Category Archives: Current Events
Polish teen uses TV remote to derail trains
Covered on The Register, Telegraph.co.uk, and Slashdot. Earlier this month, a 14-year-old in Poland used a modified TV remote control to directly interfere with rail junction controls in the city of Lodz. He obtained information on the operation of the … Continue reading
Online Game Security
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/461/1 Recently, a freelancer named Federico Biancuzzi published a book with his co-author, Greg Hoglund, about exploiting online games’ vulnerabilities. The article is an interview with Federico. He talked about one of the vulnerabilities in MMORPG is the fact that … Continue reading
Hackers Extort Utility Companies
Tom Donahue, the CIA’s top security analyst, announced this week that attackers hacked into the computer systems of foreign utility companies and held power grids hostage until their demands were met. In one case, they also caused a power outage … Continue reading
MySpace is NotSafe
A recent article concerning user privacy on MySpace made it known there is a serious flaw in the social network’s security. The reported exploit of the bug allows anyone, not just MySpace account holders, to view private profiles and private … Continue reading
Monkey Brains In U.S. Make Robot Walk In Japan
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have successfully used a monkey to control a robot. By putting the monkey on a treadmill and implanting electrodes into its brain, the movement of the robot in Japan matched the movements of the … Continue reading
Define “Safe”…
An article in InformationWeek yesterday exposes the details of what McAfee’s ScanAlert product actually means by “Hacker Safe”. The ScanAlert product issues certifications that websites are safe from attack. However XSSed.com, a website dedicated to exposing Cross-Site Scripting attacks, gave … Continue reading
AT&T Investigating Copyrighted Material Network Filter
In one of the more interesting stories to come out of the telecom industry in recent weeks, the New York Times is reporting that AT&T is currently in the testing phases of developing a network filter that will monitor their … Continue reading
Microsoft announces Excel security flaw
According to vnunet.com, Microsoft recently announced they are actively investigating a potetially serious security flaw that targets Microsoft Excel 2003 users. Apparently, attackers can place malicious code in the Excel document header that executes upon opening the document. Upon excecution, the attacker gains … Continue reading
GOA says “The IRS security still sucks”
According to a report Tuesday from the Government Accountability Office, sensitive taxpayer data housed at the IRS is critically vulnerable to security threats. The report is a follow up from March 2006 where the security problems were initially discovered. The … Continue reading
Mac ‘scareware’ in the wild
Security software vendor F-Secure has recently reported the first known “scareware” scam targeting Mac users. The software known as MacSweeper (www.macsweeper.com) poses as legitimate security software that “discovers” numerous fake problems and threats, which can only be solved by purchasing … Continue reading