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Showing posts sorted by date for query Windows Server. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta Arrives! Download Now And You Can Win $500

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/20/2013 12:55:00 am

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 Arrived With Expanded Container Support, Performance Profiles, XFS As the Default Filesystem & Many More. 
We have just spent a less than a month time after the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 made available globally, yet again the American multinational software company, leading the world for open-source software has announced the availability of a first public beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 7. Based on Fedora 19 and the upstream Linux 3.10 kernel, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 will provide users with powerful new capabilities that streamline and automate installation and deployment, simplify management, and enhance ease-of-use, all while delivering the stability that enterprises have come to expect from Red Hat. This further solidifies Red Hat Enterprise Linux's place as the world's leading Linux platform and a standard for the enterprise of the future. Whether rolling out new applications, virtualizing environments or scaling the business with cloud, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 delivers the keystone to IT success. The beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 adds value to new and existing IT projects across industries by adding key capabilities to improve critical but often cumbersome IT tasks like virtualization and storage while offering a clear pathway to the open hybrid cloud. In their official Red Hat Enterprise Linux YouTube channel, Red Hat posted a short video where you can hear what the team at Red Hat has to say about the next-generation of the world’s leading Linux platform.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta showcases hundreds of new features and enhancements, including: 
  • Linux Containers - Enabling applications to be created and deployed in isolated environments with allocated resources and permissions.
  • Performance Management – Using built in tools, you can optimize performance out-of-the-box.
  • Physical and Hosted In-place Upgrades - In-place upgrades for common server deployment types are now supported. Additionally, virtual machine migration from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 host to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 host is possible, without virtual machine modification or downtime.
  • File Systems – File systems continue to be a major focus of development and innovation.
    • XFS is now the default file system, supporting file systems up to 500TB
    • ext4 file systems are now supported to 50TB and include block sizes up to 1MB
    • btrfs file systems are now available to test
  • Networking – Enhanced networking configuration and operation. Added support for some of the latest networking standards, including:
    • 40Gb Ethernet support
    • Improved channel bonding
    • TCP performance improvements
    • Low latency socket poll support
  • Storage – Expanded support for enterprise level storage arrays. Improved scalable storage stack for deployments that are less disk intensive. Improved storage management for heterogeneous storage environments.
  • Windows Interoperability – Bridge Windows™ and Linux infrastructure by integrating SAMBA 4.1 with existing Microsoft Active Directory domains. Or, deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux Identity Management in a parallel trust zone with Active Directory.
  • Subsystem Management – Simplified configuration and administration with uniform management tools for networking, storage, file systems, performance, identities and security. Leveraging the OpenLMI framework, enables use of scripts and APIs to automate management.
To know deeply about the hot features and enhancement of RHEL 7 beta 1, click here. I am quite sure that, after going through with the above description, all of you are very much excited to grab this brand new beta of RHEL 7. Like the previous beta release, this time also The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 beta has been made available to Red Hat customers, partners, and members of the public. For further information and to access the beta click here. Last but not least, with this release Red Hat also calls for an very interesting competition, where you can participate & win $500 while telling Red Hat, what interests you most in RHEL 7 beta. So what are you waiting for, lets download RHEL 7 and explore it. 

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Red Hat Inc Announced The General Availability Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.5

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 11/30/2013 03:32:00 am

Red Hat Inc Announced The General Availability Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.5 

The RHEL 6x series get another important update as Red Hat Inc, the world's leading provider of open source solutions announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5, the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. According to the official press release of Red Hat -RHEL 6.5 expands Red Hat’s vision of providing an enterprise platform that has the stability to free IT to take on major infrastructure challenges and the flexibility to handle future requirements, with an extensive partner and support ecosystem. 
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 is mainly designed for those who build and manage large, complex IT projects, especially enterprises that require an open hybrid cloud. From security and networking to virtualization, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 provides the capabilities needed to manage these environments, such as tools that aid in quickly tuning the system to run SAP applications based on published best practices from SAP.“Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 provides the innovation expected from the industry’s leading enterprise Linux operating system while also delivering a mature platform for business operations, be it standardizing operating environments or supporting critical applications. The newest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 forms the building blocks of the entire Red Hat portfolio, including OpenShift and OpenStack, making it a perfect foundation for enterprises looking to explore the open hybrid cloud.”-said Jim Totton, vice president and general manager of Red Hat Inc. Now lets take a closer look to the main highlights of RHEL 6.5 : 

