Iran has experienced the first-ever malware attack against industrial control systems, which is spreading via USB drives. The malware provides backdoors and steals critical infrastructure documents relating to SCADA systems, according to Asia CNET. Iranian media claim attacks have hit industrial facilities that use SCADA systems provided by Siemens. A report by Symantec says that [...]
Continue reading …
The Zeus Trojan is back again, looking to spread through zip files. Zeus, which is one of the most commonly found pieces of malware, is believed to be one of the most prevalent on the Internet, infected millions of users. Researchers with F-Secure have found a new spam set working to disseminate the Zeus malware [...]
Continue reading …
Subscribers to Virgin Media who are running infected machines and are part of botnets can expect to be notified by the company, telling the user to increase their security, as part of a new initiative. Virgin Media, which is the UK’s third-largest ISP, will look to match compromised IP addresses collected by the Shadowserver Foundation, [...]
Continue reading …
Malware attacks against federal agencies appear to be predominately motivated by financial gain rather than terrorism or espionage, according to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team at DHS. Around 90 percent of malware incidents detected against U.S. government networks in the first half of 2010 were meant to steal money from unsuspecting users, rather than [...]
Continue reading …
Anti-virus programs may not be as effective as they initially were thought to be: A new study by Cyveillance found AV vendors detect less than 19 percent of malware attacks on the first day malware appears in the wild, and even after 30 days, many vendors cannot detect known attacks, making it critical for businesses [...]
Continue reading …
A new report by Sophos indicates a relaxed attitude to state-sponsored cyber crime with a majority of respondents saying it is OK for their country to spy on other nations by hacking or installing malware. The Sophos Security Threat Report Mid-Year 2010 reveals how 63 percent of those polled believe it is acceptable for their [...]
Continue reading …
An alleged virus writer in Japan has been arrested amid allegations he created and distributed a virus which looked to destroy data. Masato Nakatsuji, 27, is alleged to have created the squid-octopus (ika-tako) virus which searches for data files from file-sharing websites and destroys the files, replacing them with an octopus icon. The malware affects [...]
Continue reading …
Security researchers have managed to infiltrate a botnet which had amassed around 60GB of stolen information. The command and control servers were in charge of some 55,000 zombie computers by the time researchers infiltrated the botnet, according to researchers with AVG. The botnet appeared to be the work of a sophisticated criminal gang called the [...]
Continue reading …
On average, companies lose approximately $3.8 million annually as a result of cyber crime, according to a recent study of 45 U.S. companies. The majority of the threats included theft, virus distribution, financial fraud and the leaking of confidential information. The study, carried out by ArcSight and the Ponemon Institute, involved interviews with IT security [...]
Continue reading …
A security researcher has discovered a Russian cyber crime gang that uses botnets to steal and print millions of dollars worth of false invoices. The gang then recruits money mules to cash the counterfeit checks. The scam, which is highly automated, begins with the infiltration of online check archiving and verification services which often store [...]
Continue reading …