with Nigeria Cyber security act of 2015.<br />
<br />
In a circular to the concerned organisations which accompanied the
framework and guideline, CBN noted that the framework represents the
minimum requirements to be put in place by all DMBs in their respective
cybersecurity programmes. <br />
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In the guideline made available to Nigeria Communications week, CBN
stated that: “In recent times, cybersecurity threats have increased in
number and sophistication as DMBs and PSPs, use information technology
to expedite the flow of funds among entities. <br />
“In this regard, threats such as ransomware, targeted phishing
attacks and Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), have become prevalent;
demanding that DMBs and PSPs remain resilient and take proactive steps
to secure their critical information assets including customer
information that are accessible from the cyberspace. <br />
“DMBs/PSPs should note that for a cybersecurity programme to be
successful, it must be fully integrated into their business goals and
objectives, and must be an integral part of the overall risk management
processes.” <br />
Ahmed Adesanya, IT Security and Connectivity Consultant, commended
CBN for rising to the occasion of protecting the country’s economy with
this regulatory framework.<br />
He said that the risk-based cyber security framework and guideline
have lifted the responsibility of cyber security from the IT departments
of banks to board and top management issues.<br />
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“This framework will increase banks cyber security readiness in the
event of any cyber-attack or electronic fraud and stakeholders in the
highest authority of banks and payment service providers are now
involved in addressing cyber security issues. This is a move in the
right direction by CBN to protect customers of Deposit Money Banks and
PSP,” he noted.<br />
Engr. Ike Nnamani, chief executive officer, Demadiur Systems – a
cybersecurity firm, said that the involvement of senior management in
cyber security policies in organizations as contained in the CBN
framework was listed in the 2017 Nigeria Cyber Security Report published
by Demadiur Systems Limited. <br />
“This became necessary because in the survey done in 2017 and even
2016 it was discovered that over 95% of the Nigerian business do not
have a specific budget for confronting cyber treats. <br />
Only when there is a problem that the IT team makes request for cyber
security solutions and often it is not approved based on the fact that
it not in the annual budget. <br />
This has led to a situation where most organizations suffer cyber security losses that are avoidable if given priority. <br />
“The decision by the CBN is therefore a welcomed development that
will create a more secured cyber space for the country. It is
recommended that other agencies and organizations adopt this policy
also,” he said.<br />
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Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-22512678684408712782019-01-06T09:44:00.002-08:002019-01-06T09:44:59.495-08:00Microsoft challenges Nigeria to use technology to address unemployment<div style="text-align: justify;">
<img alt="Image result for microsoft" class="rg_ic rg_i" height="299" id="dmyoGGW01Ddu9M:" 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" 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Global tech giant, Microsoft, has
challenged Nigeria to take advantage of technology to address the
endemic problem of unemployment in the country.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Public Sector Government Leader,
Microsoft Middle East and Africa, Salwa Smaoui, threw the challenge in
an interview with our correspondent on the sidelines of a summit with
government official titled ‘Re-imagining the future of Nigeria.’</div>
<div class="code-block code-block-1" style="float: left; margin: 8px 8px 8px 0;">
Smaoui said instead of seeing emerging
technologies such as Artificial Intelligence as a challenge, Nigeria
could take advantage of such technologies and position its youthful
population to be relevant in the emerging global knowledge economy.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She listed cybersecurity as one of the areas where Nigeria could help to fill the gaps existing in the global pool of experts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According to the Microsoft egghead, a
gap of 3.5 million people currently exist in cybersecurity and Nigeria
can possibly exploit the opportunity through training and positioning of
its youthful population to take advantage of the global skills gap in
the field.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Smaoui said that Nigeria could also be
part of the forthcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution by repositioning
its universities to train products that could take up opportunities that
were available all over the world.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She identified the management of energy
as another area that technology could help Nigeria to reposition its
economy, adding that through adequate deployment of technology, Nigeria
can introduce transparency in the management of its oil and gas
resources.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Smaoui said, “Digital transformation can
enable a lot of Nigerians. When we talk about energy and oil; how can
technology drive transparency? How can technology drive better
management of subsidies to the oil companies? How can we diversify the
economy so that it doesn’t stay on oil and gas?”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She added, “Sixty five per cent of the
population – they are going to school today – will work on jobs that we
don’t even know. How do we prepare for that? How do we make sure that we
are preparing a smart nation that will not only serve Nigeria but also
serve the world?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Microsoft leader also listed tax
collection as another area that technology could help Nigeria to improve
its economy. She said Nigeria could borrow a leaf from Zimbabwe which
she said had leveraged the power of technology to transform its tax
collection process.</div>
<div class="code-block code-block-2" style="float: left; margin: 8px 8px 8px 0;">
She also advocated the use of cloud
resources as a viable alternative to investing in data centres, adding
that hybrid cloud could help any nation to safeguard its sensitive data
resources.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Speaking at the event, Director- General
of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Dr Isah
Ibrahim, said that the Federal Government had recorded some successes in
the deployment of technology to solve local challenges.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He said that the unflinching commitment
of the government to stamping out the menace of corruption led to the
implementation of Treasury Single Account driven essentially by
information technology.</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-63105030759140525252019-01-06T09:08:00.001-08:002019-01-06T09:08:25.062-08:00Nigeria -- Banks lose to cyber-crime globally, says CIBNBanks’ loss to cyber-crime globally has risen to $700 billion yearly,
President/Chairman of Council, Chartered Institute of Bankers of
Nigeria (CIBN), Uche Olowu, has said.<br />
Speaking during the roundtable on information security meeting in
Lagos, he said despite the benefits provided by financial technology
(Fintech), there are equally heightened risks of cyber threats and
fraudulent activities with Nigerian banks alone losing N198 billion to
the threat annually.<br />
He said criminal activities such as credit card fraud, phishing,
Automated Teller Machine (ATM) fraud and identity theft have
increasingly become threat to banking operations.<br />
