DDoS Attacks On Sony and Microsoft are just the beginning...

Sony's online PlayStation store was inaccessible to users for a short time on the 8th of December in the latest possible cyberattack on the electronics and entertainment company.

Sony Computer Entertainment in Tokyo said the problem lasted two hours before it was fixed globally. It said the cause is under investigation, but there is no sign of any material being stolen.

The previous week, the computer systems of Sony Pictures Entertainment were disrupted by a cyberattack and confidential information including unreleased movies was leaked on the Internet.

North Korea was among the suspects, but it has denied responsibility.

The FBI is investigating threatening emails sent to some employees of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and is trying to identify the person or group responsible.

There was no indication of a link between the PlayStation and Sony Pictures incidents.

A hacker group calling itself Lizard Squad appeared to take responsibility for the attack on its Twitter account, tweeting "PSN Login #offline."

Earlier this year, Lizard Squad warned that explosives might be on a flight that included a Sony executive among its passengers, and claimed responsibility for a disruption to the PlayStation network. American Airlines diverted the domestic US flight to a nearby airport.

In that incident, hackers orchestrated a so-called denial-of-service attack against Sony, which involved overwhelming the company's game network with fake visits so that legitimate users couldn't get through.

In 2011, hackers compromised the company's network including the personal data of 77 million user accounts. Since then, the company has repeatedly said its computer security has been upgraded.

A Denial-Of-Service attack (DDoS) attack is  Form of electronic attack involving multiple computers, which send repeated HTTP requests or pings to a server to load it down and render it inaccessible for a period of time.

Protection from these attacks is difficult because, as one expert put it: "DDoS is...simple, cheap, unsophisticated, and effective." 

Because of this simplicity, attacks could come from anywhere at anytime. If attacked, "folks that don't take active measures to ensure the resilience of their networks are going to get knocked over," said another expert. "They need to do everything they can to increase resiliency and availability." Accordingly, he recommends implementing "all of the industry best and current practices for their network infrastructure, as well as applications, critical supporting services, including DNS."

Sophisticated malware bug Regin detected

A sophisticated piece of malware believed to have been created by a government to obtain confidential information has been detected.

The bug, known as Regin, is believed to have been created in 2008 to spy on individuals, businesses and rival government organisations, according to computer security company Symantec.

Once the bug has breached a computer, it can gain control of the mouse pointer, recover deleted files and make copies of passwords.

Almost half of the attacks targeted individuals and small businesses, alongside telecoms companies in what appears to be an attempt to gain access to calls routed through their infrastructure.

Regin victims may have been tricked into using fake versions of well-known websites, resulting in the installation of the bug. The low-key nature of the bug means it could be used in espionage campaigns lasting several years, Symantec said in a blog post.

The news comes in the wake of the Information Commissioner calling for a website live-streaming scenes from 584 UK homes and businesses via internet-connected security cameras and webcams to be taken down.

A hacker gained control of the cameras through their remote log-in function, an easy function to abuse should the owner choose to keep using the default password the device was shipped with.

The anonymous creator of the Russian site told the Telegraph the hack was enabled by "laziness and IT ignorance" on the part of the public.

Stephen Bonner, a partner in KPMG’s Cyber Security practice, said Regin appeared to carry the fingerprints of a sophisticated cyber espionage operation, "possibly by a nation state".

"Firms need to think carefully about the how they protect their most sensitive information – their crown jewels– as well as being vigilant in detecting and being ready to respond to sophisticated attacks,” he said.

The bug has mainly infected computers in the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Ireland, according to research.

Symantec compared Regin with Stuxnet, a "large and complex" computer worm believed to have been developed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear research program by the US and Israel, making it the world's first digital weapon.

