Microsoft issued just two updates today to fix at least three security flaws in its Windows and Microsoft Office products, a merciful respite following last month’s record-setting patch push. One of the patches issued today earned a critical rating, the company’s most serious.
Earlier this month, arts & crafts chain Michaels Stores disclosed that crooks had tampered with point-of-sale devices at store registers as part of a scheme to steal credit and debit card numbers and associated PINs. But new information on the investigation shows that stores all across the country have since discovered compromised payment terminals.
A French security research firm boasted on Monday that it had discovered a two-step process for defeating Google Chrome’s sandbox, the security technology designed to protect the browser from being compromised by previously unknown security flaws. Experts say the discovery, if true, marks the first time hackers have figured out a way around the vaunted security layer, and almost certainly will encourage attackers to devise similar methods of subverting this technology in Chrome and other widely used software.
In an advisory released today, VUPEN Security said “We are (un)happy to announce that we have official Pwnd Google Chrome and its sandbox.” The post includes a video showing the exploitation of what VUPEN claims is a previously undocumented security hole in Chrome v.11.0.696.65 on Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 (x64).
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a single tainted digital image may be worth thousands of dollars for computer crooks who are abusing weaknesses in Google’s Image Search service to foist malicious software.
For several weeks, a number of readers have complained that clicking on Google Images search results redirected them to Web pages that pushed rogue anti-virus or “scareware” through misleading security alerts and warnings. On Wednesday, the SANS Internet Storm Center posted a blog entry saying they, too, were receiving reports of Google Image searches leading to fake anti-virus. According to SANS, the attackers have compromised an unknown number of sites with malicious scripts that create garbage Web pages filled with the top search terms from Google Trends. The malicious scripts also fetch images from third-party sites and include them in the junk pages alongside the relevant search terms, so that the automatically generated Web page contains legitimate-looking content.
LastPass.com, a free password management service that lets users unlock access to all of their password protected sites with a single master password, is forcing all of its approximately 1.25 million users to change their master passwords after discovering that… Read More »
A new crimeware kit for sale on the criminal underground makes it a simple point-and-click exercise to develop malicious software designed to turn Mac OSX computers into bots. According to the vendor of this kit, it is somewhat interchangeable with existing crimeware kits made to attack Windows-based PCs.
Sony warned today that intruders had broken into its PlayStation online game network, a breach that may have jeopardized the user names, addresses, passwords and credit card information on more than 70 million customers.
In a post to the company’s PlayStation blog, Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold said the breach occurred between April 17 and April 19, and that user information on some PlayStation Network and Qriocity music streaming accounts was compromised. The company said it had engaged an outside security firm to investigate what happened, that it was rebuilding its system to better secure account information, and that it would soon begin notifying customers about the incident by email.
The latest version of the SpyEye trojan includes new capability specifically designed to steal sensitive data from Windows users surfing the Internet with the Google Chrome and Opera Web browsers.
The author of the SpyEye trojan formerly sold the crimeware kit on a number of online cybercrime forums, but has recently limited his showroom displays to a handful of highly vetted underground communities. KrebsOnSecurity.com recently chatted with a member of one of these communities who has purchased a new version of SpyEye. Screenshots from the package show that the latest rendition includes new “form grabbing” capabilities targeting Chrome and Opera users.
You’ve seen the emails: They purport to have been sent by some dethroned prince in a faraway land, or from a corrupt bureaucrat in an equally corrupt government. Whatever the ruse, they always claim to need your help in spiriting away millions of dollars. These schemes, known as “419,” “advance fee” and “Nigerian letter” scams, have been around forever and are surprisingly effective at duping people. But where in the world do these scammers get their distribution lists, and how did you become a target?
Some of the bigger spammers rely on bots that crawl millions of Web sites and “scrape” addresses from pages. Others instead turn to sellers on underground cybercrime forums. But as it turns out, there are still a handful of open-air markets where lists of emails are sold by the millions. If you buy in bulk, some you can expect to pay about a penny per 1,000 addresses.
One long-running, open air bazaar for email addresses is LeadsAndMails.com, which also goes by the name BuyEmails.org. This enterprise is based out of New Delhi, India, and advertises its email lists as “100% optin and 100 percent legal to use.” I can’t vouch for the company’s claims, but one thing seems clear: A good number of its clients are from Nigeria, and many of them are fraudsters.
Adobe shipped updates to its PDF Reader and Acrobat products today to plug a critical security hole that attackers have been exploiting to break into computers. Fixes are available for Mac, Windows and Linux versions of these software titles. The… Read More »
