APPLE COMPUTERS AND GADGETS INCREASINGLY TARGETED BY MALWARE

Original Story: siliconbeat.com

Apple’s iPhone and Mac, long touted for their security, aren’t nearly as safe to use as they once were, new research suggests.

Record amounts of malware targeted and infected Apple computers and smartphones this year, security researchers say. And next year is likely to be even worse. An Evans internet lawyer represents clients in cyber-crimes, content licensing matters, and identity theft cases.

“Apple remains a relatively safe platform but Apple users can no longer be complacent about security,” Dick O’Brien, a researcher with security firm Symantec, told BBC News.

In 2014, between 10,000 and 70,000 Macs were hit with malware each month, according to Symantec. That was a small fraction of the amount of malware targeting and infected computers running Microsoft Windows. But in the first nine months of this year, the total Apple computers infected by malicious or unwanted applications was seven times higher than all of last year. A Melbourne internet lawyer has experience representing clients in cases of fraud, piracy, an unauthorized computer access.

Apple’s mobile devices, which generally can only get applications via Apple’s app store, are relatively safer. Some 96 percent of all mobile malware is targeted at devices running Google’s Android operating system, according to FireWire, another security firm.

But malware writers are increasingly targeting Apple’s iPhones and iPads. Symantec has identified seven new security threats aimed at those devices. And earlier this year, applications infected with a particular piece of malware — including the popular WeChat messaging app — were listed in the App Store. Apple quickly removed them, but not before they were downloaded by numerous customers. For more information on the power of Organic SEO, click here.

Malware authors are increasingly “finding ways into Apple’s walled garden, and that will ramp up next year,” Bryce Boland, chief technology officer at FireEye.

Malware Hits Computerized Industrial Equipment

NY Times

The technology industry is being rattled by a quiet and sophisticated malicious software program that has infiltrated factory computers.

The malware, known as Stuxnet, was discovered by VirusBlokAda, a Belarussian computer security company in July, at least several months after its creation.

Security experts say Stuxnet attacked the software in specialized industrial control equipment made by Siemens by exploiting a previously unknown hole in the Windows operating system.

The malware is the first such attack on critical industrial infrastructure that sits at the foundation of modern economies.

It also displays an array of novel tactics — like an ability to steal design documents or even sabotage equipment in a factory — that suggest its creators are much more sophisticated than hackers whose work has been seen before. The malware casts a spotlight on several security weaknesses.

Eric Chien, the technical director of Symantec Security Response, a security software maker that has studied Stuxnet, said it appeared that the malware was created to attack an Iranian industrial facility. Security experts say that it was most likely staged by a government or government-backed group, in light of the significant expertise and resources required to create it. The specific facility that was in Stuxnet’s crosshairs is not known, though speculation has centered on gas and nuclear installations.

Since it was unleashed, Stuxnet has spread to plants around the world., affecting operations and warehouse material handling. Siemens said it had received 15 reports from affected customers, 5 of which were located in Germany. All of these sites successfully removed the malicious program, which can be detected and removed by commercial antivirus programs.

“Up to now there have been no instances where production operations have been influenced,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.

Security researchers initially believed Stuxnet’s primary purpose was espionage because of its ability to steal design documents for industrial control systems. But more in-depth study of the program, which is extremely large and highly complex by malware standards, has revealed that it can also make changes to those systems.

Exactly what Stuxnet might command industrial equipment to do still is not known. But malware experts say it could have been designed to trigger such Hollywood-style bedlam as overloaded turbines, exploding pipelines and nuclear centrifuges spinning so fast that they break.

“The true end goal of Stuxnet is cyber sabotage. It’s a cyber weapon basically,” said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky, a security software maker. “But how it exactly manifests in real life, I can’t say.”

Stuxnet’s remarkable sophistication has surprised many security professionals. Its authors had detailed knowledge of Siemens’ software and its security weaknesses. They discovered and used four unknown security flaws in Microsoft’s Windows operating system. And they masked their attack with the aid of sensitive intellectual property stolen from two hardware companies, Realtek and JMicron, which are located in the same office park in Taiwan.