“Statistics put the cost of cyber-crime globally at $700 billion
annually, a figure projected to rise to about $2 trillion by 2019, due
to the rapid digitisation of consumer lives and company records. In the
case of Nigeria, about N198 billion is said to be lost to the
ever-increasing cases of cyber-crimes per annum usually perpetrated
through the financial system,” he said.<br />
Olowu explained that while a variety of organisations are exposed to
cybercrime, the financial sector is particularly vulnerable given its
crucial role of financial intermediation in a highly connected global
financial system.<br />
He said: “Nigerian banking or financial services sector company
should no longer ask if they are going to be hacked and instead when
Cybersecurity is no longer just about protecting a business’
information. It is critical to maintaining trust with the public and
customers, building company reputation, as well as safeguarding data,
and critical infrastructure. This can all influence higher-level issues
like maintaining competitiveness in the market, stock price, and
shareholder value.<br />
“For financial sector institutions, cybersecurity has become an issue
from the top down. Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officers and
Senior Executive must ensure that they are making the right decisions
about cybersecurity for their institution. Shareholders and company
Board of Directors are now asking questions about companies’ approach to
cybersecurity and readiness to face an attack and CEOs must make it
clear that security is not just an IT problem – it is a priority for the
business. CEOs need to be able to answer tough questions and prove that
they are working with the senior leadership team to develop a
cybersecurity strategy and that they understand the cybersecurity
landscape and how it can affect key business function in the company.”<br />
He said it is incumbent upon CEOs to learn more about cybersecurity
to ensure that their company is taking appropriate actions to secure
their most valuable information assets. “This does not mean that every
CEO needs to become a cybersecurity expert. Rather, CEOs should increase
their knowledge of core cybersecurity concepts and leverage their own
leadership skills to conceptualise and manage risk in strategic terms,
understanding the business impact of risk. Most executives want to
manage cybersecurity risks in the same thoughtful and intelligent way as
they manage other aspects of their business,” he said.<br />
Speaking on data security, he said banks are privy to an immense
amount of data, which if put in the wrong hands could be harnessed for
illicit activities. The most popular example being Facebook data and the
data harnessed by Cambridge Analytica through the Application
Programmable Interface (API) and the interference in the 2016 American
Elections.<br />
“As a solution, I implore intermediaries such as Payment Solutions
Service Providers (PSSP) to efficiently act on data breaches.
Furthermore, I believe that Data Privacy challenges could be effectively
tackled with adequate legislation, which would enforce best practices
in data protection. Also, a constant review of compliance with global
standards such International Standard Organisations (ISO) and Payment
Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) are ensured by the
players in the financial service industry,” he said.<br />
He said identity theft is on the rise due to the adoption of
digitised platforms globally. The ease at which personal data could be
illegally harvested is now more sophisticated than ever. “As a
suggestion, I implore all banks to invest further in user education of
customers on possible threats with remedies for mitigating such threats.
I, also implore banks to further employ the use of intelligence systems
and tools such as Predictive Analytics solutions to determine irregular
activities on bank accounts, which have been compromised or
inconspicuous fraudulent activities.”Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-44966442009310703862019-01-06T09:03:00.001-08:002019-01-06T09:03:44.592-08:00Nigeria-- Banks, Fintechs Urged to Invest in Cyber Security Solutions<div class="td-g-rec td-g-rec-id-content_top td_uid_3_5c32307ee936b_rand td_block_template_1 ">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<img alt="" class="entry-thumb td-animation-stack-type0-2" height="418" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/thisday-846548948316-wp-data/wp-media/2018/09/cdd23e01-banks-and-capital-696x418.jpg" title="Banks AND Capital" width="696" /> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Banks and financial technology companies have been urged to invest in innovative solutions in combating cybercrimes.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The charge was given at a breakfast
meeting organised by Best of Breed Business Solutions Limited (BBBS) in
conjunction with its Partner, Barac Uk, to address enterprise fraud and
cyber security challenges in the Nigeria market.</div>
<div class="td-g-rec td-g-rec-id-content_inlineleft td_uid_2_5c32307ee90e6_rand td_block_template_1 ">
</div>
<div class="td-g-rec td-g-rec-id-content_inlineleft td_uid_2_5c32307ee90e6_rand td_block_template_1 ">
Speaking at the event, the Chief
Executive Officer, Best Business Solution Limited, Mbama Ethelbert, said
to address issues around the fraud and cyber threats, it was important
for companies to understand the kind of data that was being generated by
organisations such as banks and telecommunication companies.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“Most organisations, especially, service
oriented organisations like banks, telecoms, fintech companies are
moving toward digital transformation as a key strategy. “This means
opening up of its platforms to third party vendors/partners, using
multiple channels to offer services to their customers such as social
media channels, mobile, web, PoS and others.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“These generate massive volumes of data and expose the organisations to threats,” he noted.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He also stated that presently, there are
two kinds of data known as structured and unstructured data, “and a
third one that sits between both data types known as semi-unstructured
data.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He stated that structured data can be
stored in a relational database such as Oracle, MS SQL and other, “here,
data is stored in tables with rows and columns. They have relational
key and can be easily be mapped into pre-designed fields. Thus, they are
highly organised information that uploads neatly into a relational
database.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In his remarks, the Chief Executive
Officer, Barac Uk, Omar Yaacoubi, noted that there are various measures
which the banks has to put in place, so that when hackers change their
behaviours, the solutions that they are using can also change their
behaviour as well.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He explained that modifying the rules
was complex, noting that solutions such as artificial intelligence,
machine learning and behaviour analytics, would help solve part of the
challenges.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Continuing, Ethelbert added: “Structured
data concerns all data which can be stored in a Relational Database
like Oracle, MS SQL etc. Here, data is stored in tables with rows and
columns.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unity Bank Wins Award</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unity Bank Plc has won the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) 2018 sustainable banking award.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Specifically, the financial institution won the ‘Sustainable Transaction of the Year in Agriculture’ award.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The bank won the award for its
