Category Archives: A Little Sunshine

Includes investigative blog posts meant to shine a light on the darker corners of the Internet.

Alleged Romanian Subway Hackers Were Lured to U.S.

June 6, 2012
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The alleged ringleader of a Romanian hacker gang accused of breaking into and stealing payment card data from hundreds of Subway restaurants made news late last month when he was extradited to face charges in the United States. But perhaps the more interesting story is how his two alleged accomplices happened to have come to this country willingly: They were lured here by undercover U.S. Secret Service agents who promised to shower the men with love and riches.

Attackers Hit Weak Spots in 2-Factor Authentication

June 5, 2012
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An attack late last week that compromised the personal and business Gmail accounts of Matthew Prince, chief executive of Web content delivery system CloudFlare, revealed a subtle but dangerous security flaw in the 2-factor authentication process used in Google Apps for business customers. Google has since fixed the glitch, but the incident offers a timely reminder that two-factor authentication schemes are only as secure as their weakest component.

In a blog post on Friday, Prince wrote about a complicated attack in which miscreants were able to access a customer’s account on CloudFlare and change the customer’s DNS records. The attack succeeded, Prince said, in part because the perpetrators exploited a weakness in Google’s account recovery process to hijack his CloudFlare.com email address, which runs on Google Apps

White House Aims to Stoke Botnet Fight

May 29, 2012
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The Obama administration will hold a public meeting at the White House on Wednesday to discuss industry and government efforts to combat botnet activity. Among them is a pilot program to share information about botnet victims between banks and Internet service providers, according to sources familiar with the event.

WHMCS Breach May Be Only Tip of the Trouble

May 24, 2012
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A recent breach at billing and support software provider WHMCS that exposed a half million customer usernames, passwords — and in some cases credit cards — may turn out to be least of the company’s worries. According to information obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com, for the past four months hackers have been selling an exclusive zero-day flaw that they claim lets intruders break into Web hosting firms that rely on the software.

Facebook Takes Aim at Cross-Browser ‘LilyJade’ Worm

May 17, 2012
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Facebook is attempting to dismantle a new social networking worm that spreads via an application built to run seamlessly as a plugin across multiple browsers and operating systems. In an odd twist, the author of the program is doing little to hide his identity, and claims that his “users” actually gain a security benefit from installing his software.

At issue is a program that the author calls “LilyJade,” a browser plugin that uses Crossrider, an emerging programming framework designed to simplify the process of writing plugins that will run seamlessly across multiple browsers and operating systems, including Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox. The plugin spreads by posting a link to a video on a user’s Facebook wall, and friends who follow the link are told they need to accept the installation of the plugin in order to view the video. Users who accept the terms of service for LilyJade will have their accounts modified to periodically post links that help pimp the program.

Global Payments Breach Fueled Prepaid Card Fraud

May 14, 2012
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Debit card accounts stolen in a recent hacker break-in at card processor Global Payments have been showing up in fraud incidents at retailers in Las Vegas and elsewhere, according to officials from one bank impacted by the fraud.

At the beginning of March 2012, Danbury, Conn. based Union Savings Bank began seeing an unusual pattern of fraud on a dozen or so debit cards it had issued, noting that most of the cards had recently been used at a cafe at a nearby private school. When the bank determined that the school was a customer of Global Payments, it contacted Visa to alert the card association of a possible breach at the Atlanta-based processor, according to Doug Fuller, Union Savings Bank’s chief risk officer.

At the Crossroads of eThieves and Cyberspies

May 8, 2012
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Lost in the annals of campy commercials from the 1980s is a series of ads that featured improbable scenes between two young people (usually of the opposite sex) who somehow caused the inadvertent collision of peanut butter and chocolate. After the mishap, one would complain, “Hey you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!,” and the other would retort, “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!” The youngsters then sample the product of their happy accident and are amazed to find someone has already combined the two flavors into a sweet and salty treat that is commercially available.

It may be that the Internet security industry is long overdue for its own “Reese’s moment.” Many security experts who got their start analyzing malware and tracking traditional cybercrime recently have transitioned to investigating malware and attacks associated with so-called advanced persistent threat (APT) incidents. The former centers on the theft of financial data that can be used to quickly extract cash from victims; the latter refers to often prolonged attacks involving a hunt for more strategic information, such as intellectual property, trade secrets and data related to national security and defense.