Fahmida Y. Rashid

Security professionals are most concerned about targeted attacks, external hackers and insider threats, according to a recent report from Symantec. Their jobs are made more challenging by industry trends such as mobile computing, social media and the consumerization of IT, the survey found. Nearly 50 percent of IT security professionals surveyed said external threats pose […]

While security professionals are worried about targeted attacks against their company, IT professionals are not putting enough safeguards in place to defend against them, according to a new report. In many businesses, employees are allowed to indulge in risky IT security behavior even through it leads to data breaches from the outside. About 60 percent […]

Apache has patched its Web server software to close the vulnerability that could result in a denial of service attack disabling the server. Apache 2.2.20 released Aug. 30 plugs the hole used by the Perl script “Apache Killer” that could be used to cripple Web servers. Project developers originally promised the fix “within 48 hours” […]

Mozilla will be releasing new versions of Firefox, Firefox Mobile and Thunderbird to revoke certificates signed by DigiNotar after reports of at least one fake SSL certificate from DigiNotar for various Google services.Google will also mark DigiNotar untrusted in the next release of the Chrome OS (Chromium). Microsoft followed suit by removing DigiNotar from the […]

Major IT projects are 20 times more likely to fail than other business projects, according to a recent study from Oxford University. IT projects on average are 27 percent over budget and take 55 percent longer to complete than originally planned, researchers from the University of Oxford’s Said Business School’s BT Centre for Major Program […]

Nokia has suspended its developer forum after a recent attack compromised member data. Users registered with the Nokia developer forum had their personal information, including email addresses, compromised, the Finnish phone giant said in a note posted Aug. 29 on the company Website. Other information, such as birth dates, home page URLs and instant messaging […]

A new worm, called “Morto,” has been infecting machines via Remote Desktop Protocol on Windows machines, according to security researchers. Morto is the first Internet worm to use RDP as an infection vector, Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer of F-Secure, wrote Aug. 28 on the F-Secure News from the Lab blog. Unlike previous automated […]

Security researchers identified new malware variants that had taken on features from Zeus to turn ordinary run-of-the-mill malware into sophisticated worms with back fraud capabilities. With both Zeus and SpyEye code readily available to cyber-criminals, there will be more strains with capabilities to steal financial and other data, researchers predicted. Facebook won some security praise […]

Confident Technologies claimed its latest authentication technology can prevent hacking attempts while they are happening. The new product, Confident KillSwitch, identifies and protects against “brute force” attacks on account log-ins, password-reset processes, transaction verifications and other authentication requests, Confident Technologies said Aug. 24. The technology relies on encrypted images and works with the company’s other […]

Security researchers at Zscaler recently came across a phishing Website masquerading as a Gmail login page. Unless users are very vigilant, they can easily be tricked by the page, according to Umesh Wanve , a senior security research engineer at Zscaler. Cyber-attackers are increasingly using phishing scams to fool victims and steal sensitive information. “Such […]