1. Experian leaks
info of 15 million T-Mobile credit applications: Experian is one of the major credit rating bureaus that
companies use to conduct credit checks, has exposed the personal information of
T-Mobile consumers. T-Mobile has revealed that the hack has exposed the
personal details, including social security numbers, date of birth, and various
identification numbers - including passport & driver's license number of
its customers. Experian said the incident is "isolated" and is only limited
to consumers who applied for T-Mobile USA services between Sept. 1, 2013, and
Sept. 16, 2015.
2. T-Mobile CEO -
John Legere did what all CEOs should do after a hack: Promptly following the issuance of the company statement
- Legere got on Twitter and sent out a tweet that read, “One of our vendors,
Experian, experiences a data breach. See what we’re doing about it,” and
included a link to the company’s initial announcement. But Legere’s engagement
didn’t stop there. He then proceeded to answer questions from T-Mobile
customers in response to his Tweet. These tweets address what everyone potentially
affected by a massive data breach yearns for—answers, personal interaction and
attention. The best thing a company can do after an attack is act like they care.
Seeing a CEO of a giant corporation get on social media and interact with
customers is certainly refreshing and the way to go.
3. Every Android
device is vulnerable to newly discovered bugs: With two new "Stagefright" vulnerabilities
discovered, almost every Android device ever released is vulnerable to
malicious hackers. More than a billion Android smartphones and tablets are at risk
of being compromised by the new bugs if their owners even just preview video or
audio files that have been specially crafted to exploit the vulnerability.
Google has responded positively and will release a patch for these vulnerabilities
by Oct 5th but the question on Android ecosystem remain wherein the processes
for updates is very slow as phone makers are responsible for pushing software
updates to customers.
4. A researcher
has discovered a flaw in the Apple’s Gatekeeper: Gatekeeper is a new feature in Apple build to help
protect the device from malware and misbehaving apps downloaded from the
Internet. A signed app can access other software or components that have been
replaced with malware without a separate verification stage. In his testing,
the researcher found that a signed Photoshop installer would load plug-ins from
another directory that were changed out for malware without any further notification.
He also tested with an Apple-distributed program that he declined to disclose
at Apple’s request.
5. Critical WinRAR
vulnerability places 500 million users at risk: An unpatched, critical remote code execution flaw within
WinRAR's SFX archive features has been disclosed by a researcher; a security
flaw which reportedly allows for remote code execution has been discovered in
WinRAR SFX version 5.21. A researcher posted his findings on Full Disclosure.
Granted a CVSS score of 7.4, the vulnerability could allow hackers to remotely
execute system code and compromise victim machines, leading to control,
surveillance and potentially data theft. WinRar's team refutes the flaw
discovery.
6. Russian
Developer of the Notorious "Citadel" Malware Sentenced to Prison: "Dimitry Belorossov, a.k.a Rainerfox, has been
sentenced to four years, six months in prison following his guilty plea for
conspiring to commit computer fraud. Belorossov distributed and installed
Citadel, a sophisticated malware that infected over 11 million computers
worldwide, onto victim computers using a variety of infection methods including
malicious attachments to spam emails and commercial Internet ads containing malware
or links to malware. Citadel was a sophisticated form of malware known as a
"banking Trojan" designed to steal online banking credentials, credit
card information, personally identifiable information, and, ultimately, funds
through unauthorized electronic transfers. Belorossov was arrested in Spain and
extradited to US.
7. Cookies can
facilitate attacks on secure web sites:
CERT has issued a new directive notifying that cookies can be used to allow
remote attackers to bypass a secure protocol (HTTPS) and reveal private session
information - and that modern browsers, including Apple's Safari, Mozilla's
Firefox and Google's Chrome, currently provide no protection against the attack
vector. Research indicates that secure sites as important as Google and the
Bank of America are vulnerable to the technique. CERT advises that HSTS (HTTP
Strict Transport Security) be implemented at the server level in order to
mitigate the vulnerability. But even with that done, it remains for browser
publishers to prevent subdomains from being used by attackers to generate
malicious cookies.
8. As impactful as
targeted attacks can be on organizations, non-targeted automated attacks using
known vulnerabilities also pose a significant threat to the enterprise: It is found that it takes an average of between 100 to
120 days to patch a flaw once it's found. Meanwhile, the probability of a
vulnerability being exploited rises to 90 percent by the time the flaw has been
known for between 40 to 60 days. It's no surprise, then, that the volume of
exploits has exploded in 2015.
9. Classic case of
Typosquatting: Mumbai cyber police
arrested a school drop-out and a graphic designer for creating a fake BMC
Octroi (Local tax) collection website. The website was in operation from
January till April before the accused pulled it down on seeing an article in a
local newspaper that the BMC had detected the fraud. The accused created the
fake website (www.mcgmoctroi.in), similar to that of the BMC
(www.mcgmoctroi.com), with minor changes. Police are collecting information on
number of e-receipts (called PNR) the accused issued to transport companies and
total money he managed to siphon off. The accused have been booked under
several sections of the IPC and the IT Act for cheating and forgery.
10. In response to
the cyber-attack on the Kerala government website by Pakistan-based hackers, an
anonymous Indian cyber group has retaliated by hacking into scores of official
Pakistani websites. Last week - the
Kerala government website was crashed by Pakistani hackers, who posted image of
a burning Indian flag. The hackers had left messages such as "Pakistan
Zindabad", "We are Team Pak Cyber Attacker" and "Security
is just an illusion". However, hours later, the Kerala-based 'Mallu Cyber Soldiers'
hacked into Pak government websites, warning the pro-Pakistan hackers to "stay away from Indian cyber space".
Just like the world-famous Anonymous hacktivists, "Mallu Cyber Soldiers" is also an online gathering of security
experts. These vigilantes work toward protecting Indian websites from getting
hacked.
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