Brian Prince

When NetWitness uncovered the now-notorious Kneber botnet, the culprit of attack had a familiar name-Zeus. The Zeus Trojan, also known as Zbot, is one of the popular pieces of malware on the market, selling for a few hundred dollars to several thousand. In the case of Kneber, the Trojan made its way from hacker forums […]

Investigators have uncovered a link between two schools in China and the notorious Aurora attacks that victimized Google and dozens of other companies, according to a news report from The New York Times. Citing sources close to the investigation, The Times reported the attacks, which were aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and […]

Microsoft has confirmed that the Blue Screen of Death issue reported last week on Windows machines is caused by a rootkit. According to Microsoft, Windows systems infected with Alureon were hit with Blue Screen of Death errors that prevented computers from booting after the user downloaded Microsoft patch MS10-015. “The restarts are the result of […]

Researchers at NetWitness have uncovered a 75,000-strong botnet of systems infected with the notorious Zeus Trojan. But perhaps even more notable than its size is the data that it is targeting. The botnet, which has touched 2,500 organizations throughout the world and been dubbed “Kneber” due to a username linking the infected systems, seeks to […]

A Pennsylvania couple has accused the local school district of spying on their son by means of a Webcam on a school-issued laptop. Michael Robbins and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Penn., filed a lawsuit (PDF) Feb. 11 in U.S. District Court against the Lower Merion School District, in Ardmore, Penn. The complaint, which the […]

Adobe Systems has issued an out-of-band security update to patch two critical vulnerabilities in Adobe PDF and Reader. The update fixes a critical vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat versions 9.3 and 8.2 for Windows, Mac and Unix users that could be leveraged to subvert the domain sandbox and make unauthorized cross-domain requests. A second […]

eBay is working on a fix for a cross-site request forgery problem that could allow an attacker to change a user’s password and get access to that user’s account. The vulnerability is one of several affecting eBay that were recently uncovered and shared with eWEEK by Nir Goldshlager, a researcher with Avnet Information Security Consulting. […]

Google has fixed a cross-site scripting bug that allowed attackers to take control of Google Buzz accounts. The bug affects the mobile version of Buzz and was reported Feb. 16 by SecTheory CEO Robert Hansen. Google patched the vulnerability the same day. According to Hansen, news of the flaw was passed along to him by […]

Navigating the Google Buzz, Facebook Privacy Waters Navigating the Google Buzz, Facebook Privacy WatersBy Brian Prince Stop Following Me To address user concerns, Google created a check box so that users are aware they have the ability to block the list of whom they are “following” to appear on their public Google profile. Protecting Posts […]

The Electronic Privacy Information Center Feb. 16 filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission charging that Google Buzz violates federal consumer protection law. According to EPIC, the complaint urges the FTC to require Google to stop using Gmail users’ private address book contacts to establish lists of “followers” for Buzz and to “give Google […]

Roughly 30 national and international cyber-security organizations released Feb. 16 an updated list of the 25 most dangerous programming errors as part of an effort to inject security into the development process. In addition to the most common programming errors, the group settled on a standard for contract language between software buyers and developers to […]

Informatica is taking database archiving to the cloud with an offering aimed at enterprises. Informatica Data Archive Cloud Store Option “supports almost all structured data including relational databases, enterprise applications and data warehouses,” the company said. The idea is to offer enterprises another way to manage growing amounts of data cost-effectively. “Companies are rethinking their […]