TechBlog

SophosLabs: ComputerWorld today reports that the UK’s Metropolitan Police has warned Windows users of a malware attack that poses as a message from the computer crime-fighting cops themselves. The ransomware attack attempts to lock the computer, and posing as an unofficial notice from a law enforcement agency, claims that the victim’s PC has been determined to have visited illegal websites. Only payment for a fine, claims the message, will restore the computer’s functionality. ...

SophosLabs: Have you seen the news? Maybe your friends have shared it with you. Apparently, Facebook is going to shut down on March 15th, 2012. Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly found running the site just too stressful. Here’s the link that many Facebook users have been sharing with each other. Some worried Facebook users have even been sharing this photograph of a news report about the claimed closure of the world’s most popular social network: ...

The H-Online: Mozilla has released Firefox 10.0.1, Firefox ESR 10.0.1, Thunderbird 10.0.1, Thunderbird ESR 10.0.1 and SeaMonkey 2.7.1 to fix a single critical security hole in the browsers and mail clients which appeared in version 10. The security advisory says that versions previous to Firefox 10, Thunderbird 10 and SeaMonkey 2.7 are unaffected by the use after free problem. The problem was discovered by Mozilla developers and causes a “potentially exploitable” crash in nsXBLDocumentInfo::ReadPrototypeBindings. Updates are available through Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey’s automatic update system and can be made to install by bringing up the “About” dialogue for the relevant application and selecting the “Apply Upgrade” button when it appears. Firefox and Thunderbird 10 were released at the end of January. ...

The Hacker News: Hackers from Team r00tw0rm again hit NASA. According to Latest tweet by Hackers, They claim to hack the one of the Sudomain of Nasa (Link is not exposed by hackers and claimed to be reported for Fix). Hackers claim to hack GB’s of database and they Leaked sample of database include Users names, emails and Passwords , Contact as shown: ...

The Hacker News: Today, Hackers from group EvilShadow successfully hack and deface the website of Microsoft Store India (http://www.microsoftstore.co.in) . But Hacker upload his deface page at location http://www.microsoftstore.co.in/evil.html . Hacker revealed that user passwords were saved in plain text as shown below:

The Register: Microsoft plans to publish nine updates next Tuesday – four of which are critical – as part of a Valentine’s Day edition of its Patch Tuesday update cycle. Highlights of the batch, which collectively address 21 vulnerabilities, include a critical update for Internet Explorer. There are also two critical fixes for Windows itself, plus one for Microsoft’s .NET framework. Three the five remaining “important” fixes grapple with remote code execution-type vulnerabilities, one of which involves Office. Flaws of this type are best addressed sooner rather than later because they might easily be exploited by malware slingers. ...

The Inquirer: A Hacker using the pseudonyms ‘Weedgrower’ or ‘X-pOSed’ claims that he has compromised Intel and obtained sensitive data. The solo hacker claims to have found a flaw in the subscriber segment of Intel’s web site, according to The Hacker News. He said that he has access to sensitive data that includes credit card numbers, email addresses and passwords. Weedgrower said, “I’ve got to give some applause to all these pseudo-security technicians out there. I cut Intel a break, I have access to a database and another vulnerability which enables the right to read user data. I’ll be gracious here and NOT spill the data, but I will provide screenshots to prove that I have access to Credit Card data and such.” ...

LifeHacker: Windows has a ton of great utilities, and while we can’t live without some of them, there’s a special place in our heart for programs that merely improve Windows, rather than adding new software. Here are our top 10 apps that take Windows’ built-in tools and make them better. Continue reading it here: http://lifehacker.com/5884261/top-10-downloads-that-enhance-windows-built+in-tools

SophosLabs: The CIA’s website was brought down for some hours last night by what appears to have been an internet distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. A post made from an Anonymous-affiliated Twitter account announced that the site was doing using the phrase “CIA Tango Down”, although a later tweet left ambiguity as to whether the hacktivists were claiming responsibility for the attack. Of course, this is one of the challenges when trying to get a sense of what actions can be attributed to Anonymous or not. ...

SophosLabs: One of the largest ISPs in The Netherlands has shut down its email services after hackers posted usernames, passwords, phone numbers, addresses and more of more than 500 customers on the internet. KPN discovered the attackers on its network January 27th, but decided not to disclose the information immediately after consulting with the Dutch government and law enforcement agencies. Presumably this was intended to allow them to monitor the attacker and gather evidence that might be used to apprehend and prosecute them. ...