compliance with the sustainable banking principles as it relates to the
management of environmental and social risk set out by the CBN for
adoption by Nigerian banks, discount houses and development banks.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A statement explained that at the
recently held Bankers’ Committee held in Lagos, the CBN had while
presenting the award commended Unity Bank’s efforts in promoting the
Anchor Borrowers Program (ABP), Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria
(RIFAN) project.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According to the statement, the
regulator had added that the lender deserved the award because of the
role it played in actualisation and management of this audacious
projects.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The active involvement of the bank in
various financing schemes had resulted in creating huge social and
economic impact on the income of households involving over 270,000
participating small holder farmers thereby boosting not only the gross
domestic product but also helping to achieve self-sufficiency in food
production.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Commenting on the development, the
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Unity Bank Plc, Mrs. Tomi
Somefun, dedicated the award to all farmers and businesses in
agriculture value chain, adding: “we have successfully on-boarded over
90,000 hitherto financially excluded farmers and generated bank
verification number for them to facilitate financial and banking
transaction.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She added: “Capacities of about 60 agro
input suppliers were expanded through provision of facilities and
financial advisory services.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“The bank’s environmental and social
management program covers comprehensive business operations that
minimises adverse impact on the environment in the scope of its business
activities.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According to Somefun, the bank’s
environmental management policies and strategies comprehensively covers
priority areas that encourages bio-diversity, green initiatives,
recycling of waste, reduction of carbon emission geared towards
promoting sustainability, conservation and environmental protection.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unity Bank Plc is a niche player in
agricultural financing in Nigeria, with active participation in most
government intervention schemes and support for key policy initiatives.</div>
These are aimed at driving growth and transformation of Nigeria’s agricultural economy.Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-22400189605435997722019-01-06T08:53:00.000-08:002019-01-06T08:53:39.329-08:00Marriott: Good news. Hackers only took 383 million booking records ... <img alt="Man opens hotel room with key card" class="article_img" height="293" src="https://regmedia.co.uk/2018/04/25/keycard.jpg?x=442&y=293&crop=1" width="442" />
<br />
Hotel megachain Marriott International has gone into
further detail on the cyber-raid on its reservation database, including
the number of payment cards and passport details siphoned off by
hackers.<br />
In an <a href="http://news.marriott.com/2019/01/marriott-provides-update-on-starwood-database-security-incident/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">update today</a> to its November 30 disclosure, Marriott now says the (allegedly Chinese) miscreants who broke into
its Starwood guest database made off with a total of 5.25 million
unencrypted passport numbers and 20.3 million encrypted numbers.<br />
While the passport numbers would be considered
sensitive personal information that should not be made public, the
numbers and names of guests alone <a href="https://twitter.com/TravelGov/status/1069709835816587265" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">would not be enough</a> for a criminal to create a forged passport. Still, Marriott will be covering the cost for anyone who has had to get a new passport as a result of the data theft.<br />
In addition to the passport numbers, Marriott says
the criminals made off with 8.6 million encrypted payment card numbers.
While there would be the chance for fraud should those numbers be
decrypted, most would be useless by now as, according to Marriott, all
but 354,000 of the lifted numbers were expired by September 2018, which
was when the heist was discovered. On the other hand, the hackers were
in Marriott's systems from 2014 to that date, so many of those cards
were likely active during the database infiltration, we reckon.<br />
"There is no evidence that the unauthorized third
party accessed either of the components needed to decrypt the encrypted
payment card numbers," Marriott said in its statement.<br />
<h3 class="crosshead">
<span>Book 'em, Danno</span>
</h3>
If there is some good news to be had for Marriott, it
is that the total number of stolen records is a bit lower than first
feared. The resort chain has revised its original estimate of 500
million hacked records to a slightly less-catastrophic 383 million.
That's 383 million reservations, not 383 million unique people: some
folks obviously stayed in the hotels more than once during the
mega-hack.<br />
Those stolen records potentially include: unencrypted
names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passport
numbers, Starwood Preferred Guest account information, dates of birth,
genders, arrival and departure information, reservation dates, and
communication preferences.<br />
"Marriott now believes that the number of potentially
involved guests is lower than the 500 million the company had
originally estimated," the chain was keen to stress.<br />
"Marriott has identified approximately 383 million
records as the upper limit for the total number of guest records that
were involved in the incident. This does not, however, mean that
information about 383 million unique guests was involved, as in many
instances, there appear to be multiple records for the same guest.<br />
"The company has concluded with a fair degree of
certainty that information for fewer than 383 million unique guests was
involved, although the company is not able to quantify that lower number
because of the nature of the data in the database."<br />
The security breach will mean the end of the road for
the Starwood Reservations system at the center of the hack. "The
company has completed the phase out of the operation of the Starwood
reservations database, effective the end of 2018," Marriott said.<br />
"With the completion of the reservation systems
conversion undertaken as part of the company’s post-merger integration
work, all reservations are now running through the Marriott system."<br />
Anyone who believes their personal information to have been involved in the data theft is advised to visit <a href="http://info.starwoodhotels.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marriott's support site</a>. The biz is also offering to cover a year of identity-theft monitoring service.Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-21667064317833503112019-01-06T08:37:00.002-08:002019-01-06T08:37:32.509-08:00Germany hacked: Angela Merkel's colleagues among mass data dump victims
<img alt="German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a press conference. Credit: 360b / Shutterstock.com Release Information: Editorial Use Only. " class="article_img" height="293" src="https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/11/22/angela_merkel.jpg?x=442&y=293&crop=1" width="442" />
<div class="img_caption">
<br />
German politicians, journalists and other prominent
public figures have been doxxed by hackers who distributed their
personal data on Twitter, according to local reports.
