Global Cyber News Bits, July 10, 2009 from CommunityDNS.
Provided by CommunityDNS, the information in this post consists of news items in the security-based Internet community.
PCs could be hit next in Web attack: South Korea
Analysts believe the next step in the DDoS attacks that targeted the US and South Korea for much of this week will step into a more ominous direction. The new phase would target tens of thousands of infected personal computers. It is suspected that the storage files of affected computers will be disabled and will not be able to boot.
While North Korea is suspected of being behind the attack nothing definitive points to the country as being the cause. Host websites behind the original attacks were based in the US, South Korea, Georgia, Germany and Austria.
Click here for more information.
Text Message Scammers Quietly Prey on Regional Banks
Praying on small, regional banks, phishers target such banks and blast every phone in the region’s area code with an SMS message. The message contains an 800 number. The goal is with small regional banks you are bound to find people who have accounts with the bank. The 800 number people are then asked to dial takes them to a voice-operated system that then asks for people to enter their account numbers and passwords.
Click here for more information.
Three ‘critical’ Windows fixes due on Patch Tuesday
Three major bugs are set to be corrected in Tuesday’s patch download.
One patch fixes something that has hijacked possibly millions of websites that mostly cater to Chinese-speaking visitors. The vulnerability corrects a problem in Internet Explorer’s way of handling online video (ActiveX Control) whereby visitors who have been hijacked to malicious sites will find their computers infected.
The second will correct vulnerabilities associated with DirectShow whereby booby-trapped QuickTime files can allow attackers to gain control over a computer.
The first two bugs do not affect Vista and 2008 versions of the OS, only earlier ones.
Microsoft has provided little details regarding the third vulnerability that affects all versions of Windows.
Click here for more information.
Twitter Suspends Accounts of Users with Infected Computers
Koobface, malware designed to see if a person is logged into a social networking site, will post fraudulent, trendy or relevant messages on the person’s Twitter account. The goal is to have this person’s friends click on the link provided in the message that will take them to a malicious site to infect their computers. Where Twitter knows of infected accounts they are shutting down and changing the passwords of the affected accounts.
Koobface has already been seen on social networking sites, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, LiveJournal and MySpace. Koobface can also steal data from a computer as well as download other malware.
Click here for more information.
Botnets Infect Fewer Computers in China
While China remains high on the list of compromised computers and a source from which botnets are controlled, China’s trend is actually looking positive. In 2006 there was an estimated 10 million new infections within China. In 2008 the number dropped to 1.2 million, which is 1/3rd the amount from 2007. However, the number for the first two quarters of 2009 shows an infection rate of 1.6 million.
The number of servers that control botnets in China fell from 6,660 in 2007 to 1,825 in 2008.
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ENISA Expert Hogben on “Web 2.0 Security and privacy”
In today’s world of Web 2.0, users are able to more easily add content to the web. Each avenue where one may inject their content to the web is an injection point that may be vulnerable to malware attacks.
The following is an interview with Giles Hogben who produced the report, “Web 2.0 Security and privacy”.
Click here for more information.
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Tags: Anycast, Austria, Banking, Banks, botnets, Bots, Business Continuity, Business resilience, CommunityDNS, Cyber Terrorism, Cyber Warfare, Cybercrime, Cyberwar, DDoS, DNS, DNS Resolution, DoS, ENISA, Georgia, Germany, Global resolution, Internet, ISP, Koobface, Microsoft, North Korea, Phishing, Privacy, Resolution Service, Security, South Korea, Twitter, U.S.
