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Items by CmdrTaco
Slashdot: IT
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Researchers Report Spike In Boot Time Malware
Posted: August 24th, 2011, 5:18pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: security
wiredmikey writes "In their most recent intelligence report, Symantec researchers pointed out a massive increase in the amount of boot time malware striking users, noting there have already been as many new boot time malware threats detected in the first seven months of 2011 as there were in the previous three years. Also known as MBR (master boot record) threats, the malware infect an area of the hard disk that makes them one of the first things to be read and executed when a computer is turned on. This enables the threats to effectively dodge many security defenses." -
Researchers Report Spike In Boot Time Malware
Posted: August 24th, 2011, 5:18pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: security
wiredmikey writes "In their most recent intelligence report, Symantec researchers pointed out a massive increase in the amount of boot time malware striking users, noting there have already been as many new boot time malware threats detected in the first seven months of 2011 as there were in the previous three years. Also known as MBR (master boot record) threats, the malware infect an area of the hard disk that makes them one of the first things to be read and executed when a computer is turned on. This enables the threats to effectively dodge many security defenses."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Zombie Cookies Just Won't Die
Posted: August 23rd, 2011, 3:45pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: microsoft
GMGruman wrote in to say "Microsoft embarrassed itself last week when it got caught using 'zombie cookies' — a form of tracking cookies that users can't delete, as they come back to life after you've 'killed' them. Microsoft says it'll stop the 'aberrant' practice. But Woody Leonhard says you ain't seen nothing yet. It turns out HTML5 offers a technical mechanism to give zombie cookies a new lease on life — and the Web browsers' private-browsing features can't stop them."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Zombie Cookies Just Won't Die
Posted: August 23rd, 2011, 3:45pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: microsoft
GMGruman wrote in to say "Microsoft embarrassed itself last week when it got caught using 'zombie cookies' — a form of tracking cookies that users can't delete, as they come back to life after you've 'killed' them. Microsoft says it'll stop the 'aberrant' practice. But Woody Leonhard says you ain't seen nothing yet. It turns out HTML5 offers a technical mechanism to give zombie cookies a new lease on life — and the Web browsers' private-browsing features can't stop them."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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How To Steal ATM PINs With a Thermal Camera
Posted: August 17th, 2011, 5:24pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: security
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from UCSD have demonstrated how thermal imagery cameras can be used to steal customers' PINs (PDF) when you withdraw cash from ATMs. Their paper, entitled 'Heat of the Moment: Characterizing the Efficacy of Thermal Camera-Based Attacks', (PDF) discovered that plastic PIN pads were the best for retaining heat signatures showing which numbers (and in which order) were used by bank customers. Fortunately the methodology does not appear to have been used by criminals yet, but a third of people surveyed admit that they do not check ATMs for tampering before withdrawing cash."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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GPGPU Bitcoin Mining Trojan
Posted: August 17th, 2011, 3:00pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: bitcoin
An anonymous reader writes "Security researchers have unearthed a piece of malware that mints a digital currency known as Bitcoins by harnessing the immense power of an infected machine's graphical processing units. According to new research from antivirus provider Symantec, Trojan.Badminer uses GPUs to generate virtual coins through a practice known as minting. That's the term for solving difficult cryptographic proof-of-work problems and being rewarded with 50 Bitcoins for each per correct block."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Aaron Barr Talks About DEFCON, Anonymous Attacks
Posted: August 16th, 2011, 2:51pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: security
Trailrunner7 writes "Finding Aaron Barr at this year's DEFCON hacker conference in Las Vegas was like a giant game of 'Where's Waldo.' Given the events of the past year, you can hardly blame him for keeping a low profile. First there was the attack on him and his then-employer, HBGary Federal, his decision to part ways with HBGary, his work to rehabilitate his image and turn his personal misfortunes into a 'teaching moment' for the industry, and then the legal wrangling in recent weeks that threw cold water on his plans to take part in a panel discussion about Anonymous at DEFCON. Barr was courted by numerous news outlets at the show, including the mainstream media. But he preferred, for the most part, to keep his own counsel. But he offered his thoughts to Threatpost on the experience of being at the conference, what the attack by Anonymous has done to him and whether it's possible for the group to turn its attentions to more constructive pursuits."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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WPA/WPA2 Cracking With CPUs, GPUs, and the Cloud
Posted: August 15th, 2011, 6:33pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: security
wintertargeter writes "Yeah, it's another article on security, but this time we finally get a complete picture. Tom's Hardware looks at WPA/WPA2 brute-force cracking with CPUs, GPUs, and Amazon's Nvidia Tesla-based EC2 cloud servers. Verdict? WPA/WPA2 is pretty damn secure. Now to wait for a side-channel attack. Sigh...."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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US and UK Zombies Demand Top Dollar
Posted: August 15th, 2011, 5:01pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: security
coondoggie writes "Denizens of the malware underworld who sell access to compromised computers do so at varying rates depending on where the machines are located, researchers told the Usenix Security Symposium this week. The researchers followed what they called the pay-per-install (PPI) industry, which obtains infected machines from which malware can be launched and sells access to these machines to parties looking for someplace to execute malicious code. Sometimes the PPI sellers hire middlemen to supply the compromised machines, and the PPI dealer retails them."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Slashdot: Linux
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Old Arguments May Cost Linux the Desktop
Posted: August 10th, 2011, 6:00pm CEST by CmdrTaco
Tags: cloud
itwbennett writes "The old Linux arguments that pit one tool against another — Evolution vs. Thunderbird, LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice, and GNOME3 vs. Unity vs. KDE vs. everything else — may cost Linux its shot at the desktop, opines blogger Brian Proffitt. 'We can compare LibreOffice to OpenOffice.org to Office till the cows come home,' says Proffitt. 'But what happens when Google Docs gets truly robust enough for business and high-end document production? Or Prezi gets enough mindshare to start an upwards trajectory of user numbers?' It should be the case that increasing reliance on cloud software will make it easier for businesses to choose Linux, but for that to happen, Linux communities need to stop fighting the old fights, says Proffitt."Read more of this story at Slashdot.