</div>
A slew of prominent figures and organisations were seemingly targeted for the data dump operation.<br />
"Contact details such as hundreds of mobile phone
numbers and addresses of politicians from the Bundestag and partly also
from state politics were reported," according to <a href="http://faktenfinder.tagesschau.de/inland/hack-politiker-101.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">one version of events</a> from German TV <i>Die Tagesschau</i> (natürlich auf Deutsch).<br />
"There is no system for selecting published data and
information," it continued. "Rather, it seems as if everything that came
into the hackers' [hands] has been posted on the internet."<br />
The dumped data, which started slipping out onto the
internet the week before Christmas, ranged from internal political party
communications to photographs of ID cards, letters, emails, invoices,
chat transcripts, mobile phone numbers and credit card information, as
well as other miscellaneous categories.<br />
Nobody appeared sure where the data came from, though
the sheer breadth and depth of it suggests a sustained operation that
was ongoing for some years, judging by other reports. While <i>Die Tagesschau</i>
presented the hack as motivated by right-wing political beliefs, other
outlets looked closely at the data dump and saw that the ruling
centre-right party, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic
Union, had also been targeted – something that suggests the motive may
not have been entirely political.<br />
Oddly, the only political party whose data had not been released ("yet", as tabloid <i>Bild</i> reported) was the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland, Germany's answer to UKIP.<br />
The perfunctory "Russia did it" spiel hasn't yet been
wheeled out, though the initial modus operandi of leaving the AfD alone
is clearly intended to point inquiring minds in their direction. Russia
generally supports right-wing populist political parties in the West,
either through rhetoric or murkier methods.<br />
<i>Bild</i> <a href="https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/hacker-angriff-daten-von-politikern-gestohlen-und-veroeffentlicht-59349480.bild.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">quoted</a> deputy government spokesperson Martina Fietz as warning that fake material could have been introduced into the data.<br />
A spokesman for the far-left Linke party <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/germany-politics-cyber-linke/germanys-linke-party-affected-by-hacking-incident-spokesman-idUKS8N1YQ006" target="_blank">told</a>
newswire Reuters: "I can confirm there has been an incident," adding
that the party's Parliamentary leader had been one of the victims.<br />
Defiantly, the Social Democratic Party's secretary-general, Lars Klingbeil, told <i>Bild</i>:
"Any possible political motivation for this attack must be clarified.
Whoever is responsible wants to intimidate politicians and [they] will
not succeed. The competition between democratic parties takes place
through the competition of ideas – not through the publication of
sensitive, personal data."<br />
Although the information was being broadcast on
Twitter before Christmas, the world only woke up and noticed it this
year. Twitter has now reportedly deleted one of the accounts posting
links to the data dumps.Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-67661642666987211472019-01-06T08:33:00.002-08:002019-01-06T08:33:27.761-08:00Marriott Revises Breach Scope to 383M Records<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://media.threatpost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/103/2018/12/21145942/Marriott.jpg" />
</figure>
<div class="c-article__intro" name="overview">
The hotel giant said after de-duping, the breach appears to be smaller than it thought.<br />
</div>
Marriott has revised downward its estimate on the number
of guests whose passport numbers and payment card data were impacted in
its recent data breach.<br />
After the hospitality giant confirmed in November that there had been unauthorized access to its Starwood guest reservations database from 2014 up to September 2018, it said that up to 500 million guests
were potentially impacted. However, after de-duping the information,
Marriott said that 383 million records – not guests – were involved in
the incident, with multiple records associated to the same individual in
many cases.<br />
Breaking the information down further, 5.25 million unencrypted
passport numbers were included in the breach, along with 20.3 million
encrypted passport numbers.<br />
“Compromise of those passports is historic,” said Tom Kellermann,
chief cybersecurity officer at Carbon Black, via email. “[Millions of]
individuals are essentially exposed to cybercrime and economic
espionage. The lines between the physical world and cyberspace are
blurring as we see signals intelligence-gathering and human
intelligence-gathering merging. The Chinese have taken a page from the
Russian cyber playbook. The Chinese can now track individuals as they
travel and leverage physical and cyber assets to spy on them. This
breach is the tipping point that the new Congress may use to mandate
federal data breach reporting.”<br />
Also, about 8.6 million encrypted payment cards were involved, with
354,000 payment cards that the hotel chain said were unexpired as of
September 2018. Marriott also said that it believes that there may be
fewer than 2,000 15-digit and 16-digit numbers that guests may have
entered into other fields in the input form that might be unencrypted.<br />
“We want to provide our customers and partners with updates based on
our ongoing work to address this incident as we try to understand as
much as we possibly can about what happened,” said Arne Sorenson,
Marriott’s president and CEO, in a <a href="https://marriott.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/marriott-provides-update-starwood-database-security-incident" rel="noopener" target="_blank">website statement</a>.
