TorrentFreak reports: "Following on the heels of this week's domain seizure of a large hiphop file-sharing links forum, it's clear today that the U.S. Government has been very busy. Without any need for COICA, ICE has just seized the domain of a BitTorrent meta-search engine along with those belonging to other music linking sites and several others which appear to be connected to physical counterfeit goods. more
Micorsoft has released a 253 page cybersecurity ebook primarily intended for teens but also serves as a useful resource for adults interested in overall understanding of various Internet security topics. more
Brian Krebs reporting in Krebs on Secruity: "The Obama administration is inviting leaders of the top Internet domain name registrars and registries to attend a three-hour meeting at the White House next month about voluntary ways to crack down on Web sites that are selling counterfeit prescription medications..." more
A report, released today by McAfee, Inc., titled "Security Takes the Offensive," says that traditionally, security technology companies and computer users have taken a defensive posture, putting the cyber equivalent of body armor on computers, networks and in the cloud. The report's authors say it is now time to avoid enemy strikes altogether by taking a more aggressive stance, aligning forces and involving law enforcement. more
Garth Bruen writes: A report in LegitScript takes a look at Russian rogue Internet pharmacy hacking US government website. "As rogue Internet pharmacy networks become more sophisticated, even US government websites are at risk. Today, we're taking a look at how a rogue Internet pharmacy linked to a criminal network operating out of Russia and Eastern Europe has hacked into a US government website. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US foreign aid agency, utilizes a ".gov" top-level domain, which is assigned to the control of the US government. Domain names ending in .gov are typically administered by the General Services Administration." more
A study conducted by the Verizon Business RISK team in cooperation with the United States Secret Service has found that breaches of electronic records in 2009 involved more insider threats, greater use of social engineering and the continued strong involvement of organized criminal groups. more
A new study has been released by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President that looks into cybersecurity manpower challenges in the United States. The report titled, "A Human Capital Crisis in Cybersecurity," is produced by CSIS - a bipartisan public and foreign policy think tank in Washington. more
J. Nicholas Hoover reporting in InformationWeek: "The White House on Wednesday issued an update of the Obama administration's ongoing cybersecurity work, detailing some of the steps being taken in an effort to secure the nation's networks against cyber attacks and in the process offering some new insight into the administration's future plans. The progress report, issued immediately after a meeting held by White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt with agency secretaries, cybersecurity experts..." more
M86 Security today released it's bi-annual security report for the first half of 2010, highlighting the evolution of obfuscation through combined attacks. From the report: "This threat trend is the latest to emerge as cybercriminals seek new ways to limit the effectiveness of many proactive security controls. Because existing techniques for 'covering their tracks' are becoming less effective, cybercriminals have begun using combined attacks, which are more complex and difficult to detect. By splitting the malicious code between Adobe ActionScript language - built into Adobe flash - and JavaScript components on the webpage, they limit the effectiveness of many of the the proactive security detection mechanisms in place today." more
Security expert Bruce Schneier in a blog post today writes: "It's about who is in charge of cyber security, and how much control the government will exert over civilian networks. And by beating the drums of war, the military is coming out on top. ... General Keith Alexander, the current commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, hypes it every chance he gets. This isn't just rhetoric of a few over-eager government officials and headline writers; the entire national debate on cyberwar is plagued with exaggerations and hyperbole." more
More than 420,000 scam emails are sent every hour in the UK according to a report published by Card Protection Plan Limited (CPP). The study estimates that Britons were targeted by 3.7 billion 'phishing' emails in the last 12 months alone. And a quarter of people admit to falling victim to e-fraudsters, with the average victim losing over £285 each. more
Brian Krebs reporting on the Krebs on Security blog: "The FBI's top anti-cyber crime official today said the agency is planning a law enforcement action against so-called 'money mules,' individuals willingly or unwittingly roped into helping organized computer crooks launder money stolen through online banking fraud." more
The EU's 'cyber security' Agency ENISA (The European Network and Information Security Agency) has launched a new report concluding that the EU should focus its future IT security research on five areas: cloud computing, real-time detection and diagnosis systems, future wireless networks, sensor networks, and supply chain integrity. more
Over at Krebs on Secrity blog, Brian Krebs reports: "Purveyors of fake anti-virus or 'scareware' programs have aggressively stepped up their game to evade detection by legitimate anti-virus programs, according to new data from Google. In a report being released today, Google said that between January 2009 and the end of January 2010, its malware detection infrastructure found some 11,000 malicious or hacked Web pages that attempted to foist fake anti-virus on visitors." more
Google, which through its Postini email security and archiving service processes over 3 billion email connections a day, reports that despite recent series of major botnet takedowns, spam levels during the first quarter of 2010 have held fairly steady. "This suggests that there's no shortage of botnets out there for spammers to use. If one botnet goes offline, spammers simply buy, rent, or deploy another, making it difficult for the anti-spam community to make significant inroads in the fight against spam with individual botnet takedowns." more
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