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PC Monitors Vulnerable To Hacking
You should probably be leery of what you see since, apparently, your computer monitor can be hacked.
Researchers at DEF CON presented a way to manipulate the tiny pixels found on a computer display.
Ang Cui and Jatin Kataria of Red Balloon Security were curious how Dell monitors worked and ended up reverse-engineering one.
They picked apart a Dell U2410 monitor and found that the display controller inside can be used to change and log the pixels across the screen.
During their DEF CON presentation, they showed how the hacked monitor could seemingly alter the details on a web page. In one example, they changed a PayPal’s account balance from $0 to $1 million, when in reality the pixels on the monitor had simply been reconfigured.
It wasn’t exactly an easy hack to pull off. To discover the vulnerability, both Cui and Kataria spent their spare time over two years, conducting research and understanding the technology inside the Dell monitor.
However, they also looked at monitors from other brands, including Samsung, Acer and Hewlett Packard, and noticed that it was theoretically possible to hack them in the same manner as well.
The key problem lies in the monitors’ firmware, or the software embedded inside. “There’s no security in the way they update their firmware, and it’s very open,” said Cui, who is also CEO of Red Balloon.
The exploit requires gaining access to the monitor itself, through the HDMI or USB port. Once done, the hack could potentially open the door for other malicious attacks, including ransomware.
For instance, cyber criminals could emblazon a permanent message on the display, and ask for payment to remove it, Kataria said. Or they could even spy on users’ monitors, by logging the pixels generated.
However, the two researchers said they made their presentation to raise awareness about computer monitor security. They’ve posted the code to their research online.
“Is monitor security important? I think it is,” Cui said.
Dell couldn’t be reached for immediate comment.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/computer-monitors-are-also-vulnerable-to-hacking.html
Swift To Focus More On Security
June 6, 2016 by admin
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The SWIFT secure messaging service that underpins international banking announced that it will launch a new security program as it fights to rebuild its reputation in the wake of the Bangladesh Bank heist.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)’s chief executive, Gottfried Leibbrandt, told a financial services conference in Brussels that SWIFT will launch a five-point plan later this week.
Banks send payment instructions to one another via SWIFT messages. In February, thieves hacked into the SWIFT system of the Bangladesh central bank, sending messages to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York allowing them to steal $81 million.
The attack follows a similar but little-noticed theft from Banco del Austro in Ecuador last year that netted thieves more than $12 million, and a previously undisclosed attack on Vietnam’s Tien Phong Bank that was not successful.
The crimes have dented the banking industry’s faith in SWIFT, a Belgium-based co-operative owned by its users.
The Bangladesh Bank hack was a “watershed event for the banking industry”, Leibbrandt said.
“There will be a before and an after Bangladesh. The Bangladesh fraud is not an isolated incident … this is a big deal. And it gets to the heart of banking.”
SWIFT wants banks to “drastically” improve information sharing, to toughen up security procedures around SWIFT and to increase their use of software that could spot fraudulent payments.
SWIFT will also provide tighter guidelines that auditors and regulators can use to assess whether banks’ SWIFT security procedures are good enough.
Leibbrandt again defended SWIFT’s role, saying the hacks happened primarily because of failures at users. “Many of the less protected banks are in countries were skills are really scarce,” he said, pointing the finger at providers of services to banks.
“We will have to create an ecosystem of providers and partners, for example by introducing certification requirements for third-party providers,” he said.
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/uncategorized/swift-to-implement-new-security-program-after-recent-hacking.html
Hospitals Should Brace For Surge In Ransomware Attacks
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U.S. hospitals should brace for a surge in “ransomware” attacks by cyber criminals who take computer networks hostage, then demand payment in return for unlocking them, a non-profit healthcare group warned on Friday.
The Health Information Trust Alliance conducted a study of some 30 mid-sized U.S. hospitals late last year and found that 52 percent of them were infected with malicious software, HITRUST Chief Executive Daniel Nutkis told Reuters.
The most common type of malware was ransomware, Nutkis said, which was present in 35 percent of the hospitals included in the study of network traffic conducted by security software maker Trend Micro Inc.