How to choose a secure password

• Do not keep the default password

• Choose a password with a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and keyboard symbols

• Choose a password containing at least eight characters - longer passwords are harder for criminals to guess or break

• Avoid using obvious passwords such as names or birthdays of people close to you or numerical passcodes or PINs that use ascending or descending number

• Don’t recycle passwords (for example password2, password3)

• Never disclose your passwords to anyone else, if you think that someone else knows your password, change it immediately

• Don't enter your password when others can see what you are typing

• Change your passwords regularly

• If you must write passwords down in order to remember them, make sure they are meaningless and unusable to other people by writing them in code.

(Article taken from telegraph.co.uk)

E-Cigarettes From China Spreading Malware Through USB Charger

Smoking will not only damage your health but also your computer as e-cigarettes manufactured in China are reportedly being used to spread malicious software through the USB connection used to charge the device.

A recent post to social news site Reddit detailed how the computer of an executive at a "large corporation" had been infected with malware from an undetermined source. Further investigation apparently revealed that it had stemmed from a $5 (£3.20) e-cigarette bought from the online auction site eBay.

"The executive's system was patched up to date, had antivirus and anti-malware protection, " Reddit user Jrockilla said. "Web logs were scoured and all attempts made to identify the source of the infection but to no avail. "Finally after all traditional means of infection were covered, IT started looking into other possibilities. They finally asked the executive: 'Have there been any changes in your life recently?' The executive answered: 'Well yes, I quit smoking two weeks ago and switched to e-cigarettes.' And that was the answer they were looking for."

The e-cigarette was found to have malware hard coded into the charger, which "phoned home" and infected the system when plugged into the computer's USB port. Pierluigi Paganini, chief information security officer at ID management firm Bit4Id, said that electronic cigarettes were just the latest vector to serve the spread of malicious software.

"Hackers are able to exploit any electronic device to serve a malware to compromise a poorly protected network," Paganini said in a blogpost."Despite the (fact the) idea could appear hilarious, many electronic cigarettes can be charged over USB using a special cable or by inserting one end of the cigarette directly into a USB port."

Paganini cites other examples of "apparently harmless" USB devices being used as a hacking tool in the past, including a charger for Apple iOS devices like iPhones and iPads.

(Article taken from ibtimes.com)

Has Business Intelligence Been Making False Promises?

Everyone thought business intelligence (BI) was going to take the business world by storm. Everyone thought it meant businesses would be strategically transformed for better decision-making and increased profitability. However, this just hasn’t happened.

BI has been used and deployed for over 20 years now, but the truth is: there are very organisations that are really getting the most out of this technology.

Making informed business decisions, increasing employee productivity and creating new revenue streams are key areas where BI can make some dramatic transformations to businesses.

Over the past two decades, the main stumbling block for the BI industry has been low adoption rates and an inability to make BI pervasive.

In fact, Gartner has stated that in the 20 years since BI became mainstream, less than 30% of an organisation’s potential users of standard BI tools actually use the technology today.

Traditional BI tools aren’t having as much impact in the enterprise because they’re harder to deploy. Given the proliferation of CRM systems and the amount of systems businesses use across various departments, a company’s data sets are harder to match up and it becomes more difficult to determine which data is accurate.

Organisations may be delving deeper into data, but they’re not looking across the business as a whole for a holistic view.

Within companies now, there are huge silos due to different departments working with different data sets. This has created a move away from working to achieve a 360 degree view of data through BI tools towards Excel chaos, where different departments keep their own figures in separate documents, often inputting data manually.

Excel is at the heart of this because traditional BI is static and end users have to fight the battle between viewing static reports and being able to make their own analysis.

Even new data visualisation tools being deployed can lead to the same problems. Traditional BI tools are seen as complicated in terms of deployment and integration – workers often don’t want to have to get IT teams involved in handling BI capabilities.

It means there’s no ‘self-service’ for employees. They can’t have access to core business data as and when they need it. It’s not open for the masses. It’s seen as being controlled by the C-suite and IT staff.

