Robert Lemos

Following a classified National Intelligence Estimate that reportedly blames China for the majority of cyber-espionage attacks targeting U.S. agencies and businesses, security experts called for the government to take a harder policy line to deter such attacks. The classified intelligence report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, aims to identify threats […]

Unknown attackers compromised systems at security provider Bit9, stealing a critical digital certificate that allowed the intruders to infect systems of the company’s customers, the firm said in statements posted over the weekend. Bit9 gave scant details about the intrusion, stating that due to its own error “a handful of computers within our network” were […]

The number of software vulnerabilities tracked by the National Vulnerability Database in 2012 reversed a five-year decline, with software made by Adobe, Mozilla and Oracle containing the most critical flaws, according to a report released last week by NSS Labs, a technology and security research firm. The report found that the number of vulnerabilities grew […]

Federal marshals and representatives of Microsoft and Symantec raided two data centers Feb. 6, shutting down a botnet that the companies estimated attacked at least 8 million computers in the last two years, rerouting search queries and robbing search engine firms of potential revenue. Known as the Bamital botnet, the network of compromised computers hijacked […]

Two federal agencies acknowledged this week that hackers had breached their systems and stole the personal and account information of workers. On Feb. 3, a group claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous stated on Pastebin that they had compromised a server at the Federal Reserve, which oversees the banking system in the United States and […]

A team of attackers with a penchant for Shakespearian verse has used the popular cyber-crime program known as Citadel to infiltrate government offices in Poland and Japan as well as a number of companies in Denmark and Sweden, according to a report published by security firm McAfee. The string of espionage campaigns marks a significant […]

A red-bordered malware alert greeted users of Google’s Chrome browser when they visited major Websites, such as ZDNet and The Guardian UK, for much of the morning of Feb. 4. Yet the news sites were not compromised; instead, the warning arose from the hack of third-party advertising network Netseer’s home page and Google’s broad blacklisting […]

More than 50 million Internet addresses house a device that is vulnerable to one of three known flaws in the Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) protocol, according to vulnerability management firm Rapid7. Taking a page from their previous research on video-conferencing systems, Rapid7 researchers scanned the entire addressable Internet looking for devices that responded to UPnP requests. […]

Hackers thought to be from China infiltrated the internal networks of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and attempted to gain information on sources related to The Times’ investigation into the mysterious wealth of the family of China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, and the newspapers’ other China-related coverage, according to articles published […]

While a hefty portion of companies are worried about advanced persistent threats, industrial espionage and malicious insiders, bot software and denial-of-service attacks are far more common, according to Arbor Networks’ 8th Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report released Jan. 29. The survey of 130 companies found that half of businesses had discovered a system compromised with […]

The U.S. military reportedly plans to boost its cyber operations force fivefold to nearly 5,000 individuals. However, the government will have to contend with a very competitive market for knowledgeable security professionals. Pentagon officials confirmed the expansion of forces for the U.S. Cyber Command over the weekend, according to separate reports in The New York […]

Network and security hardware maker Barracuda Networks revealed last week that it had issued patches for eight of its product families to limit access to administrative accounts that could have allowed attackers to compromise the products. The backdoor access could have given an attacker complete access to the devices, provided they knew the password—and possibly […]