Ransomware is malicious software that locks up data in computers and leaves messages demanding payment to recover the data. Last month, Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles paid a ransom of $17,000 to regain access to its systems.
This week, an attack on MedStar Health forced the largest healthcare provider in Washington, D.C., to shut down much of its computer network. The Baltimore Sun reported a ransom of $18,500 was sought. MedStar declined to comment.
HITRUST said it expects such attacks to become more frequent because ransomware has turned into a profitable business for cyber criminals.
The results of the study, which HITRUST has yet to share with the public, demonstrate that hackers have moved away from focusing on stealing patient data, Nutkis said.
“If stuff isn’t working, they move on. If stuff is working, they keep doing it,” said Nutkis. “Organizations that are paying have considered their options, and unfortunately they don’t have a lot of options.”
Extortion has become more popular with cyber criminals because it is seen as a way to generate fast money, said Larry Whiteside, a healthcare expert with cyber security firm Optiv.
Stealing healthcare data is far more labor intensive, requiring attackers to keep their presence in a victim’s network undetected for months as they steal data, then they need to find buyers, he added.
“With ransomware I’m going to get paid immediately,” Whiteside said.
Courtesy- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/hospitals-should-brace-for-surge-in-ransomware-attacks.html
Symantec Has Some Flaws With SEP
Symantec has warned of three serious vulnerabilities in its Endpoint Protection (SEP) software, and is advising users to update their systems.
The bugs affect all builds of the 12.1 version of the SEP software, with the first two flaws allowing authorised but low privilege users of the software to gain elevated and administrative access to the management console, which can be accessed either locally or through a web-based portal.
The third bug is in the sysplant driver and enables users to bypass the SEP’s security controls and run malware and other malicious code on a targeted client machines.
“Exploitation attempts of this type generally use known methods of trust exploitation requiring enticing a currently authenticated user to access a malicious link or open a malicious document in a context such as a website or in an email,” said the security firm.
There have been no recorded exploits of the flaws, so it would appear that Symantec has squashed the bugs before they became a real-world problem for its customers.
The first two bugs were discovered by security researcher Anatoly Katyushin from rival firm Kaspersky Labs, which is a little embarrassing. Discovery of the third bug was credited to the enSilo Research Team.
Symantec advises SEP users to update their software to the 12.1 RU6 MP4 version. It also recommends that users should take precautions and restrict remote access to the management console in order to prevent hackers from attacking client systems through the web portal.
While hackers can direct sophisticated malware at even the most robustly secured systems, exploiting flaws in software offers an easier route into machines and networks, providing hackers get in before the bugs are discovered and patched.
Recent examples can be seen with the discovery of iOS malware which threatens iPhones through an Apple DRM flaw, and an error on Code.org’s website which saw the emails of its volunteers exposed.
Courtesy-TheInq
Are Cyber Criminals Hard To Catch?
Despite 100,000 cyber crimes being committed every year UK authorities only caught 12 hackers.
In fact on average just one person was convicted of an offence under the Computer Misuse Act every month for the past 23 years.
We assume that it was not the same bloke, because he would be the most luckless criminal ever.
Campaigners from the Digital Trust, which supports victims of online abuse, said police do not know how to cope with the problem.
Need more laws
Criminal justice expert Harry Fletcher, who is a director of the Digital Trust, said: “The police still concentrate their resources on traditional offences offline, but most people are more likely to be mugged online than in the street.
“The law needs to change. It should, for example, be an offence to use any technological device to locate, listen to or watch a person without legitimate purpose.
“In addition, restrictions should be placed on the sale of spyware without lawful reasons. It should also be against the law to install a webcam or any other form or surveillance device without the target’s knowledge.”
Of course just creating new laws is not going to mean that more hackers will be caught, it will just mean that there are more crimes which they could be arrested for.
The conviction rate against hackers are not bad, if the coppers do arrest someone. Between 1990 to 2006 only 183 defendants were proceeded against and 134 found guilty under the Computer Misuse Act.