For a quick fix to this issue of data access, people go to Excel – something they can have control over. Spreadsheet upon spreadsheet with no real overarching process and policy in place for each department’s data creates a black hole in which company information becomes inaccurate.

Excel also doesn’t correlate data with other essential business information, like CRM systems or between business units.

To answer this, a more modern approach to BI is being increasingly adopted, where self-service, mass data consumption and access is critical. 

Not only this, but workers and consumers are facing two technology revolutions, simultaneously: the consumerisation of IT and the digitisation of society.

People want and need access to data on the go and on any device, and society has seen an evolution from computing to apps that are easier to use, any place, any time. The growth of the mobile workforce means data needs to be intuitive and users need it in real-time. The true value of data is a function of time and context.

Organisations are also facing a data deluge with volumes of data at their fingertips. What they need to be doing is leveraging this data to differentiate themselves in this competitive landscape. Being able to predict events with data is key.

For example, an airline misplacing a customer’s suitcase when they land. They could proactively send a message to the customer knowing it has been lost early through accurate data analysis and inform the customer they will send the suitcase to the hotel instead.

Businesses that want to strategically transform in the age of big data must become an analytical company that provides intelligence for everyone. The benefits to truly understanding company data are extensive, including cost reductions, the ability to find new revenue streams, higher ROI, increased employee productivity, better understanding of customers, and better customer satisfaction.

But businesses can only transform into this model if everyone is able to use the data, meaning the other 70% must be addressed.

There are a huge number of operational employees who don’t have access to data and should. Organisations are missing a trick by limiting data access just to analysts, management executives and power users.

The police force is a great example of this. With access to historical data, the police can now even predict where crimes are more likely to take place. This helps them to make decisions about police resources during large event such as the London Olympics, which cuts costs and could save lives. Giving employees the opportunity to look forward is essential to be nimble in business and get ahead of competitors.   

Intelligence for everyone

There are three areas to consider to achieve this: data monetisation, breaking down the silos, and the rise of the new information consumer.

Baseline predicts a mere 10% increase in data accessibility for employees can result in an additional net income of $65.7 million for a typical Fortune 1000 company.

Data monetisation enables businesses to generate new revenue streams from their data by making it accessible to all.

To think ahead here and transform strategically, businesses need to look to join the real-time data movement and offer data, on any device, to all relevant and trusted users.

They should include context to enrich the value of the information and break down operational silos to make sure all data is trusted and accurate from a single-view platform, rather than through Excel-tired eyes. 

They should also match up and transform the business through creating more efficient processes. Linking up the data available in their CRM, ERP and marketing systems will help limit their Excel woes.

This will enable them to get a hold on their big data to manage, correlate and standardise it for seamless and accurate data-driven decision-making.

They must put the data in the hands of the workers to use every day, not just open it up to the C-suite or power users. These days, modern BI platforms can allow companies to provide all users with the data they need, in each department, so everyone within the business is singing from the same hymn sheet.

Finally, businesses should adapt their business data consumption to digital natives.

There are vast differences in the way people consume data today than 20 years ago, like taking sound bites of data from constantly updated news feeds and statuses on social media. Businesses should replicate this with their analytics technologies and look to provide staff with easy-to-use apps, with highly relevant information.

Overall, it truly is a data minefield these days for businesses as they face an ongoing revolution with big data and the mobile workforce, in particular.

When data is put in the hands of those who require it, with the intelligence they need, businesses can become more cost effective, profitable and can stay ahead of the game in such a saturated, competitive landscape.

It’s all about strategically transforming a business to deliver intelligence for everyone. 

(Article Taken From information-age.com)

The Worst Of Shellshock Might Have Already Passed...

Shellshock is continuing to make waves in the digital world, but if new research is any indication, scans for the bug seem to be slowing down and attacks might have already peaked.