“As we near the end of the cyber forensics and data analytics work, we
will continue to work hard to address our customers’ concerns and meet
the standard of excellence our customers deserve and expect from
Marriott.”<br />
The company also said that it has taken its Starwood reservation
system offline and migrated all reservations to a separate in-house
Marriott system.Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-18198682481703732142019-01-06T08:21:00.001-08:002019-01-06T08:21:17.032-08:00Happy New Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvEKJOrOAvrqIP91qprki56V_59wOXaTYERFHKnXtm-V1KiumccDig8eljY3Ppy_2oXcEvBFKauTkA-nHbYJ_wRI9J6VpW9vXVc4_cOFWHdJNTWbCtvbviN9ZpPTzNThMoWatn1EWj00X/s1600/New+Year.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvEKJOrOAvrqIP91qprki56V_59wOXaTYERFHKnXtm-V1KiumccDig8eljY3Ppy_2oXcEvBFKauTkA-nHbYJ_wRI9J6VpW9vXVc4_cOFWHdJNTWbCtvbviN9ZpPTzNThMoWatn1EWj00X/s640/New+Year.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-85653251467557394072018-08-15T09:04:00.001-07:002018-08-15T09:04:51.046-07:00New Man-in-the-Disk attack leaves millions of Android phones vulnerable<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Security researchers at Check Point Software Technologies have discovered a new attack vector against the Android operating system that could potentially allow attackers to silently infect your smartphones with malicious apps or launch denial of service attacks.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Dubbed </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Man-in-the-Disk</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">, the attack takes advantage of the way Android apps utilize 'External Storage' system to store app-related data, which if tampered could result in code injection in the privileged context of the targeted application.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">It should be noted that apps on the Android operating system can store its resources on the device in two locations—internal storage and external storage.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Google itself offers guidelines to Android application developers urging them to use internal storage, which is an isolated space allocated to each application protected using Android's built-in sandbox, to store their sensitive files or data.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">However, researchers found that many popular apps—including Google Translate itself, along with Yandex Translate, Google Voice Typing, Google Text-to-Speech, Xiaomi Browser—were using unprotected external storage that can be accessed by any application installed on the same device.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br />
<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 33px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
How Android Man-in-the-Disk Attack Works?</h2>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Similar to the "man-in-the-middle" attack, the concept of "man-in-the-disk" (MitD) attack involves interception and manipulation of data being exchanged between external storage and an application, which if replaced with a carefully crafted derivative "would lead to harmful results."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">For instance, researchers found that Xiaomi web browser downloads its latest version on the external storage of the device before installing the update. Since app fails to validate the integrity of the data, the app's legitimate update code can be replaced with a malicious one.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #fcfcfc; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.94em; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin: 20px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 22px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
"Xiaomi Browser was found to be using the External Storage as a staging resource for application updates," the researchers said in a <a href="https://blog.checkpoint.com/2018/08/12/man-in-the-disk-a-new-attack-surface-for-android-apps/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">blog post</a>.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 6px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 6px; outline: 0px;" />"As a result, our team was able to carry out an attack by which the application’s update code was replaced, resulting in the installation of an alternative, undesired application instead of the legitimate update."</blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">In this way, attackers can get a man-in-the-disk position, from where they can monitor data transferred between any other app on the user's smartphone and the external storage and overwrite it with their own malicious version in order to manipulate or crash them.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The attack can also be abused to install another malicious app in the background without the user's knowledge, which can eventually be used to escalate privileges and gain access to other parts of the Android device, like camera, microphone, contact list, and more.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br />
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Man-in-the-Disk Attack Video Demonstrations</h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Check Point researchers also managed to compromise files and crash Google Translate, Google Voice-to-Text, and Yandex Translate because those apps also failed to validate the integrity of data used from the Android's external storage.</span><br />
<div class="video-container" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 30px 0px 203.625px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="210" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6ILEQ9LofEo?rel=0" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; height: 233.625px; left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 362px;" width="280"></iframe></div>
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />
<div class="video-container" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 30px 0px 203.625px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="210" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M3rQ_J8rS7c?rel=0" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; height: 233.625px; left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 362px;" width="280"></iframe></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Among the apps that Check Point researchers tested for this new MitD attack were Google Translate, Yandex Translate, Google Voice Typing, LG Application Manager, LG World, Google Text-to-Speech, and Xiaomi Browser.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Google, which itself doesn't follow its security guidelines, acknowledged and fixed some affected applications and is in the process of fixing other vulnerable apps as well, Check Point said.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Besides Google, the researchers also approached the developers of other vulnerable applications as well, but some, including, Xiaomi declined to fix the issue, according to the researchers.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #fcfcfc; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.94em; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin: 20px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 22px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
"Upon discovery of these application vulnerabilities, we contacted Google, Xiaomi, and vendors of other vulnerable applications to update them and request their response," Check Point researchers said.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 6px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 6px; outline: 0px;" />"A fix to the applications of Google was released shortly after, additional vulnerable applications are being updated and will be disclosed once the patch is made available to their users, while Xiaomi chose not to address it at this time."</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The researchers stressed they only tested a small number of major applications and therefore expect the issue affects a more significant number of Android apps than what they explicitly noted, leaving millions of Android users potentially vulnerable to cyber threats.