Unfortunately the Trust did not see, to realize that a lot of the hacks against companies and individuals come from overseas, particularly Russian or China. Changing laws in the UK would not change anything.
Symantec Uncovers Advanced Spying Malware
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An advanced malicious software application has been discovered that since 2008 was used to spy on private companies, governments, research institutes and individuals in 10 countries, anti virus software maker Symantec Corp said in a report on Sunday.
The Mountain View, California-based maker of Norton anti virus products said its research showed that a “nation state” was likely the developer of the malware called Regin, or Backdoor. Regin, but Symantec did not identify any countries or victims.
Symantec said Regin’s design “makes it highly suited for persistent, long-term surveillance operations against targets,” and was withdrawn in 2011 but resurfaced from 2013 onward.
The malware uses several “stealth” features “and even when its presence is detected, it is very difficult to ascertain what it is doing,” according to Symantec. It said “many components of Regin remain undiscovered and additional functionality and versions may exist.”
Almost half of all infections occurred at addresses of Internet service providers, the report said. It said the targets were customers of the companies rather than the companies themselves. About 28 percent of targets were in telecoms while other victims were in the energy, airline, hospitality and research sectors, Symantec said.
Symantec described the malware as having five stages, each “hidden and encrypted, with the exception of the first stage.” It said “each individual stage provides little information on the complete package. Only by acquiring all five stages is it possible to analyze and understand the threat.”
Regin also uses what is called a modular approach that allows it to load custom features tailored to targets, the same method applied in other malware, such as Flamer and Weevil (The Mask), the anti virus company said. Some of its features were also similar to Duqu malware, uncovered in September 2011 and related to a computer worm called Stuxnet, discovered the previous year.
Symantec said Russia and Saudi Arabia accounted for about half of the confirmed infections of the Regin malware and the other countries were Mexico, Ireland, India, Iran,Afghanistan, Belgium, Austria and Pakistan.
Zeus Attached To Cancer Email Scam
March 28, 2014 by admin
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Thousands of email users have been hit by a sick cancer email hoax that aims to infect the recipients’ computers with Zeus malware.
The email has already hit thousands of inboxes across the UK, and looks like it was sent by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). It features the subject line “Important blood analysis result”.
However, NICE has warned that it did not send the malicious emails, and is urging users not to open them.
NICE chief executive Sir Andrew Dillon said, “A spam email purporting to come from NICE is being sent to members of the public regarding cancer test results.
“This email is likely to cause distress to recipients since it advises that ‘test results’ indicate they may have cancer. This malicious email is not from NICE and we are currently investigating its origin. We take this matter very seriously and have reported it to the police.”
The hoax message requests that users download an attachment that purportedly contains the results of the faux blood analysis.
Security analysis firm Appriver has since claimed that the scam email is carrying Zeus malware that if installed will attempt to steal users’ credentials and take over their PCs.
Appriver senior security specialist Fred Touchette warned, “If the attachment is unzipped and executed the user may see a quick error window pop up and then disappear on their screen.
“What they won’t see is the downloader then taking control of their PC. It immediately begins checking to see if it is being analysed, by making long sleep calls, and checking to see if it is running virtually or in a debugger.
“Next it begins to steal browser cookies and MS Outlook passwords from the system registry. The malware in turn posts this data to a server at 69.76.179.74 with the command /ppp/ta.php, and punches a hole in the firewall to listen for further commands on UDP ports 7263 and 4400.”
Web Pioneer Calls For Bill of Rights
The inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, voiced his support for bill of rights to protect freedom of speech on the Internet and users’ rights after leaks about government surveillance of online activity.
25 years since the London-born computer scientist invented the web, Berners-Lee said there was a need for a charter like England’s historic Magna Carta to help guarantee fundamental principles online.
Web privacy and freedom have come under scrutiny since former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year leaked a raft of secret documents revealing a vast U.S. government system for monitoring phone and Internet data.
Accusations that NSA was mining personal data of users of Google, Facebook, Skype and other U.S. companies prompted President Barack Obama to announce reforms in January to scale back the NSA program and ban eavesdropping on the leaders of close friends and allies of the United States.