Attacks on domains reached its height in the days following the bug's disclosure on Sept. 24. One study by Akamai researchers found that targeted domain attacks reached a high of 8,021 only three days later. The following day, Sept. 28, those domain attacks were cut nearly in half, dropping to 4,576.

Michael Smith, CSIRT director at Akamai, attributes the drop to users scanning their own systems immediately after finding out about the bug. The tapering off could be indicative of more effective patching, or a clear assessment of affected devices already being performed. However, Smith wasn't completely sure this was the case.

“But it [the drop] also reminds me that correlation is not causation,” Smith said in an interview with SCMagazine.com. “Although it indicates that might be what's happening.”

The same was also seen in the unique payload attacks per day. On Sept. 27, the number peaked at 20,753. A day later, it was down to 15,071.

For attackers, Bash bug might have initially seemed to open up a new playing ground to explore post-Heartbleed, but in reality, vulnerable systems are difficult to find in the wild.

“It's more difficult to exploit the bash bug, but if you're successful, it can be more severe,” said Ben Feinstein, director of operation and development for the Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit, in an interview with SCMagazine.com

If an exploitable device is found, attackers can execute commands, whereas with Heartbleed, a successful attack could turn over information, such as passwords or encryption keys, wrote Dennis Dwyer, senior security researcher for the Counter Threat research team, in an email correspondence with SCMagazine.com. Attackers can use recycled script, for instance, but ultimately, finding those devices proves difficult. This could become an attack deterrent.

Still, compared to Heartbleed, the level of expertise required to exploit Bash is significantly less, which could make it attractive to attackers. Some experts expect the attacks might dwindle, though.

“Potentially, people have completed their scans and learned what they wanted to learn,” Dwyer said. “There will always be threat actors out there exploiting the Bash vulnerability, and it will slowly taper off over time.”

(Article taken from SC Magazine)

BadUSB - The Security Weakness of Your USB

The seriousness of a USB security weakness, which could potentially allow hackers to reprogram USB drives, has been ratcheted up a notch, with the release of prototype code.

Researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell, from German security skunkworks SR Labs, demonstrated how it might be possible to reprogram the firmware within some flash drives with malicious code at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, back in July. They dubbed the attack BadUSB.

Then just last week, Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson went one step further during a talk at the DerbyCon hacker conference in Louisville, Kentucky, by not only demonstrating the flaw but also publishing proof of concept code on Github. The move was designed to push USB makers into formulating a fix.

The release of the prototype code that accompanied Caudill and Wilson's Making BadUSB Work For You talk is controversial, as Nohl previously described BadUSB as practically unmatchable. Caudill argues that the security community and manufacturers need to know exactly how bad the problem is, and what form it takes, in order to build defences.

We believe all of this should be public, Caudill told DerbyCon delegates Wired reports. "It shouldn’t be held back. So we’re releasing everything we’ve got."

"This was largely inspired by the fact that [SR Labs] didn’t release their material. If you’re going to prove that there’s a flaw, you need to release the material so people can defend against it," he added.

Both pieces of research came from reverse engineered USB firmware. The threat of malicious USB thumb drives more generally has been well understood for years, even giving rise to the observation from cyber security types that USB devices are "plug and prey" (a security-themed spin on "plug and play").

"The idea of re-flashing the firmware of devices such as PCs bios or HIDs for malicious purposes has been around for some time now," said Egemen Tas, engineering veep at Comodo Group. "For example, fraudsters have been using hacked firmware to sell USB drives which shows higher storage capacity than they actually have."

Moreover, intelligence agencies have been modifying USB controller firmware to hide and encrypt data within USB drives, added Tas. "It is only a natural evolution that somebody would make use of the same technique for malicious purposes."

BadUSB is nastier than typical malware that might happen to infect a USB drive. For one thing, it's capable of infecting anything based on a compatible micro-controller. Moreover, it's also a lot stealthier (especially in its capability to avoid detection by anti-virus scanners) than conventional malware.

(Article taken from theregister.co.uk)