</span>Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-19495594713917551772018-08-15T08:58:00.000-07:002018-08-15T08:58:36.911-07:00Former Microsoft Engineer Gets Prison for Role in Reveton Ransomware<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_e9THUm7zBEviSwxuwXZEI4bd2AGMiBcdmIpRhZsXqt09IBjyodYy0wxbVZYTNWJQp-s1LD2k3aVtLKoOPGaJEFVilCR3JMH274Ykq7p8B1eu8JHQyBwHGXwTcZMQ9-Oz6i_muXXcNYvN/s728-e100/microsoft-reveton-police-ransomware.png" imageanchor="1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; cursor: default; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; pointer-events: none; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="microsoft hacker reveton ransomware" border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="728" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_e9THUm7zBEviSwxuwXZEI4bd2AGMiBcdmIpRhZsXqt09IBjyodYy0wxbVZYTNWJQp-s1LD2k3aVtLKoOPGaJEFVilCR3JMH274Ykq7p8B1eu8JHQyBwHGXwTcZMQ9-Oz6i_muXXcNYvN/s728-e100/microsoft-reveton-police-ransomware.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: opacity 0.3s; vertical-align: baseline; width: inherit;" title="microsoft hacker reveton ransomware" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">A former Microsoft network engineer who was charged in April this year has now been </span><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/washington-state-man-sentenced-prison-role-connection-reveton-ransomware" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">sentenced</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering in connection with the Reveton ransomware.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Reveton malware is old ransomware, also known as scareware or police ransomware that instead of encrypting files locks the screen of victims’ computers and displays a message purporting to come from a national law enforcement agency.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The splash screen of the malware was designed to falsely tell unsuspecting victims that they have been caught doing illegal or malicious activities online or the law enforcement had found illegal material on their computer, forcing users to make pay a "fine" of $200-300 within 48 hours to regain access to their computers.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Raymond Odigie Uadiale, 41-year-old, who worked as a Microsoft network engineer, is not the actual </span><a href="https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/group-behind-largest-ransomware.html" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">author of the Reveton ransomware</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">, but he helped the Reveton distributor, residing in the UK and identified as the online moniker "K!NG," in cashing out ransom money collected from victims in the form of Green Dot MoneyPak prepaid vouchers.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Uadiale, who was a student at Florida International University at the time of his crime in 2012 and 2013, was said to have acquired MoneyPak debit cards under the fake name of Mike Roland and received payments from victims of Reveton.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Using Liberty Reserve service, Uadiale then transferred $93,640 into accounts of his unnamed co-conspirator in the United Kingdom, after keeping his 30 percent cut.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Liberty Reserve was itself closed down by US authorities in May 2013, after its creator pleaded guilty to laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through the digital currency exchange and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; content: " "; display: block; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">In the Southern Florida US District Court on Monday, Uadiale was given an 18-month prison sentence and three years of supervised release, after he agreed to a plea agreement that dismissed the second count of substantive money laundering.</span><br />
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"The indictment charged Uadiale with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of substantive money laundering. As part of the plea agreement, the government dismissed the substantive count."</blockquote>
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"By cashing out and then laundering victim payments, Raymond Uadiale played an essential role in an international criminal operation that victimized unsuspecting Americans by infecting their computers with malicious ransomware," said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski.</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "roboto" , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Microsoft hired Uadiale as a network engineer after the conspiracy charged related to the ransomware scheme in the indictment ended</span>Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-69923741635904674062018-08-15T08:52:00.000-07:002018-08-15T08:52:16.831-07:00Hackers can compromise your network just by sending a Fax<div class="clear post-head" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLn_Sf9V-rYQseXpE-ZwBOZVfGVx_8z0P6ciQ5a-ISqx825kOUfS1pCJoFKPwc77REK02h06M_vZTYVMuGgPem8E6bPkg4d11iHbRXVLB7D3QgBv24xxQeFgkHA2MrWcuNLCT39VUTvJ-C/s728-e100/hack-printers-computers-using-fax-machine.png" imageanchor="1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; cursor: default; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; pointer-events: none; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="hack printers and computers using fax machine" border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="728" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLn_Sf9V-rYQseXpE-ZwBOZVfGVx_8z0P6ciQ5a-ISqx825kOUfS1pCJoFKPwc77REK02h06M_vZTYVMuGgPem8E6bPkg4d11iHbRXVLB7D3QgBv24xxQeFgkHA2MrWcuNLCT39VUTvJ-C/s728-e100/hack-printers-computers-using-fax-machine.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: opacity 0.3s; vertical-align: baseline; width: inherit;" title="hack printers and computers using fax machine" /></a></div>
What maximum a remote attacker can do just by having your Fax machine number?<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />Believe it or not, but your fax number is literally enough for a hacker to gain complete control over the printer and possibly infiltrate the rest of the network connected to it.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />Check Point researchers have revealed details of two critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities they discovered in the communication protocols used in tens of millions of fax machines globally.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />You might be thinking who uses Fax these days!<br /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">Well, Fax is not a thing of the past. With more than 300 million fax numbers and 45 million fax machines in use globally, Fax is still popular among several business organizations, regulators, lawyers, bankers, and real estate firms.</span><br /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />Since most fax machines are today integrated into all-in-one printers, connected to a WiFi network and PSTN phone line, a remote attacker can simply send a specially-crafted image file via fax to exploit the reported vulnerabilities and seize control of an enterprise or home network.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />All the attacker needs to exploit these vulnerabilities is a Fax number, which can be easily found simply by browsing a corporate website or requesting it directly.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><h3 style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 33px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Faxploit Attack — Demonstration Video</h3>
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="210" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1VDZTjngNqs?rel=0" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; height: 233.625px; left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 362px;" width="280"></iframe></div>
