Fahmida Y. Rashid

BALTIMORE – With malicious perpetrators increasingly devising sophisticated, complex attacks against critical systems controlling critical infrastructure, such as power plants and financial institutions, the time has come to consider a new secure alternative Internet, according to a top government official. The threats facing critical systems are not going away, and the systems can never be […]

Okta unveiled its platform that offers single sign-on service integrated with multi-factor authentication to secure cloud-based as well as on-premise applications. Organizations are increasingly relying on cloud applications for their business, but relying on just passwords to secure the data is no longer enough for enterprise security, Todd McKinnon, CEO and co-founder of Okta, told […]

Researchers were able to use accelerometers in a smartphone to track what a user sitting nearby was typing on a desktop computer. In a paper presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security on Oct. 20, MIT and Georgia Tech researchers described a scenario in which a malicious adversary could place a smartphone […]

Consumer demand for iPhones and Android devices and its 4G Long-Term Evolution wireless network boosted Verizon’s third-quarter performance, company executives said during its Oct. 21 earnings call. While rival AT&T continued to sell more iPhones, Verizon wasn’t that far behind. AT&T reported 2.7 million iPhone activations in the third quarter to Verizon’s 2 million. Verizon […]

The hackers who breached the Nasdaq stock exchange network last year had installed remote-monitoring software that allowed them to spy on corporate directors, according to Reuters. The unknown attackers were able to install the monitoring tool and steal confidential documents and communications of board directors on the compromised platform, Reuters reported Oct. 20. Investigators have […]

The fact that the newly discovered Duqu worm has portions of Stuxnet code has led many security researchers to call it Stuxnet 2.0, and speculate that the same team was responsible for both pieces of malware. Based on recent analysis, some researchers now believe the relationship is a little bit more distant. While Duqu “bears […]

Things Not to Do When Job Hunting Wrote a Word macro virus that printed out his resume and demanded a job or he would write another malware to delete hard drives.Michael Buen, the author of the WM97/Michael-B Word macro virus, printed out his resume on Fridays towards the end of the month in infected documents. […]

Symantec researchers have discovered a new worm in the wild that has the potential to attack and cripple industrial control systems, much like Stuxnet did. The new worm, dubbed Duqu, shares a lot of the code with Stuxnet, leading Symantec researchers to believe it was either created by the same team or by another group […]

McAfee announced two new products based on the DeepSAFE technology which protects user computers from sophisticated malware that attacks the hardware level. Deep Defender and Deep Command platforms will allow security tools to run at the processor level, McAfee said at the McAfee Focus 11 conference on Oct. 18. The announcement was made during McAfee […]

Cisco rolled out new network switches, including a new firewall product, to expand its data center portfolio with virtual security offerings. Cisco unveiled the ASA 1000V, a virtual version of the current Adaptive Security Appliance on Oct. 18. Deployed as a virtual machine on a server, the appliance would extend security protection to the edge […]

As Symantec continues its analysis of Duqu, the latest malware targeting industrial control firms and based on the Stuxnet worm, other security researchers believe that certificate authorities are among the affected victims. Symantec posted its preliminary analysis of the Duqu worm on Oct. 18. Duqu’s focus appears to be on industrial control systems, but unlike […]

Oracle released 23 security patches that addressed 57 vulnerabilities, of which 21 have been classified as “critical,” as part of its Critical Patch Update on Oct. 18. The various vulnerabilities affected hundreds of Oracle products, according to the company. Oracle calculates a risk score based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System to assess the severity […]