KCodes NetUSB Vulnerability Details Surface

The Department of Homeland Security-sponsored CERT at Carnegie Mellon University today issued an alert warning of a serious vulnerability in KCode NetUSB, which is integrated into products sold by a number of networking vendors. KCodes NetUSB is a Linux kernel module that enables several users on...

Appeals Court Rules NSA Metadata Collection Not Authorized by Section 215

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Thursday that the Patriot Act does not authorize the bulk collection of phone records by the NSA. The ruling undermines the key foundation upon which the federal government’s phone metadata surveillance program is built, Section 215 ...

White House, State Department Counted Among CozyDuke APT Victims

A data-mining advanced persistent threat hit a handful of high profile targets last year, including the White House’s computer network. Dubbed CozyDuke, the APT’s toolset shares several similarities with fellow APTs MiniDuke, CosmicDuke and OnionDuke. Kurt Baumgartner and Costin Raiu, researchers...

Whistleblowers' Lawyer Finds Malware On Hard Disk Planted By Police

An Arkansas lawyer representing three police whistleblowers has claimed that the law enforcement officials at the Fort Smith Police Department FSPD tried to infect his computer with Trojan viruses in order to spy on their legal opponents. What’s the issue? A lawyer Matthew Campbell of the Pinnacl...

White House Executive Order Declares Cyber National Emergency

U.S. President Barack Obama last week issued an Executive Order declaring a national emergency and deputizing the Treasury Secretary and Attorney General to apply sanctions and other consequences for international actors deemed to have engaged in “cyber-enabled activities” detrimental to U.S...

Obama Administration Seeks More Legal Power to Disrupt Botnets

The federal government is seeking more legal power to step in and shut down botnets through an amendment to the existing criminal law, which would allow the Department of Justice to obtain injunctions to disrupt these malicious networks. The Obama administration has proposed an amendment to...

Confusion Reigns Over FBI's Plans for National Security Letter Gag Orders

The way that National Security Letters are approved and used is one of the government’s more opaque processes. Now, you can add some more confusion into the mix, courtesy of some new comments from the FBI about when recipients are able to disclose the fact that they have received an NSL. More tha...

56 Hackers Arrested in Cyber Crime 'Strike Week' Raids in UK

The United Kingdom's National Crime Agency NCA has arrested 56 suspected hackers in a campaign against cybercrime called "strike week." Law-enforcement officials conducted, in total, 25 separate operations across England, Scotland and Wales, and those arrested were suspected in a wide range of...

White House Creates Cyber Governance Unit Within OMB

With the framework explained for a number of government cybersecurity-related initiatives, now it’s time to talk money. The White House anted up strong in 2015 with proposals for a new data breach notification standard, as well as plans to facilitate information-sharing between the public and...

NSA Official: Support for Compromised Dual EC Algorithm Was 'Regrettable'

In a new article in an academic math journal, the NSA’s former director of research says that the agency’s decision not to withdraw its support of the Dual ECDRBG random number generator after security researchers found weaknesses in it and questioned its provenance was a “regrettable” choice...

North Korea Sanctions Handed Out in Sony Hack

President Obama today signed an Executive Order authorizing sanctions against North Korea for its alleged involvement in the Sony hack. The FBI on Dec. 19 formally blamed the hack on the North Korean government; the attack destroyed workstations and resulted in the loss of employee personal and...

DOJ Launches Cyber Unit, Claims Privacy is Mission Critical

WASHINGTON D.C. – Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general in the criminal division of the Department of Justice announced on Thursday the creation of a new team within its Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section CCIPS during a talk at a Georgetown Law conference titled, “Cybercrime...

Wix.com Cross Site Scripting

57 million web pages are affected by a security problem in wix.com Proof of concept of a web page made in wix.com: http://www.itsec.cl/ to see the source code can observe the following: ... Find the SEO content of this site's homepage via http://www.itsec.cl/?escapedfragment= That is where search...

Spy Planes Equipped with Dirtbox Devices Collecting Smartphone Data

The U.S. government is reportedly using spy airplanes equipped with special military-grade snooping equipment to eavesdrop on cell phone information from millions of smartphone users in U.S, according to a new report. This little device, nicknamed "Dirtbox", is being used to mimic mobile phone...

Chinese Attackers Hack NOAA's Systems

Systems belonging to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA were recently compromised, purportedly by Chinese hackers. The NOAA confirmed that four of the scientific agency’s websites were targeted and compromised in an “internet-sourced attack” earlier this fall, in a statement...

Stuxnet's First Five Victims Provided Path to Natanz

Stuxnet’s first five victims were a carefully crafted list of targets that ultimately provided the attackers with the road map they needed to get inside a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, Iran and disrupt the country’s nuclear program. Cobbled together from clues left behind by the infamous...

Government, Industry Focusing on Issue of Resiliency

WASHINGTON–As things stand right now, the United States has no overarching national information security policy or centralized agency responsible for defending the government’s networks in the event of a serious cyberattack. There have been many pushes over the years to change that and put one...

National Security Letters Challenged in Ninth Circuit Court

In the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco Wednesday morning, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s EFF Kurt Opsahl urged the federal appeals court to uphold a lower court’s ruling that national security letters NSLs are unconstitutional. Regardless whether the ruling is upheld, the matter of NSL...

Twitter Files Suit Over Government Restrictions on National Security Letter Data

Twitter has filed a lawsuit in federal court asking that the United States Department of Justice’s prohibitions on publishing the number and kind of government requests for data the company receives be declared unconstitutional. The suit claims that the rules infringe on Twitter’s right to free...

FBI Arrested CEO of 'StealthGenie' for Selling Mobile Spyware Apps

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI has arrested the CEO of a UK-based company for allegedly advertising and selling a spyware app to individuals who suspect their romantic partners of cheating on them. The dodgy cell phone spyware application, dubbed as StealthGenie, monitors victims’ phone...