Sony hacked again, 1 million user accounts compromised
The same group that was responsible for hacking into PBS' site recently to post fake news claiming Tupac Shakur was alive has set its sights on Sony. Lulz Boat said it had broke into the SonyPictures.com website and compromised the personal information of one million users.
Among the information is name, password, e-mail address, date of birth, and home address. Any other information the user opted to share with Sony is also in the hands of these hackers as well. The hackers were only able to download data on 150,000 of those users, but walked away with admin details and 3.5 million music coupons and 75,000 music codes, it said.
Meet three people ripped off by iTunes fraud ring
Reports from victims of fraud on iTunes are beginning to paint a picture of what could be a significant security issue for Apple's online entertainment store. Worse yet, several of the victims that reported into Betanews on their experience are employed in IT -- obviously understanding the risks of improperly secured personal data.
Although not uniform, Betanews investigations into the issue seem to suggest that attackers have primarily targeted users that had credit balances with iTunes. Monitoring of Sega's Kingdom Conquest app page show new comments posted today of fraudulent charges, indicating the hack is ongoing. But that's not the worst of it: other apps may be victims of these hackers.
China calls Google's phishing/hacking accusations 'groundless,' 'chimerical'
On Wednesday, Engineering Director of Google's Security Team Eric Grosse said his team had uncovered a password-stealing campaign originating from Jinan, China that targeted senior U.S., South Korean, and other Asian government officials, Chinese political activists, military personnel, and journalists.
Unlike a typical phishing scam looking to steal money from whomever falls for its social engineering tricks, Grosse suggested that this campaign was more for the purposes of espionage or information collection, and was targeting individuals.
I got hacked on iTunes
Last night, I was sitting around with friends enjoying the evening and happened to check my e-mail. To my surprise, I had received two e-mails from PayPal with the subjects "Receipt for Your Payment to iTunes Store." That's funny -- I hadn't bought anything on iTunes in over a week, and the last charge had already hit my account days ago.
Imagine my horror when I logged into the Account Management section and saw this: repeated charges totaling $95.30, split in two equal parts. Worse yet, it was for a game I had never downloaded, Sega's "Kingdom Conquest." Repeatedly, somebody had purchased within the app 1,200 CP (which I'm guessing is in-game credits) at $8.99 a piece.
Google begins killing off support for older browsers -- well, not that old
Wouldn't it be funny if Google turned out to be the Internet's security cop? That's one way to interpret the search and information giant's continued push to clear away aging web browsers. First Internet Explorer 6, now Firefox 3.5, IE7 and Safari 3. Google will stop supporting these latter three browsers two months from today.
Google's reasons have nothing to do with security, but there could be a safety benefit. Let's face it, major developers invest more in their newest browser versions. More significantly, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla are now on fast development tracks, with new browser milestones coming every six to eight weeks. For example, Firefox 4 launched in late March with great fanfare -- 6 million downloads in 24 hours -- yet version 7 Nightly builds are already available for download. Firefox 5 is scheduled to release on June 21.
Is new spam scourge coming, as botmasters repopulate networks?
Have you noticed a decline in spam reaching your inbox? Sadly, the respite won't last long. More spam is coming your way.
Today, McAfee Labs released its First Quarter 2011 Threat Report, and there's good news. Spam volumes are considerably lower and it's because of some significant law enforcement victories. Among them: In march, law enforcement, working with Microsoft, took down the Rustock botnet and with it a big chunk of the zombie/bot population.
Apple's Mac Defender patch is already worthless
Within hours of Apple updating Mac OS X to specifically deal with the Mac Defender problem, the malware developers have already released code that bypasses the fix into the wild. "Mdinstall.pkg" is the name of the file, and it appeared to have been released about 8 hours after Apple's fix.
It will take some time for this version of Mac Defender to propagate, thus Apple's updated antivirus definitions will provide some limited protection. It will likely require the Cupertino company to work daily in updating the definitions -- a whole new world for a company used to watching malware purveyors attack Windows instead.
Malwarebytes 1.51: Faster malware scanning, free 'Pro' trial
It seems like the beta had only just appeared, but the final build of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.51 released to the public today.
Highlights for the free version include "much more efficient" updating, says Malwarebytes, and it does seem noticeably faster in our initial tests.
