Robert Lemos

Sophisticated attackers increasingly use little or no malware to compromise and steal data from their targets, according to an alert posted by managed security services firm Dell Secureworks on Sept. 2. Instead, in nearly every intrusion investigated by security analysts at the company in the past year, the attackers used compromised credentials to gain entry […]

Rogue retailers are unpacking phones made in China, installing malware and then selling the infected phones on the open market, security firm G DATA stated in a report released Sept. 1. The scheme involves infecting mainly local brands of Android phones—such as Alps, Xiaomi and even a line of devices known as “NoName”—but also it […]

Many network compromises start with phishing—a social engineering attack that arrives via email to dupe corporate workers into divulging passwords or other network application details—and employees continue to be vulnerable to these scams. In its latest annual Data Breach Investigations Report, for example, Verizon found that more than two-thirds of espionage-related breaches started with a […]

A slim minority—only 5 percent—of men and women aged 16- to 35-years-old believe that current safeguards will protect their data from exposure, according to a survey by security firm Intercede that polled the opinions of 1,000 U.S. and 1,000 U.K. millennials. Millennials are roughly defined as people born starting in the 1980s. About 70 percent […]

Attackers have started using a common network service to amplify Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks and flood targeted networks with data packets, telecommunications firm Level 3 Communications stated in an analysis published on Aug. 17. Using the service, known as portmap or portmapper, an attacker can send a simple request and create a much larger stream of […]

Driven by a seemingly unending parade of breaches, investors looking for the next big score—the rare “unicorn” company that becomes valued at $1 billion or more—are pouring money into security startups and early-stage ventures. So far in 2015, cyber-security firms received more than $1.2 billion in nearly 100 funding deals in the first two quarters, […]

Attackers have begun targeting fuel-tank monitoring systems, which are known to be vulnerable to manipulation, researchers at security firm Trend Micro stated in a report released on Aug. 5. The researchers used custom-created honeypot programs to emulate a common fuel-tank monitoring device used to monitor the gasoline levels at gas stations and found dozens of […]

An espionage group with links to China has systematically infected more than 100 Web destinations that are popular with a variety of industries and government agencies as part of a scheme to infect sensitive targets, managed-security firm Dell SecureWorks said on Aug. 5. The team of spies, which Dell labeled “Threat Group 3390” and which […]

A Chinese virtual private network (VPN) service, dubbed “Terracotta” by security researchers, has compromised hundreds of Windows servers to use as part of its anonymizing infrastructure, providing both legitimate users and attackers with an encrypted network capable of bypassing China’s Great Firewall, according to an analysis published by security company RSA on Aug. 4. The […]

The sensitive documents stolen from offensive-security firm Hacking Team contain few real surprises, but the leaks resulting from the theft could have serious implications for the security industry. Security and privacy experts knew the company created tools for infecting and monitoring targeted computers using acquired exploits for previously unreported, or “zero-day,” vulnerabilities and sold those […]

Disconnecting a computer from all networks is no longer a foolproof way to make sure that it will no longer communicate to other systems, according to research that will be presented at the USENIX Security 2015 Conference in August. Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev were able to create programs to infect a computer […]

An analysis of three popular smart-home hubs has revealed numerous vulnerabilities in the products that could be used by attackers to gain control of the hubs through malicious Web sites or applications, according to security firm Tripwire. Tripwire tested smart-home control devices manufactured by SmartThings, Vera Control and Wink, finding critical flaws that could allow […]