Berners-Lee said it was time for a communal decision as he warned that growing surveillance and censorship, in countries such as China, threatened the future of democracy.
“Are we going to continue on the road and just allow the governments to do more and more and more control – more and more surveillance?” he told BBC Radio on Wednesday.
“Or are we going to set up something like a Magna Carta for the world wide web and say, actually, now it’s so important, so much part of our lives, that it becomes on a level with human rights?” he said, referring to the 1215 English charter.
While acknowledging the state needed the power to tackle criminals using the Internet, he has called for greater oversight over spy agencies such Britain’s GCHQ and the NSA, and over any organizations collecting data on private individuals.
He has previously spoken in support of Snowden, saying his actions were “in the public interest”.
Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Consortium, a global community with a mission to lead the web to its full potential, have launched a year of action for a campaign called the Web We Want, urging people to push for an Internet “bill of rights” for every country.
Did A Hacker OD?
Top hacker Barnaby Jack died from mixing too many drugs in one session, a coroner’s report shows. Kiwi-born Jack was supposed to give a talk at a security conference when he was found dead in his bed.
Conspiracy nuts raised an eyebrow or two when it was revealed that Jack’s death occurred shortly before he was due to demonstrate how heart implants could be hacked at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. He did not have a mark on him and showed no signs of trauma. However, now a coroner’s report has shown that Jack had a mix of heroin, cocaine and prescription drugs in his system. And he died of “acute mixed drug intoxication.”
Jack rose to fame after a 2010 demonstration, in which he hacked a cash machine, making it give out money. Jack’s girlfriend had found him lying in bed unresponsive, with “multiple bottles of beer and champagne” in the rubbish bin, so it must have been a hell of a night.
Cryptolocker Infects 250K Systems
DELL’s security research team has revealed that a new form of ransomware, dubbed “Cryptolocker” has managed to infect up to 250,000 devices, stealing almost a million dollars in Bitcoins.
“Based on the presented evidence, researchers estimate that 200,000 to 250,000 systems were infected globally in the first 100 days of the CryptoLocker threat,” Dell announced in a Secureworks post.
The firm worked out that if the Cryptolocker ransomware threat actors had sold its 1,216 total Bitcoins (BTC) that they collected from September this year, immediately upon receiving them, they would have earned nearly $380,000.
“If they elected to hold these ransoms, they would be worth nearly $980,000 as of this publication based on the current weighted price of $804/BTC,” Dell said.
Cryptolocker is unique when compared against your average ransomware. Instead of using a custom cryptographic implementation like many other malware families, Cryptolocker uses third-party certified cryptography offered by Microsoft’s CryptoAPI.
“By using a sound implementation and following best practices, the malware authors have created a robust program that is difficult to circumvent,” Dell said.
Conventionally, ransomware prevents victims from using their computers normally and uses social engineering to convince them that failing to follow the malware authors’ instructions will lead to real-world consequences. These consequences, such as owing a fine or facing arrest and prosecution, are presented as being the result of a fabricated indiscretion such as pirating music or downloading illegal pornography.
“Victims of traditional forms of ransomware could ignore the demands and use security software to unlock the system and remove the offending malware,” Dell explained. “Cryptolocker changes this dynamic by aggressively encrypting files on the victim’s system and returning control of the files to the victim only after the ransom is paid.”
Dell said that the earliest samples of Cryptolocker appear to have been released on 5 September this year. However, details about its initial distribution phase are unclear.
“It appears the samples were downloaded from a compromised website located in the United States, either by a version of Cryptolocker that has not been analysed as of this publication, or by a custom downloader created by the same authors,” Dell added.
Dell seems to think that early versions of Cryptolocker were distributed through spam emails targeting business professionals as opposed to home internet users, with the lure often being a ‘consumer complaint’ against the email recipient or their organisation.
Attached to these emails would be a ZIP archive with a random alphabetical filename containing 13 to 17 characters, containing a single executable with the same filename as the ZIP archive but with an EXE extension, so keep your eye out for emails that fit this description.