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    Latest Warnings / Time to Patch — 28 Comments
    8
    Jun 10

    Microsoft, Apple Ship Big Security Updates

    In its largest patch push so far this year, Microsoft today released 10 security updates to fix at least 34 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating system and software designed to run on top of it. Separately, Apple has shipped another version of Safari for both Mac and Windows PCs that plugs some four dozen security holes in the Web browser.

    Microsoft assigned three of the updates covering seven vulnerabilities a “critical” rating, meaning they can be exploited to help attackers break into vulnerable systems with no help from users. At least 14 of the flaws fixed in this month’s patch batch are in Microsoft Excel, and another eight relate to Windows and Internet Explorer.

    According to Microsoft, the most serious of the bugs involves a weakness in the way Windows handles certain media formats, and is present in all supported versions of Windows. Another critical update nixes six different insecure ActiveX controls (plug-ins for Internet Explorer), while the third critical update corrects at least a half dozen vulnerabilities in IE.

    Microsoft notes that Office XP users may not be able to install one of the needed updates; Rather, Redmond is releasing what it calls a “shim,” or essentially and point-and-click “FixIt” tool that apparently does the job. If you use Office XP, go ahead and click the “FixIt” icon at this link when you’re done installing the rest of the updates.

    The Microsoft patches are available through Windows Update or via Automatic Update. As usual, please drop a note in the comments below if you experience any problems as a result of installing these updates.

    Apple’s Safari 5.0 update fixes at least four-dozen security vulnerabilities in Safari on Mac OS X and Windows versions. Updates are available for Mac OS X v 10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X v10.6.2 or later, Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Mac users can grab the update from Software Update or Apple Downloads; Safari users on Windows will need to update using the bundled Apple Software Update utility.

    Target: Small Businesses / Web Fraud 2.0 — 203 Comments
    2
    Jun 10

    Using Windows for a Day Cost Mac User $100,000

    David Green normally only accessed his company’s online bank account from his trusty Mac laptop. Then one day this April while he was home sick, Green found himself needing to authorize a transfer of money out of his firm’s account. Trouble was, he’d left his Mac at work. So he decided to log in to the company’s bank account using his wife’s Windows PC.

    Unfortunately for Green, that PC was the same computer his kids used to browse the Web, chat, and play games online. It was also the same computer that organized thieves had already compromised with a password-stealing Trojan horse program.

    A few days later, the crooks used those same credentials to steal nearly $100,000 from the company’s online accounts, sending the money in sub- $10,000 and sub-$5,000 chunks to 14 individuals across the United States.

    Now, Green’s firm — DKG Enterprises, a party supplies firm based in Oklahoma City — is wrangling with its bank over who should pay for the loss, said Joe Dunn, the company’s controller. So far, DKG has managed to recover just $22,000 of the $98,000 stolen in the April 27 incident.

    Unlike consumers, businesses that lose money as a result of stolen online banking credentials usually are left holding the bag. As such, I’ve frequently advised small business owners to avoid banking on Windows systems, since all of the malicious software currently being used by these criminals to steal e-banking credentials simply fails to run on anything other than Windows. What’s more, the tools these crooks are using — mainly the Zeus Trojan — almost always outpace anti-virus detection at least by a few days, and by then it’s usually too late.

    But the advice about banking on a dedicated, non-Windows machine only works if you follow it all the time. As this incident shows, it does no good for small business owners to use a Live CD or a Mac or some other approach only some of the time.

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    Latest Warnings / Time to Patch — 22 Comments
    12
    May 10

    Microsoft, Adobe Push Critical Security Updates

    Microsoft Corp. and Adobe Systems each released security updates on Tuesday. Microsoft issued two “critical” patches that address one security flaw apiece, while Adobe’s patches fix a whole mess of serious vulnerabilities in its software.

    One of the critical updates pushed by Microsoft fixes a flaw in Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail. On older versions of Windows (Windows XP for example) Outlook Express is installed by default, while Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail generally require users to affirmatively download and install the program.

    The other MS patch addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Office, but the problem may turn out to be more complex down the road for some users. The trouble is that the vulnerable component, Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications is used not only by Microsoft Office products, but it’s also a component that is potentially installed by many third-party software apps built to work with Windows.

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    Time to Patch — 20 Comments
    13
    Apr 10

    Adobe, Microsoft Push Security Upgrades

    Software giants Adobe and Microsoft today each released software updates to fix critical security flaws in their products. In addition, Adobe is rolling out a new auto-updater tool that should make it easier for hundreds of millions of Adobe Reader users to more safely run one of the most frequently attacked software applications.

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    Latest Warnings / Time to Patch — 144 Comments
    11
    Feb 10

    New Patches Cause BSoD for Some Windows XP Users

    If you use Windows XP and haven’t yet updated your system with the applicable security updates that Microsoft issued Tuesday, you might want to hold off for a bit. Turns out, a non-trivial number of XP users are reporting that their systems suffer from the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) and fall into an interminable reboot loop after installing the latest batch of patches from Redmond.

    The problem seems to be affecting only some XP systems. This thread on a Microsoft.com answers forum seems to include a fix that works. However, the fix requires users to have their XP install CD handy (in a practice that should be outlawed, many computer makers get away with shipping systems without an install/reinstall disc)

    According to the support forum threads I’ve seen on this, affected users noticed the problem on the reboot following the installation of Tuesday’s patch batch. The folks who complained of the bootup problem said the BSOD error page is accompanied by the message “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA”.

    If you’re experiencing the above-described problems after installing Tuesday’s bundle of updates, follow these steps, which a number of affected users have said seem to fix the problem:

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    Time to Patch — 31 Comments
    9
    Feb 10

    13 Ways to Protect Your Windows PC

    Microsoft today released a baker’s dozen of software updates to fix twice as many vulnerabilities in its various Windows operating systems and other software. Translation: If you use any supported version of Windows, it’s time once again to update your PC.

    Five of the 13 update bundles Redmond issued today earned a rating of “critical,” meaning Microsoft considers these flaws so serious that attackers could exploit them to seize control over vulnerable systems just by getting users to visit a hacked or malicious Web site.

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    Latest Warnings — 91 Comments
    2
    Feb 10

    ATM Skimmers, Part II

    Easily the most-viewed post at krebsonsecurity.com so far has been the entry on a cleverly disguised ATM skimmer found attached to a Citibank ATM in California in late December. Last week, I had a chance to chat with Rick Doten, chief scientist at Lockheed Martin‘s Center for Cyber Security Innovation. Doten has built an impressive slide deck on ATM fraud attacks, and pictured below are some of the more interesting images he uses in his presentations.

    According to Doten, the U.S. Secret Service estimates that annual losses from ATM fraud totaled about $1 billion in 2008, or about $350,000 each day. Card skimming, where the fraudster affixes a bogus card reader on top of the real reader, accounts for more than 80 percent of ATM fraud, Doten said.

    Click the individual images below for an enlarged version.