Prompted in part by newspaper stories about the US role in the Stuxnet worm, House lawmakers are considering amending the Espionage Act to enable the prosecution of journalists who disclose sensitive national security information.
Single massive spam campaigns replace high volume spam runs
Over the last few months researchers at Trend Micro began to investigate a rise in the number of high volume spam runs – and concluded that they weren’t individual spam runs at all, but part of a single, massive spam campaign.
Mobile carriers provided more than one million phone records to police in 2011
Last year, US mobile carriers responded to 1.3 million requests from law enforcement agencies for consumers’ cell phone records, according to a report released by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.).
Man in the Browser (MITB) becomes Man in the Mobile (MITMO)
MITB malware, personified by Zeus and SpyEye, has long been the bane of desktop online banking. Now Trusteer reports that MITB has migrated to Android; and calls it Man in the Mobile.
Search for patient zero: uncovering malware infection at the source
Comparing the malware infection of a network to the outbreak of a virus among a human population, Sourcefire’s Alfred Huger stressed that the key to fighting the infection is to find patient zero, the carrier of the virus.
Cyberoam fixes security hole caused by use of default certificates
Network security firm Cyberoam took action Monday to fix a flaw in its deep packet inspection (DPI) devices caused by the use of default CA certificates, a vulnerability that was identified by Tor Project researchers on their website.
DarkComet RAT, used by Syrian regime to spy on activists, shut down
The website of the DarkComet remote administration tool (RAT), which was used to spy on opposition groups by the Syrian regime, has closed down permanently.
Evolve or perish: Chinese professor develops evolutionary cryptography
A professor in China has developed a new cryptosystem, called evolutionary cryptography, that draws on evolution theory in biology to construct more secure encryption.
Venture capital group pumps $22.4 million into SIEM provider AlienVault
AlienVault, a San Mateo, Calif.-based security information and event management (SIEM) provider, has received $22.4 million in funding from a venture capital group led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Sigma.
High tech car thief jailed
The high tech theft of motor vehicles is likely to rise as their computer content increases. In an early case, Alan Watkins was last week jailed for car theft that involved hacking, GPS tracking and motor car identity theft.