Security

Did the spam cyber fight really slow down the Internet?

Reports from Internet monitoring services show that recent news of a cyber attack so big that it made the Internet slow to a crawl around the world was a bit dramatic.

The New York Times reported about spam-fighting nonprofit Spamhaus and a distributed-denial-of-service attack on the Dutch group's site that became the "largest computer attacks on the Internet" and caused a "widespread congestion and jamming crucial infrastructure around the world."

Matthew Prince, the CEO of CloudFlare, the company enlisted to fight the attacks for Spamhaus, told CNET today that the attacks -- which ceased yesterday … Read more

Cyberfight puts a drag on the Internet

A cyberwar is under way between two companies over a recent move made by one.

Spam-fighting organization, Spamhaus, which works with e-mail providers around the globe to block spam from entering in-boxes, has been in a battle over the last week that has seen distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks exceed by several times the typical attacks inflicted on organizations.

Spamhaus hosts a blacklist made up of servers that, it believes, are designed to send spam around the world. Recently, the organization added a Dutch Web hosting company named Cyberbunker to its blacklist. Cyberbunker, which gets its name from its … Read more

Wells Fargo site hit by denial-of-service attack

Wells Fargo was the target of another distributed denial-of-service attack.

The bank's Web site was slowed down by the attack yesterday, affecting a certain number of customers, according to Fox Business News.

"Yesterday we saw an unusually high volume of Web site traffic which we believe was a denial of service attack," a Wells Fargo spokeswoman told CNET today. "The vast majority of customers were not impacted and customer information is safe. For customers who had difficulty accessing the site, we encouraged them to call us by phone, use ATMs or try logging on again as … Read more

GSA vulnerability highlights dangers of SSNs as IDs

Recently, the General Services Administration sent an e-mail alert to users of its System for Award Management (SAM), reporting that a security vulnerability exposed the users' names, taxpayer identification numbers (TINs), marketing partner information numbers, and bank account information to "[r]egistered SAM users with entity administrator rights and delegated entity registration rights."

The notice warned that "[r]egistrants using their Social Security Numbers instead of a TIN for purposes of doing business with the federal government may be at greater risk for potential identity theft." Also provided was a link to a page on the agency's site … Read more

Apple ID security issue fixed, password page back online

Apple has fixed the security issue involving its Apple ID password-reset page, a vulnerability that had made it possible for hackers with a user's e-mail address and birth date to reset the user's password.

Apple said yesterday that it was aware of the issue and was preparing a fix. Meanwhile, the company had taken the "iForgot" reset page offline for maintenance. Now the page is back up, and Apple has confirmed the fix with CNET.

The security exploit made use of a special URL that got around the need to answer a security question. Apple had … Read more

Lawmakers introduce bill on warrantless GPS tracking

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a new bill, known as the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, to force law enforcement to obtain a warrant to track suspects with GPS devices.

The bill, which was introduced to Congress yesterday, is sponsored by Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), as well as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House judiciary committee ranking member Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). If passed, it would provide a "legal framework" that provides clear guidelines on when and how GPS devices can be accessed and used.

"New technologies are making it increasingly … Read more

South Korean cyberattack may not have come from China

South Korea apparently still has a mystery on its hands. Who launched a cyberattack against several of its banks and broadcasters this week?

Regulators for the country initially pointed the finger at China, saying that the attacks originated from a Chinese IP address. But they admitted today that they jumped the gun.

The IP address used in the attack was actually traced to one of the banks hit on Wednesday. South Korea's NongHyup Bank had been using the address as a virtual one for its internal network, according to Reuters. By coincidence, that address matched one registered in China.… Read more

Apple adds two-step verification option for Apple IDs

Apple today added an extra layer of security to its Apple ID system that can harden the password people use to log in to various Apple services.

Users with an Apple ID can now sign up for two-step verification of their password, a system that sends a four-digit passcode by text message to a user's phone, and must be used on top of a regular password. In practice, this could keep an account from being compromised by an attacker, unless that person had access to the mobile device too.

The move comes a little less than a year after … Read more

'Chameleon Botnet' takes $6-million-a-month in ad money

A newly discovered botnet has found a way to siphon cash from advertisers.

Spider.io, a security researcher, yesterday announced that it has discovered a new botnet, called Chameleon, that's targeting "at least" 202 Web sites. The botnet is made up of over 120,000 host machines running Windows, according to Spider.io. Those machines are connecting to the Web with a Flash-friendly Trident-based browser that executes JavaScript. The vast majority of the machines -- 95 percent -- have come from U.S.-based IP addresses.

The botnets have targeted at least 202 Web sites, hitting them … Read more