“It’s impossible this was created by some teenager in his basement,” Mr. Chien said. “The amount of resources and man hours to put this together,” he said, show “it has to be something that was state originated.”

Google Reports Weekend Privacy Breach
As Originally Posted at The Wall Street Journal

Google disclosed Saturday that it shared a very small number of online documents with users who weren’t authorized to see them.

The privacy glitch, caused by a software bug, affected just a tiny fraction of documents — an estimated less than .05% — wrote Jennifer Mazzon, Google Docs product manager, on a corporate blog. Google notified users affected by the bug on Friday and reversed the mistake, she said.

The bug hit users who changed their sharing settings on multiple presentations and documents at once, causing Google to share those documents with other users with whom the document owner had shared a document before, Ms. Mazzon wrote.

Though contained, the mistake underscores another pitfall of online software: the chance that someone may gain unintentional access to it.

By storing software online with Google and other providers – as opposed to keeping it downloaded to a single computer – multiple people can view and update a document at once. But the systems for managing those permissions can break down, causing documents to end up in the wrong hands. Proponents of online software also argue that the more traditional model of keeping software on a computer is prone to privacy problems as well. Someone could steal your computer, for instance.

Online software privacy breaches have been very rare. Outages or other reliability issues are slightly more common problems. (Google’s email service Gmail suffered one of those last month.)

Still, privacy problems are likely to be more damaging than the occasional blackout, especially for corporations that tightly manage their information and the government agencies Google is trying to court.

Google acknowledged the incident already caused them some pain of a different sort. “We understand our users’ concerns (in fact, we were affected by this bug ourselves),” wrote Ms. Mazzon in her post. “We’re treating this very seriously.”

Microsoft issuing emergency fix for browser flaw


REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft is taking the unusual step of issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in its Internet Explorer software that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers.

The "zero-day" vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims' machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don't have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer's programming code so dangerous. Internet Explorer is the world's most widely used Web browser.

Microsoft said it plans to ship a security update, rated "critical," for the browser on Wednesday. People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.

Thousands of Web sites already have been compromised by criminals looking to exploit the flaw. The bad guys have loaded malicious code onto those sites that automatically infect visitors' machines if they're using Internet Explorer and haven't employed a complicated series of workarounds that Microsoft has suggested.

Microsoft said it has seen attacks targeting the flaw only in Internet Explorer 7, the most widely used version, but has cautioned that all other current editions of the browser are vulnerable.

Microsoft rarely issues security fixes for its software outside of its regular monthly updates. The company last did it in October, and a

Here is the full story from Microsoft.

Microsoft has completed the investigation into a public report of this vulnerability. We have issued MS08-078 to address this issue. For more information about this issue, including download links for an available security update, please review MS08-078. The vulnerability addressed is the Pointer Reference Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CVE-2008-4844.

Resources:
You can provide feedback by completing the form by visiting Microsoft Help and Support: Contact Us.

Customers in the United States and Canada can receive technical support from Microsoft Product Support Services. For more information about available support options, see Microsoft Help and Support.

International customers can receive support from their local Microsoft subsidiaries. For more information about how to contact Microsoft for international support issues, visit International Support.

Microsoft TechNet Security provides additional information about security in Microsoft products.

Disclaimer:
The information provided in this advisory is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Microsoft disclaims all warranties, either express or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall Microsoft Corporation or its suppliers be liable for any damages whatsoever including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits or special damages, even if Microsoft Corporation or its suppliers have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages so the foregoing limitation may not apply.

Revisions:
December 10, 2008: Advisory published

December 11, 2008: Revised to include Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 6, and Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 as potentially vulnerable software. Also added more workarounds.

December 12, 2008: Revised to correct operating systems that support Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. Also added more workarounds and a reference to Microsoft Security Advisory (954462).

December 13, 2008: Revised to add the workaround, Disable XML Island functionality. Also, in a FAQ entry, clarified the list of recommended workarounds and added the blog post URL for recommended workarounds.

December 15, 2008: Updated the workarounds, DisableXMLIsland functionality and Disable Row Position functionality of OLEDB32.dll.

December 17, 2008: Advisory updated to reflect publication of security bulletin.