SecurityWeek

SCADA Networks are the Most Unprotected Networks of All and Now Attackers Have Them in Their Sights.

Hacktivist "Groups" Have Different Motives Behind Their Attacks, But Most Use The Same Tools That Penetration Testers and Other Security Professionals Use or Sell to Others.

Using data collected from DShield, a community based log correlation system that collects data from sensors covering more than 500,000 IP addresses in over 50 countries, the NCC Group has mapped out its latest report on the origination of computer hacking attempts for the first quarter of 2012.For the first time, the UK made an appearance in the top ten, while percentage of hacking attempts coming from Russia and the Netherlands also jumped.

A British man was sentenced to a year in prison for hacking the Facebook account of a U.S. citizen.

For most of this week, The Pirate Bay (TPB) and Wikileaks have suffered under the pressure of a sustained DDoS attack from unknown sources. For TPB outages occur frequently, but direct attacks (other than court ordered censorship) are rare. Likewise, Wikileaks sometimes suffers outages or slow connections, but they too rarely see a direct attack.

World Economic Forum Report Suggests Dialogue About Personal Data Is Focused on Privacy Protection and Anchored in Fear and Doubt, Undermining the Huge Economic and Social Value

In December of 2009, after months of waiting, the Obama Administration named Howard Schmidt as the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator. After more than forty years in the IT community, the former head of the Information Security Forum and the nation’s first cyber czar will retire at the end of the month.

ICS-CERT, the section of U.S. CERT that deals with Industrial Control Systems, is issuing an advisory after a researcher exposed four separate flaws within Pro-face Pro-server, a popular data management server that offers real-time reporting of automated manufacturing and production environments. Each of the flaws can be targeted remotely to trigger DoS conditions, or code execution.

The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), the body behind the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), today shared guidance on how merchants can securely accept payments using mobile devices.

Neustar Reports Shows DDoS Attacks Can Cost Retailers More Than $100k Per-hourAccording to NeuStar, a provider of information, infrastructure and security solutions, the effects a DDoS attack can be devastating to an organization's brand and operations. A majority (three-quarters) of the IT professionals that spoke with NeuStar for a study on the issue said that they fear negative brand impact or customer experiences because of such an attack.

Tucked away in a small town outside Moscow, Russia one of the world’s most prolific and effective cybercriminals works away on the next version of malicious software that will enable the theft of millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims around the world.

Wikimedia, the foundation responsible for information hub Wikipedia, is warning users that if they see ads on the encyclopedia’s webpage, their system might be infected with malware. The ads in question are not the ones asking for donations that show up once a year, but for-profit related adverts.

Stephen Fletcher, the executive director of Utah’s Dept. of Technology Services (DTS), has resigned following the aftermath of a massive data breach earlier this year that exposed nearly one million people, including children. The staffing changes come after preliminary investigations exposed serious flaws within the state’s IT practices, including storing information that shouldn’t have been kept at all.

In an apparent act of cyber espionage, as the acts are being called by Shadowserver researchers Steven Adair and Ned Moran, persons unknown have staged a series of strategic web compromises in order to spread malware. The attackers hijacked several websites related to matters of government and foreign policy, and used them to deliver malicious payloads to visitors by leveraging unpatched software flaws.

Apple released security updates Monday targeting Mac OS X 10.5 users in order to nuke both outdated versions of Adobe System's Flash Player as well as the infamous Flashback Trojan.