SecurityWeek

Update: NetQin Mobile reached out to SecurityWeek to let us know that they had previously identified the same malware under the name AnserverBot on September 19th. Dr. XuXian Jiang, Chief Scientist at NetQin’s US Security Research Center, offers a detailed report on how the malware works. - Editor

According to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office, despite efforts to implement stronger cybersecurity controls, several federal agencies remain in a weakened state. Since 2006, security incident reports have risen over 650-percent.

New Release Helps Protect Sensitive Data, Brings Centralized Management of Enterprise Wide Database Security MeasuresOn Monday at Oracle Open World, Oracle’s giant customer conference taking place this week in San Francisco, Oracle unveiled new and improved database security features in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c.

HTC officials have promised to fix a privacy hole affecting its Android devices that could expose sensitive user information to attackers.

McAfee today announced that it has agreed to acquire NitroSecurity, a privately held provider of high-performance security information and event management (SIEM) solutions.The company’s founders and roots come from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, giving it extensive experience with critical infrastructures in the energy sector, creating a sweet spot for the Portsmouth, NH-based company in a sector that has come into the spotlight following Stuxnet and a general rise in concern over critical infrastructure security.

IBM announced that it would acquire privately held Q1 Labs, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based provider of security intelligence software.

SIEM vendors are all jumping on the Security Intelligence tag line, but what does it really mean? The bad guys are getting more sophisticated and the quality and breadth of intelligence is crucial to early identification and thwarting attacks. Can SIEM bring the analog of human intelligence (aka, espionage) to cyber threats and the security visibility of business intelligence to the executive boardroom?Defining the threat landscape:

VASCO Data Security, parent of recently “hacked out of business” Certificate Authority (CA), DigiNotar, has shared additional information on the expected losses surrounding the recent cyber attack that forced the company into bankruptcy.

Data Center Security Survey Highlights Discrepancy Between Data Center Security Perceptions and RealityToday McAfee released the results of a sweeping survey into data center security – and the picture is not all that pretty.

Organization Warns that Poor Governance over Geolocation can be DisastrousIn a recently released white paper, the ISACA has offered a general overview of the issues surrounding corporate and consumer privacy when it comes to mobile geolocation services. In addition, the organization has offered a simple mnemonic to consumers and employees to address privacy and safety concerns - aptly named ROUTE.

Danish security firm CSIS recently released the results of a three-month long study, backing a common line of thought in the security world. That is, third-party applications can lead to serious risk, especially when combined with a lack of patching.According to CSIS, five products are responsible for 99-percent of all malware infections. Many of the targeted applications are vulnerable due to a lack of patching, leaving the user and the network exposed.

Social media can be a useful tool for businesses, bringing substantial benefits to marketing and communications with customers and employees, when used properly. But as any IT security department knows, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pose a significant threat to users across the board as they blindly click links which often lead to spam, clickjacking attacks, or other malicious sites that could result in malware infection.

Vulnerability in HTC Android Devices Leaks Phone Numbers, Location, SMS, Emails Addresses, and More

Considerations That can Help Enterprises Protect Themselves Against MalwareThus far 2011 has had the ignominious distinction of being the year of the breach, and modern malware has been one of the key transformative technologies that have enabled hackers to become far more intelligent and persistent in their attacks.

Company Conspired to Fix Prices of Drives Sold to Dell, HP, and Microsoft; Agrees to Pay $21.1 Million Criminal FineHitachi-LG Data Storage, a joint venture between Hitachi and LG Electronics, has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $21.1 million criminal fine for its part in a scheme to rig bids and fix prices of optical disk drives.

Kingston Digital this week launched a USB Flash drive that protects sensitive data with Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 Level 3 Validation and 100-percent encryption.

McAfee today said that it has appointed Jean-Claude Broido as president of McAfee Japan.Broido brings over 30 years of sales and marketing leadership experience in the US, Europe, Asia and Japan, most recently as senior vice president of International Sales at EMC’s Information Intelligence Group. Prior to EMC, Broido was executive vice president and general manager of EMEA for Documentum.

We’re not talking about plain old rules, but rather mandated rules as defined in a federally enacted legislation. As someone with a career in information security, my first answer is “yes, regulation is good for security.” Regulation helps make sure that people and companies are protecting the security of their systems, networks, and information, even minimally. If you are faced with regulatory compliance, you are faced with a legal issue. And, if you are not compliant, you are essentially breaking...

IBM researchers are predicting 2011 will see twice as many mobile exploits as 2010.

In 2009, Vivek Kundra was named as the country's first CIO and was charged with improving efficiency while also making government data more available to the public. Part of his plan was to transform federal IT management with a cloud-first policy and get away from wasteful spending on IT infrastructure. We’re slowly seeing a shift take place, and today an announcement was made on another set government IT assets moving to the cloud.