Dubbed <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Faxploit</span>, the attack involves two buffer overflow vulnerabilities—one triggers while parsing COM markers (CVE-2018-5925) and another stack-based issue occurs while parsing DHT markers (CVE-2018-5924), which leads to remote code execution.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />To <a href="https://blog.checkpoint.com/2018/08/12/faxploit-hp-printer-fax-exploit/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">demonstrate</a> the attack, Check Point Malware Research Team Lead Yaniv Balmas and security researcher Eyal Itkin used the popular HP Officejet Pro All-in-One fax printers—the HP Officejet Pro 6830 all-in-one printer and OfficeJet Pro 8720.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />As shown in the above video, the researchers send an image file loaded with malicious payload through the phone line, and as soon as the fax machine receives it, the image is decoded and uploaded into the fax-printer's memory.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">In their case, the researchers used NSA-developed</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><a href="https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/windows-hacking-tools.html" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">EternalBlue and Double Pulsar</a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">exploits, which was leaked by the</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><a href="https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/shodow-brokers-wannacry-hacking.html" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Shadow Brokers</a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">group and was behind the</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><a href="https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/how-to-wannacry-ransomware.html" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">WannaCry ransomware</a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">global outcry last year, to take over the connected machine and further spread the malicious code through the network.</span><br /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #fcfcfc; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.94em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin: 20px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 22px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
"Using nothing but a phone line, we were able to send a fax that could take full control over the printer, and later spread our payload inside the computer network accessible to the printer," the researcher said in a detailed <a href="https://research.checkpoint.com/sending-fax-back-to-the-dark-ages/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">blog post</a> published today.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 6px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 6px; outline: 0px;" />"We believe that this security risk should be given special attention by the community, changing the way that modern network architectures treat network printers and fax machines."</blockquote>
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />According to the Check Point researchers, attackers can code the image file with malware including ransomware, cryptocurrency miners, or surveillance tools, depending upon their targets of interest and motives.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />Check Point researchers responsibly disclosed their findings to Hewlett Packard, which quickly fixed the flaws in its all-in-one printers and deployed firmware patches in response. A patch is available on HP's <a href="https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06097712" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #395697; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">support page</a>.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;" />However, the researchers believe the same vulnerabilities could also impact most fax-based all-in-one printers sold by other manufacturers and other fax implementation, such as fax-to-mail services, standalone fax machines, and more.</div>
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Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-20491137470510514772018-08-10T09:14:00.000-07:002018-08-10T09:14:07.540-07:00Snapchat Source Code Leaked and Posted to GitHub<div class="article__body dsp-block-xs bod-m" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans", "Trebuchet MS", TazuganeGothic, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.6; position: relative;">
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GitHub is often the go-to place for hackers or researchers to archive interesting code or data dumps. But sometimes affected companies do their best to remove exposed data from the code repository site.</div>
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Earlier this year, Snap—the company behind social media network Snapchat—exposed some of the source code of the network’s iOS app, Snap confirmed to Motherboard on Tuesday. After someone archived that exposed code on GitHub, Snap told GitHub to remove the data with a copyright act request, Snap told Motherboard.</div>
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“An iOS update in May exposed a small amount of our source code and we were able to identify the mistake and rectify it immediately,” a Snap spokesperson told Motherboard in an email. “We discovered that some of this code had been posted online and it has been subsequently removed. This did not compromise our application and had no impact on our community.”</div>
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The independent security researcher known as x0rz <a href="https://twitter.com/x0rz/status/1026735377955086337?s=20" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #7974bd; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">tweeted about the takedown on Tuesday</a>, pointing to a copy of the request itself.</div>
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“What would be the best solution for the alleged infringement? Are there specific changes the other person can make other than removal?” <a href="https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/7f359b0798e924363ac16910514b1f0e5a9d6fa1" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #7974bd; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">one section reads</a>.</div>
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“NO, THIS SHOULD BE REMOVED BECAUSE IT IS ALL LEAKED SOURCE CODE,” the reply, from a Snap employee, reads.</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Got a tip? You can contact this reporter securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.</i></span></div>
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The takedown was enforced under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law businesses often use to protect their intellectual property. In February, Apple used a DMCA request to remove <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a34g9j/iphone-source-code-iboot-ios-leak" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #7974bd; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">some of its own code from GitHub</a>.</div>
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One of the GitHub repos previously hosting the Snapchat code <a href="https://github.com/isangbill/Source-SnapChat" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #7974bd; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">now says</a> “We have disabled public access to the repository.”</div>
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It appears some researchers are trading the data privately, however.</div>
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“Yeah I got it. DM me,” one Twitter user <a href="https://twitter.com/iSn0we/status/1026738393353465858" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #7974bd; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">wrote on Tuesday</a>.</div>
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Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-4511822511036253552018-08-10T09:03:00.000-07:002018-08-10T09:03:34.296-07:00WhatsApp security snafu allows sneaky 'message manipulation'<div class="article_head" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arimo, Arial, FreeSans, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">
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Researchers claim to have uncovered weaknesses in WhatsApp that can be exploited to manipulate messages in private and group conversations.<br />
Eggheads at Israeli security firm Check Point this week described how, with some social engineering trickery and <a href="https://github.com/romanzaikin/BurpExtension-WhatsApp-Decryption-CheckPoint" rel="nofollow" style="color: #57798e; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">custom extensions</a> for popular network-packet-twiddling toolkit <a href="https://portswigger.net/burp" rel="nofollow" style="color: #57798e; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Burp Suite</a>, they can:<br />
<ol style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1.75em;">
<li style="margin: 0.2em 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">Alter the text of someone's reply on their phone, essentially putting words in the other person's mouth.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.2em 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">Use the “quote” feature in a group conversation to change the identity of the sender, even if that person is not a member of the group.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.2em 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">Send a private message to another group participant that is disguised as a public message for all, so when the targeted individual responds, it’s visible to everyone in the conversation.</li>
