Threat Intelligence

Policy Failure Enables Mass Malware: Part I (Rx-Partners/VIPMEDS)

This is the first in a series of releases that tie extensive code injection campaigns directly to policy failures within the Internet architecture. In this report we detail a PHP injection found on dozens of university and non-profit websites which redirected visitor's browsers to illicit pharmacies controlled by the VIPMEDS/Rx-Partners affiliate network. This is not a unique problem, however the pharmacy shop sites in question: HEALTHCUBE[DOT]US and GETPILLS[DOT]US should not even exist under the .US Nexus Policy. more

DNS Attack Code Has Been Published

As warned by Dan Kaminsky, Paul Vixie, and numerous other experts experts, it was just a matter of time before an exploit code for the now public DNS flaw would surface. An exploit code for the flaw allowing insertion of malicious DNS records into the cache of target nameservers has been posted to Metasploit, a free provider of information and tools on exploit techniques. According to reports Metasploit creator, H D Moore in collaboration with a researcher named "|)ruid" from Computer Academic Underground, created the exploit, dubbed "DNS BaliWicked Attack", along with a DNS service created to assist with the exploit. more

South Korean Banks Receive DDoS Threat from Hacker Group, Record Ransomware Payment Demanded

Various sources including South Korea's news agency Yonhap are reporting that a hacker group has threatened to launch a DDoS attack against seven South Korean banks unless they pay about 360 million won (US$315,000) in bitcoin. more

Russian-Speaking MoneyTaker Group Suspected of Stealing $10M From Companies in Russia, UK and US

According to report today, Russian-speaking hackers called MoneyTaker, are suspected of stealing nearly $10m by removing overdraft limits on debit cards and taking money from cash machines. more

Voluntary Reporting of Cybersecurity Incidents

One of the problems with trying to secure systems is the lack of knowledge in the community about what has or hasn't worked. I'm on record as calling for an analog to the National Transportation Safety Board: a government agency that investigates major outages and publishes the results. In the current, deregulatory political climate, though, that isn't going to happen. But how about a voluntary system? more

Internet Society Releases Paper on “What Really Matters About the Internet”

Internet Society has released a paper today highlighting the importance of understanding what is important and unchanging about the Internet. more

IETF Looking at Technical Changes to Raise the Bar for Monitoring

During a speech last week at the Internet Governance Forum in Bali, Jari Arkko, IETF's chair, re-emphasized it's efforts to ramp up online security in light of recent revelations of mass internet surveillance. "Perhaps the notion that internet is by default insecure needs to change," Arkko said. Significant technical fixes "just might be possible." more

Another Try at Proof-of-Work e-Postage Email

Another paper from the Fifth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, (WEIS 2006) is Proof of Work can Work by Debin Liu and L, Jean Camp of Indiana University. Proof of work (p-o-w) systems are a variation on e-postage that uses computation rather than money. A mail sender solves a lengthy computational problem and presents the result with the message. The problem takes long enough that the sender can only do a modest number per time period, and so cannot send a lot of messages, thereby preventing spamming. But on a net full of zombies, proof of work doesn't work. more

Broadband Routers and Botnets: Being Proactive

In this post I'd like to discuss the threat widely circulated insecure broadband routers pose today. We have touched on it before. Today, yet another public report of a vulnerable DSL modem type was posted to bugtraq, this time about a potential WIRELESS flaw with broadband routers being insecure at Deutsche Telekom. I haven't verified this one myself but it refers to "Deutsche Telekom Speedport w700v broadband router"... more

Permanent Denial-of-Service Attacks on the Rise, Incidents Involve Hardware-Damaging Assaults

Also known loosely as "phlashing" in some circles, Permanent Denial-of-Service (PDoS) is an increasing popular form of cyberattack that damages a system so badly that it requires replacement or reinstallation of hardware. more

Identity Theft: Giving Away Your Personal Information

Identity theft is apparently the "in thing" these days. By media accounts, hackers and evildoers lurk everywhere trying to steal your personal information. In the past few months, one company after another is being forced to admit customer data has been lost or stolen. In many cases, they have them come forth repeatedly over the next few weeks, or even months revising the estimated number of impacted customers. To date, I don't think any have ever lowered those numbers. ...Let's consider two events that didn't make the front page of C|Net or CNN.  more

What is ‘Pharming’ and Should You Be Worried?

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! ...or is it? What is this thing called "pharming"? Put simply, it's redirection of web traffic, so that the server you think you're talking to actually belongs to a criminal. For example: you think you're talking to www.examplebank.com because it says so in the browser's address bar, but actually you're connected to www.mafia-R-us.ru. This can happen in three main ways: 1. DNS Hijack: a social engineering attack on the Internet infrastructure... more

Criminals Using New Phishing Techniques to Hide from Victims and Investigators, Reports APWG

According to the APWG's new Phishing Activity Trends Report released today, phishers are using new techniques to carry out their attacks and hide their origins in order to make the most of every phishing campaign. more

Is IPv6 a Boon to Criminals and Foe to the FBI?

Declan McCullagh recently opined that the "FBI [and the] DEA warn [that] IPv6 could shield criminals from police." His post was picked-up relatively widely in the past few days, with the headlines adding more hyperbole along the way. So just how real is this threat? Let's take a look. more

Securing the DNS in a Post-Quantum World: Hash-Based Signatures and Synthesized Zone Signing Keys

In my last article, I described efforts underway to standardize new cryptographic algorithms that are designed to be less vulnerable to potential future advances in quantum computing. I also reviewed operational challenges to be considered when adding new algorithms to the DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC). In this post, I'll look at hash-based signatures, a family of post-quantum algorithms that could be a good match for DNSSEC from the perspective of infrastructure stability. more