Mac Guard assails teen girl's computer
Lots of people are dismissing blogs and news stories about Mac Defender, and the Mac Guard variant, as frivolous reporting. Reasoning: There are hundreds of thousands of Windows PC viruses and Trojans and just the one for the Mac. I disagree. This Trojan is the first Mac malware to widely spread in the wild. That makes it news.
Early this afternoon, Eastern Daylight Time, I had my first encounter with someone whose computer was infected by the Trojan. That's personal confirmation about the malware being in the wild. One of my daughter's friends called saying that she had received pop-warnings about her vintage-2008 15-inch MacBook Pro being infected with virus. She had been presented with option to purchase MacGuard to fix it. I gave her the laptop about six months ago.
The Mac malware problem is bigger than you think
Take a long hard, really hard, look at the above chart, which Craig Schmugar posted today at the McAfee Labs blog. Look at the dramatic increase, basically from none, in "rogue" malware (e.g., fake security software) during May.
He asks: "Is this merely a short-term blip on the radar or the beginnings of a trend for Mac threats? Time will tell." Lots of people are asking that question. The answer is easy. It's yes, if there's ongoing money for malware writers to make and no if there isn't.
avast! Free Antivirus for Mac beta is impeccably timed
Mac owners have long been notoriously smug about the lack of viruses for their chosen operating system, but it is far from true to say that viruses do not exist for OS X. In reality, the platform has simply been of little interest to virus writers and coders of malicious software, but the Mac Defender Trojan highlights the fact that Macs are just as vulnerable as other computers. avast! Free Antivirus for Mac is, and there's a clue in the name, a free antivirus tools for Mac -- and a new beta version has just been released. Timing is appropriate given all the noise about Mac Defender.
Coming from a well-respected name such as avast! you would be right to expect great things from the application, and things certainly bode well. Although there is a memory resident virus scanner that is constantly on the lookout for potential viruses, on-demand scanning is available. If you want to be thorough you can opt to scan your entire system, but you can also perform custom scans or check only in your Home folder. Individual files can be scanned by dragging them onto a special drop zone in the corner of the application window.
Five things you need to know about Mac security
The Mac Defender outbreak has stirred much debate about the state of Mac security and whether or not a malware deluge is headed for Apple computers. However, the nuances of the problem, if there really is one long term, are more complex than the majority of blog posts or news reports indicate. It's wrong to wholly, or even largely, assume that increasing Mac install base is reason for Mac Defender and other malware to follow.
I present five things you need to know about the state of Mac security, in no order of importance. All five matter.
iPhone crypto issue isn't all it's cracked up to be
It's been a bad security week for Apple, what with the world of malware finally bothering with Macs. But there was another story: ElcomSoft Co. Ltd., a Moscow computer security firm, announced that it had developed a method to decrypt iOS 4 (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) file system images. ElcomSoft also will be releasing the product implementing this "...for the exclusive use of law enforcement, forensic and intelligence agencies."
Oh no, another embarrassing revelation for Apple? Yes and no. To put it bluntly, the actual cryptography in the iPhone 4 is not "cracked", nor is it bypassed. The method used by ElcomSoft is brute force, which means that it cycles through all possible decryption keys finding the one that works.
Can it be 8 out of 10 Mac owners don't use anti-malware software?
That's the early result of our two separate polls asking Macintosh and Windows PC users whether anti-malware software is installed on their primary home computers. What's most interesting: About as many -- 8 out of 10 -- Windows PC users have anti-malware software installed.
I don't consider the findings exact but they are directional -- as in good enough for identifying trends. Respondents aren't qualified, meaning there's nothing to confirm they are Mac or Windows users. Additionally, the questions specifically ask about primary home PCs, which don't account for work computers or multiple machines at residence. Finally, as I write number of respondents is still small -- 224 respondents about Macs and 361 for Windows PCs. Given that Betanews readers are a more technical lot, I find the poll results to be interesting.
This Mac malware thing is really scary now
It's time for Windows PC users to start a support group for their Mac friends. You know their pain -- clicking a link sent by email or instant message or simply visiting a website, and WHAM! You've got a virus, downloaded and installed with no administrator password required.
Uh-oh. The malware ghetto is coming to the Mac, where street gangs and thieves overrun the once pretty manicured neighborhood. Mac users, you may need to bar the windows and lock the doors. Uh, first install locks on the doors.
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