Matthew Hines

One of the more hotly-discussed topics among attendees of this year’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas was Apple’s last minute decision to cancel its scheduled presentations, and the somewhat disengaged stance it continues to maintain regarding the vulnerability research community in general. Most observers have always perceived Apple as the model of intuitive user-friendliness […]

Here’s a cool one: a pair of researchers held a presentation on the security implications of implantable medical devices that feature wireless connectivity today at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. It’s an angle on wireless security that most people probably haven’t even considered, were it that they are even aware that many medical […]

As Chuck D, an expert wise enough to retain his own personal security force (S1W) at all times, once famously said: “Here we go again!” It seems like the year flies by between the end and the beginning of the annual Black Hat security conference these days. I guess that means that I’m getting older […]

Panda Security is doing something interesting, publicly scrutinizing the viability of its own anti-virus technologies (and those of its rivals to an even greater extent I’d bet) in an upcoming Webcast. But it’s clearly a discussion worth having. This week at the Black Hat Security 2008 conference in Las Vegas, and its sister Defcon show, […]

Following on the heels of a plethora of other research reports that have arrived over the last week (I guess it takes about a month after the quarter ends for the numbers to get translated into words), Secure Computing released its latest compendium of malware and cyber-crime trends today. Secure, which also sold off its […]

Phishing shows no signs of slowing down, according to a new research report issued by brand monitoring specialist Cyveillance. According to the company’s Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report covering the first six months of 2008, an average of two new companies per day showed up in emerging phishing campaigns during that period. Cyveillance […]

Gary McKinnon, one of the most notorious and curious hackers brought out of the shadows over the last several years, has lost his appeal and will be extradited from his hometown of London to the U.S. to face charges for allegedly breaking into computer systems belonging to NASA and the American military. McKinnon, 42, an […]

Just days after AV vendor Trend Micro was forced to issue a warning that Chinese hackers were distributing an attack disguised as, and packaged with, one of its actual infection-removal tools, the company is facing a major vulnerability in one of its flagship products. According to an advisory initially published by an independent researcher, Elazar […]

Another research report has been issued that finds continued growth in the use of hacked Web sites among cyber-criminals and other electronic scammers looking to infect users online. According to the Websense State of Internet Security report (PDF) covering the first half of 2008 — based on the company’s ongoing monitoring of the Web and […]

A lot of people are writing up IBM’s latest X-Force Threat Insight report, as the paper presents a stark portrait of continued malware acceleration, rootkit activity and general cyber-crime mayhem that has surfaced over the last month alone. But one of the less-reported and more interesting aspects of the research report is its list of […]

Researchers at RSA’s FraudAction Research Lab are reporting that the group behind the Neosploit malware infection tool kit may have thrown in the towel, which, if true, means an end to one of the badware industry’s most successful and high-profile business ventures thus far. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when researchers first noticed the malware […]

HP is warning users of its OpenView Internet Services management package to be aware of a flaw in another product bundled with the software that could lead to denial-of-service attacks. The company issued an advisory Monday informing customers of a potentially serious vulnerability in Probe Builder, a technology made by European Performance Systems and included […]