Fahmida Y. Rashid

A new report suggests Iran’s nuclear program has not recovered from the Stuxnet worm as previously believed. It appears Iran is still replacing thousands of expensive centrifuges that were damaged by the worm. Stuxnet was not entirely purged from Iran’s nuclear facilities and it resurfaced again to damage more systems, “Western intelligence sources” told DEBKAfile […]

Chinese officials closed two unauthorized Apple stores for operating without a proper business license, according to news reports. However, three other fake Apple stores were allowed to remain open because they had proper local permits. As part of a probe of more than 300 IT businesses, the Kunming Trade and Industry Bureau identified five businesses […]

While cyber-attacks against U.S. computer networks are becoming more frequent and increasingly more sophisticated, the country is lagging in its efforts to beef up IT security, government officials testified in front of Congress. The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight held hearings on cyber-security and securing the nation’s critical infrastructure on July 26. The hearings […]

Less than a week after Apple’s new Mac OS X “Lion” made its debut, it released a software update to resolve problems from an earlier update and provided three security updates. Mac OS X 10.6.8 resolved some issues that arose after “Snow Leopard” users applied the earlier update that was supposed to prepare their Macs […]

It is possible to recover user passwords from Mac systems set on sleep mode, including running the latest version of Mac OS X “Lion,” a password recovery software vendor said. Passware researchers were able to recover passwords by connecting to a Mac through the FireWire port, the company said July 26. All that the trick […]

Customers are claiming an app downloaded from Apple’s App Store was using their login credentials to make illicit purchases. Customers complained their Apple IDs and passwords were used to buy in-game items for a Chinese game app, according to a report from The Mainichi Daily News, a Japanese-language daily, on July 25. There were over […]

Biggest Threats: Unpatched Software Malware targeting Microsoft, Adobe and Java applications continued to be the biggest threats. Cyber-attackers weren’t going after 0-days, as it was easier and just as lucrative to target unpatched programs using known (and fixed) vulnerabilities. Facebook Attacks on the Rise Grandparents aren’t the only ones on Facebook. The criminals are, too. […]

The average large business sees 27 attacks per minute hitting its Website. Attackers can use automation technologies to generate up to seven attacks per second, or 25,000 attacks per hour. Security firm Imperva uncovered these figures after analyzing more than 10 million Web application attacks that targeted Websites belonging to 30 large businesses and government […]

At the upcoming Black Hat security conference, a security researcher will demonstrate how he hacked the chips in laptop batteries to corrupt them beyond repair. Charles Miller, a principal research consultant at Accuvant Labs, was able to take over chips inside the batteries powering several of Apple’s popular laptop brands and “brick” them. Miller is […]

Not an If, but a When DDoS attacks are increasingly becoming larger, more damaging and easier to launch. Organizations should just assume they will be the next victim and prepare accordingly. DDoS Attacks on the Rise Organizations must proactively implement a mitigation plan that accounts for large and sophisticated DDoS attacks. Put DDoS in the […]

Spammers have always been creative, coming up with new techniques, jumping on breaking news, and adopting the latest technology, all in the name of pushing out as many e-mail messages as possible. A recent study found they are compromised legitimate accounts on Webmail providers, such as Hotmail and Gmail. They are also taking advantage of […]

Nearly six out of every 10 users are running an outdated version of Adobe Reader, leaving them highly vulnerable to PDF-based attacks, according to Avast Software. The anti-malware vendor analyzed the users who had avast antivirus installed on the computers and found that more than half of the users with Adobe Reader had an outdated […]