</ol>
Basically, you can tamper with messages received and stored on your device, quote them back to your mark, and sow the seeds of all sorts of confusion. All the techniques involve social engineering tactics to hoodwink marks, as well as obtaining your public-private key pair from WhatsApp, as explained at some length in a blog post by Check Point's Dikla Barda, Roman Zaikin, and Oded Vanunu <a href="https://research.checkpoint.com/fakesapp-a-vulnerability-in-whatsapp/" style="background: rgb(0, 102, 204); color: white; outline: rgb(0, 102, 204) solid 0.05em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">right here</a>.<br />
There's also a video illustrating the approach, as embedded below.<br />
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Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-27295915654328903932018-08-10T08:51:00.002-07:002018-08-10T08:51:43.188-07:00CoinHive Miner Virus Outbreak Has Infected 170,000 Routers<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Coinhive Miner virus has infected hundreds of thousands MikroTik routers. The malware has now reportedly installed a JavaScript miner to over 170,000 devices and this recent outbreak is believed to be getting bigger and bigger.</strong></div>
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The first hint of attacks was discovered by researcher who goes by the nickname MalwareHunterBR and who <a href="https://twitter.com/MalwareHunterBR/status/1023893755974352896" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #5284b5; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">tweeted</a>, that the miner has started to spread at an alarming rate. In addition to this, news have also broken out that the first stages of the attack compromised about 70 thousand routers alone.</div>
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What is Behind Coinhive’s Infection Success</h2>
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What is believed is that the hacker may have used one of the exploits for MikroTik devices to perform a zero-day type of attack through one device and then in the device drop a copy of the Coinhive library. This library is also in all of the pages which are displayed by the router, making all of the devices connected to it vulnerable.</div>
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And furthermore, since the zero day has been exploited by using only one Coinhive key for all of the injections performed by cooinhive via the past week, it is belived that only one attacker is behind the attack.</div>
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In addition, researchers also claim that non-MikroTik users were also among the victims, because some of the Internet Service providers have used MikroTik devices via their main network and since the hacker has injected the JavaScript code, this attack has spread to all of the devices that are logically connected to the MikroTik routers that are compromised.</div>
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The injection has worked with a tremendous success because of the fact how the attack is done and the fact that the infection process has succeeded in obtaining incomingand outgoing traffic control successfully.</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-71702277450257669792018-08-10T08:48:00.000-07:002018-08-10T08:48:33.297-07:00US Department of Justice creates software blacklist to prevent foreign attacks<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The US Department of Justice wants to educate its contractors and military software buyers about malicious software that could infiltrate the country’s infrastructure.</div>
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For fear of nation state attacks and cyberespionage attempts, the Pentagon has released a “Do Not Buy” software list that has been in development for approximately six months, <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/07/pentagon-creates-do-not-buy-list-russian-chinese-software/150100/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #5284b5; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">writes</a> Defense One. The list includes all software that is not according to “national security standards,” said Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, and looks at companies with suspicious links to Russia and China.</div>
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US intelligence and officials from the Department of Justice have been working together to detect “certain companies that do not operate in a way consistent with what we have for defense standard.”</div>
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“We had specific issues … that caused us to focus on this,” Lord said in an interview.</div>
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“What we are doing is making sure that we do not buy software that’s Russian or Chinese provenance,” she said. “Quite often that’s difficult to tell at first glance because of holding companies.”</div>
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To ensure the list is as accurate as possible, the US Department of Justice is closely working with the Aerospace Industries Association, National Defense Industrial Association and Professional Services Council.</div>
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The names of the companies on the list has not been released, however Kaspersky Labs and ZTE have already been placed on a ban list.</div>
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According to a report from the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, foreign governments have asked access to software source code US companies want to sell abroad, which may lead to vulnerability exploits.</div>
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“Recent Chinese laws—including laws on national security and cybersecurity—provide Beijing a legal basis to compel technology companies operating in China to cooperate with Chinese security services,” reads the report.</div>
Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545853300436871139.post-51187252714286709352018-08-10T08:38:00.000-07:002018-08-10T08:38:01.764-07:00UK government worried Huawei software could facilitate cyberespionage<div class="below-entry-meta" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Huawei Technologies, the Chinese ICT infrastructure and smart device manufacturer, is now on UK’s security blacklist following technical “shortcomings” in the software used, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-security-britain-usa/huawei-in-british-spotlight-over-use-of-u-s-firms-software-idUSKBN1KQ001" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #5284b5; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">writes</a>Reuters.</div>
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UK officials are concerned telecom companies and their networks could be seriously compromised due to outdated software in Huawei devices. As mentioned by three anonymous sources for Reuters, the software component is actually the VxWorks operating system, sold by US-based Wind River Systems. It appears that as of 2020, the company will no longer release security patches, even though the software will still be in use.</div>
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According to a UK government report released in July, this glitch is believed to facilitate cyberattacks on British infrastructure and cyberespionage.</div>
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“Third party software, including security critical components, on various component boards will come out of existing long-term support in 2020, even though the Huawei end of life date for the products containing this component is often longer,” reads the government report.</div>
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This is not the first time the Chinese software company has been accused of allowing the Chinese government to use its equipment to spy on other nations. The Pentagon has already banned Huawei and ZTE phones from US military bases for fear they could jeopardize national security and secret operations.</div>
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“Cyber security remains Huawei’s top priority, and we will continue to actively improve our engineering processes and risk management systems,” said a Huawei spokesperson. The company said they will consider the recent national security concerns expressed by the UK government and will look into improving the areas mentioned. No explicit comments were made on the government’s July report.</div>
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Adebayo Mofehintoluwahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12317736137374708712noreply@blogger.com0