SecurityWeek

Booz Allen Hamilton Establishes Operations in Kuwait to Enhance Technology and Cyber Defense Capabilities IT consulting services firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, announced on Wednesday that it has setup shop and established a new partnership in Kuwait in order to secure key government contracts related to both government and commercial projects in the Gulf state.

The IT world is quickly embracing Big Data. Huge data stores are the next big step in analyzing the massive amounts of data being collected in the name of analytics. For example, startups are using these systems to analyze trillions of DNA strips to gain an understanding of our genealogy. Well-established companies are adopting the technology to map and time transportation systems across the world to make our traveling cheaper and easier.

Simurgh, a privacy tool used in Iran and Syria to bypass Internet censorship and governmental monitoring, is being circulated with a backdoor. The compromised version has been offered on P2P networks and via web searches. Research conducted by CitizenLab.org has shown that malicious version isn’t available form the original software source, only through third-party access, so it appears that Simurgh has been repackaged.

McAfee Finds Nearly One in Every Six PC's Have Zero ProtectionAccording to a global study by McAfee, Intel’s security operation, one-in-six computers globally are running without any sort of cyber threat protection. The study ranks systems that were either running with no anti-virus, or those with anti-virus applications that were disabled.

Industry Botnet Group: A Collaborative Effort to Combat Botnets

Wave Systems has signed a 15-year software license and distribution agreement with Samsung, enabling Samsung to bundle Wave’s EMBASSY Security Center (ESC) and TCG Software Stack (TSS) technology with devices that include a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), an industry standard security chip embedded in the motherboard of a computer or other electronic device.

Continuing the series of protests conducted in an effort to support students in Quebec, where Anonymous targeted 13 government and police websites, the associative group has stated that they will wreck the FIA as they turn their sights on Formula 1’s Montreal Grand Prix.

As New Hacktivist Groups Join the Scene and Targets Change, We Could See Evolutions that May Prove to be More Fruitful Than Harmful.

Juniper Networks Updates Mykonos Web Security Software With Improved Protection, Simplified Management and Increased Scalability.

In an effort to help organizations responsible for maintaining the nation’s critical infrastructure address targeted cyber threats, ICS-CERT has published guidance addressing intrusion detection and mitigation strategies.

Hacker Faces Charges After Hacking Point-of-Sale Systems at More Than 150 Subway RestaurantsLast year, four Romanian nationals were charged for their role in an alleged scheme to hack point-of-sale (POS) systems and compromise credit and debit card transaction data. On Tuesday, one of the four men was finally extradited to the U.S. so that he could appear before a judge.

Metasploit is a powerful and popular tool for penetration testers and security experts. However, it’s also a goldmine for the darker side of the hacking community. Recently, Rapid 7 published a list of most popular Metasploit modules, offering an interesting look at the vulnerabilities that earned the most attention last month.

Access control vendor Centrify announced the availability today of a new product for to help manage mobile devices.Leveraging the new Centrify Cloud Service, Centrify DirectControl for Mobile is meant to address concerns related to the bring-your-own-device approach. The technology allows organizations to manage smartphones and tablets, including Apple iPads and Google Android devices, using existing Active Directory infrastructure, skill sets and processes.

"IXESHE" Attack Campaign Leveraged "Weaponized" PDFs Targeting Zero-day Exploits Dating Back to 2009.Trend Micro has revealed details on a series of attacks that tried to stay under the radar by using machines inside compromised networks as command and control (C&Cs) servers.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions have been put under the microscope and are often criticized by some in the industry as being outdated and “reactive” security solutions that don’t always help organizations defend against cyber attacks, but rather help respond after a damaging attack. While SIEM solutions may be taking some heat, they still play an important role in an organization’s overall security strategy, and new research from McAfee shows that SIEM is still top of mind for...

Some Say China Falsely Accused Over Backdoor Discovered on FPGA Chip Used by U.S. MilitaryOver the holiday weekend, news that Cambridge University researchers discovered a backdoor on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip used by the U.S military spread like wildfire, but there are some doubts that the story is worth the hype.

On Friday, the University of Nebraska said it was investigating a cyber attack that resulted in a security breach of an information system that houses sensitive data on students and alumni dating back to 1985.The breach hit the Nebraska Student Information System (NeSIS), the electronic database that contains personal records for students, alumni and applicants of the university’s four campuses.

Lawmakers warning anyone who will listen about terrorist-based or state sponsored cyber attacks have gained an unexpected source of confirmation; the terrorists themselves.“This is the clearest evidence we’ve seen that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups want to attack the cyber systems of our critical infrastructure,” Senator Joe Lieberman said. His remarks were made last week during a session of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Researchers at F-Secure have discovered a PDF being circulated online that is using the upcoming Olympic summer games in London as bait. The interesting thing is that the malicious PDF is targeting an exploit that is nearly 2 years old.The PDF itself was discovered when F-Secure lab researchers were data mining their collection network for documents that drop executables. Given that the file was a sample collected as part of their ongoing operations, it could have originated from a malicious website, as...

"Flame" a Highly Sophisticated and Discreet Cyber Weapon Has Been Discovered Targeting the Middle East A new cyber threat some say rivals Stuxnet and Duqu in complexity has been discovered on systems in the Middle East.