By: Fred Donovan - Technology Reporter
FBI Apple AntiSec Chess Match
September 12th, 2012
The denials by the FBI and Apple that unique device identifiers (UDIDs) of Apple devices were breached would seem to put to rest Anonymous spinoff AntiSec’s claim that it was able to steal 12 million UDIDs from Special Agent Christopher Stangl’s notebook computer. Right? Not so fast. A number of media outlets have confirmed with [...]
By: Chris Merritt - Dir. Solutions Marketing
Change Your LinkedIn Password – Now!
June 6th, 2012
LinkedIn – the online professional networking site which I suspect many Optimal Security blog readers use – has apparently been hacked, resulting in something like 6.5M SHA-1 hashed passwords being posted in a Russian hacker site. This evolving situation will certainly be updated through-out the day (and beyond), so I don’t want to recap the [...]
By: Chris Merritt - Dir. Solutions Marketing
Novel New USB Attack
July 19th, 2010
News about a new attack via USB flash drive, known as Stuxnet.B, is surfacing. The Belarusian antivirus company VirusBlokAda recently discovered it and published a report on it. There are several points about this attack which make it both novel and unique, even though infection / propagation via USB flash drives is very common. To [...]
By: Chris Merritt - Dir. Solutions Marketing
HITECH Breach Data: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
March 1st, 2010
As I’ve discussed before, one of the requirements of the HITECH Act is for the Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to publish a list of all breaches of healthcare data covered by the HIPAA security rule on a yearly basis. The first such publication has been made, covering the period [...]
“Security” on the WSJ Front Page – A Cautionary Tale
January 15th, 2010
Having a security problem on the front page of the Wall Street Journal is never a good thing for the companies involved, but it can be instructive for everyone else.Unfortunately, many will ignore the high-profile coverage of China’s spear phishing attack on Google, Adobe and over thirty other businesses.They will think that this is a [...]
“Micro-Botnet” – The Cybercriminal’s Choice for Enterprise Data Stealing?
September 28th, 2009
Last winter and spring we all watched with interest the headlines heralding the spread of the Confickr botnet. The under-reported part of the story was that fact that well-patched enterprise networks were largely unaffected by Confickr’s bloom. In some circles, this seems to have lead to a complacency or belief that botnet infections are not [...]
Breaking Down the Military Fiefdoms by Building a “Fifth Arm” to Combat Cyber Security
August 4th, 2009
The recent attacks on U.S. and South Korean IT infrastructure has once again raised awareness around national cybersecurity issues here in the States. While I certainly agree with my security colleagues that it is high time that President Obama finally appoint a cybersecurity czar to head up the overarching public-private initiatives that have been promised, [...]
By: Chris Merritt - Dir. Solutions Marketing
Chris’ Security Cache Contemplation: Week 6
July 6th, 2009
A quick note on some interesting news/tidbits I’ve run across whilst trying to keep up with/clean out my RSS feed before I head out for the 4th of July weekend… The Iceman Goeth. Saw where Max Ray Vision (nee Butler), aka “Iceman,” has plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud stemming from the theft [...]
July 2009 Spells Twitter Bugs for Its Users
June 22nd, 2009
Security researchers have long used dedicated reporting websites to highlight the need to secure specific applications or services by hosting hacking challenges for members of the research and hacking communities to publicly post discovered vulnerabilities. The latest challenge called “Twitpwn” will highlight newly discovered vulnerabilities and proof of concept code that involve Twitter, a micro-blogging site, but will [...]
By: Chris Merritt - Dir. Solutions Marketing
Chris’ Security Cache Contemplation: Week 4
June 18th, 2009
Miscellaneous interesting news / tidbits I’ve run across whilst trying to keep up with/clean out my RSS feed … Cyberczar. Lots of discussion about the “Cyber Czar” appointment in the US (apparently the EU is contemplating something similar) … who is it going to be? [some are suggesting Scott Charney, head of Microsoft's cybersecurity division] [...]
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