Security

With their FBI-supplied lifeline severed, early Monday morning tens of thousands of computers still infected with dangerous DNS Changer virus lost their ability to surf the Internet. However, it appears that a flurry of media reports warning ... computer users about the potential problem has prevented the shut-down from having a significant impact. DNS Changer was a virus that spread across the Internet back in 2009. Originating in eastern Europe, an FBI investigation resulted in the operation's termination in 2011. The servers involved were seized. However, the FBI voluntarily refrained from ... (view more)

A security firm has discovered a Trojan horse posing as a smartphone application on both Apple's App Store and Google Play. Both Google and Apple have already removed the app, so it is no longer available for download. The app, called "Find and ... Call," masked as a smartphone organization tool. In reality, however, it was a virus that, after being installed, spread to other devices by means of the device user's contact list. Contact List Uploaded to Remote Server The true nature of "Find and Call" was originally discovered by Kaspersky Lab, a prominent security firm. According to ... (view more)

People whose computers are infected with the ' DNS Changer ' virus will lose access to the Internet on Monday, July 9, 2012, unless they take steps to remedy the situation. Right now the Federal Bureau of Investigation is wrapping up an operation ... designed to help such victims maintain their online connections. DNS Changer is named after the domain name system that helps translate website addresses (such as www.infopackets.com ) into a string of numbers known as an IP address, which is the way computers actually identify the machine where a particular website is physically stored. 'DNS Changer ... (view more)

A series of security breaches has exposed the credit card details of Wyndham hotel customers. As a result, the company must face the ire of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Hackers apparently breached the hotel chain's secured data networks on ... three separate occasions, starting in April 2008. The first attack was the largest and gave the hackers access to hotel guest data stored on the system. Because the data wasn't encrypted, the attackers were able to utilize information associated with an estimated 500,000 credit cards, which they relayed to a Russian-based site. Wyndam came under ... (view more)

Hackers have claimed responsibility for an attack that sent social networking site Twitter crashing twice on Thursday, June 21, 2012. The hacking group UGNazi told CBS Atlanta that it was behind Twitter's forced outage. Whatever the source, the ... attacks took Twitter offline twice between 9 AM and 11 AM, US Pacific Time (PT). The site was restored to full functionality within an hour after the first attack, but then failed a second time. When down, Twitter was entirely unavailable across all platforms, including mobile apps. Twitter Blames Internal Error for Outage Initially, Twitter said the ... (view more)

According to a new report, the governments of the United States and Israel were jointly responsible for crafting and turning loose the new Flame virus . The apparent goal of the project: to disrupt Iran's nuclear weapons program. The report about ... the origins of Flame was published in the Washington Post, which indicates that Flame was originally designed to act as a cyber weapon that could help its creators acquire "sensitive" information from the Middle East region. Flame Project Known as "Olympic Games" The overarching project that ultimately yielded Flame, known as "Olympic Games ... (view more)

The creators of the Flame virus now appear to be attempting to remove it from the computers it has infected. This bizarre move from hackers, who normally seek to increase rather than decrease the number of machines their code infects, may be part of ... a belated attempt to prevent further analysis of how Flame works. The existence of Flame was announced late last month by security firm Kaspersky Lab. At the time, Kaspersky noted the virus was exceptionally sophisticated and had been designed specifically to harvest data using tactics as diverse as taking screenshots and eavesdropping on phone ... (view more)

Software used by Iranian citizens to access the uncensored Internet anonymously has now been revealed to carry malware. Even worse, it carries a variant of malicious software that tracks everything any user types into an infected computer. The ... dangerous software is named Simurgh, after a mythical creature in Iranian folklore. The software is thought to help Internet users combat harsh government controls and shield users from being located and identified. Software Hides Identity of User From Watchers The software is mostly used by Iranians to hide their identity. Users believe it creates ... (view more)

A leading security firm says it has discovered a virus that could be more sophisticated and potentially more dangerous than Stuxnet, which wreaked havoc last year. The new virus, called "Flame," appears however to be designed to steal data rather ... than to cause physical damage to computer systems. Security experts at Kaspersky Lab say Flame gathers data from infected machines using a comprehensive range of tactics. Rather than simply copy files and track online activity, it attempts to track what a user is typing, take screenshots, and even make audio recordings from online telephone ... (view more)

A British government official has said the online networks set to carry this summer's Olympic Games could be targeted for online attacks by cybercriminals. No specific threats have been identified, but officials are nevertheless employing ... professional hackers to test the networks' security and readiness to resist various methods of attack. Francis Maude, the UK's Cabinet Office minister, is charged with supporting the workings of the government across all departments. He made specific comments about the possibility of such attacks while visiting Estonia, the eastern European state that has ... (view more)