Securing the Next-Generation Enterprise
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 continues the push for integrated security functionality that combines ease-of-use and up-to-date security standards into the platform. The addition of a centralized certificate trust store enables standardized certificate access for security services. Also included are tools that meet leading security standards, including OpenSCAP 2.1, which implements the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) 1.2 standard. With these additions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 provides a secure platform upon which to build mission-critical services and applications.

Networking – When Every (Micro)Second Matters
In the financial services and trading-related industries, application latency is measured in microseconds, not seconds. Now, the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 fully supports sub-microsecond clock accuracy over the local area network (LAN) using the Precision Time Protocol (PTP). Precision time synchronization is a key enabler for delivering better performance for high-speed, low latency applications. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 can now be used to track time on trading transactions, improving time stamp accuracy on archived data or precisely synchronizing time locally or globally. Thanks to other networking enhancements in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5, system administrators now have a more comprehensive view of network activity. These new capabilities enable sysadmins to inspect IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) data to list multicast router ports, multicast groups with active subscribers and their associated interfaces, all of which are important to many modern networking scenarios, including streaming media.

Virtualization Enhancements
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 continues Red Hat’s commitment to improving the overall virtualization experience and includes several improvements that make it a compelling choice for running in virtualized environments. Sysadmins can now dynamically enable or disable virtual processors (vCPUs) in active guests, making it an ideal choice for elastic workloads. The handling of memory intensive applications as Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests has also been improved, with configurations supported for up to 4TB of memory on the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor. The KVM hypervisor also integrates with GlusterFS volumes to provide direct access to the distributed storage platform, improving performance when accessing Red Hat Storage or GlusterFS volumes. Finally, guest drivers have been updated to improve performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 running as a guest on supported third-party hypervisors.

Evolving Ease-of-Use, Storage, and More
As application deployment options grow, portability becomes increasingly important. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 enables customers to deploy application images in containers created using Docker in their environment of choice: physical, virtual, or cloud. Docker is an open source project to package and run lightweight, self-sufficient containers; containers save developers time by eliminating integration and infrastructure design tasks. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 stays current with the advancements in Solid-State Drive (SSD) controller interface, introducing support for NVM Express (NVMe)-based SSDs. The NVMe specification aims to standardize the interface for PCIe-based SSDs and its inclusion in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 positions the platform to support an expanding range of future NVMe-based devices.

Improvements have also been added to improve enterprise storage scalability within Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5. It is now possible to configure more than 255 LUNs connected to a single iSCSI target. In addition, control and recovery from SAN for iSCSI and Fibre Channel has been enhanced, and updates to the kexec/kdump mechanism now make it possible to create debug (dump) files on systems configured with very large memory (e.g. 6TB).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 makes it easier to track and manage subscription consumption across the enterprise, integrating subscription tracking into existing business workflow. Usability enhancements include support for remote access to Windows clients and servers that use a newer version of the RDP protocol, including Windows 7 and 8 desktops and Windows Server 2012. 

To Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 Click Here


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#OpIsrael Continues: KHS & MLA Hacked Several Israeli Govt Websites & Leaked Sensitive Data

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/07/2013 05:20:00 pm

Muslim Liberation Army (MLA) & Kosova Hacker Security (KHS) Joins Operation Isreal & Hacked Several Israeli Govt Websites & Leaked Sensitive Data

Operation Israel the devastating hacking rampage continues and becoming more and more venturesome for the Israeli cyber space. In the last week of March, it was dangerous hacker collective group Anonymous who called the operation also dubbed #OpIsrael, where the hacker group vows to erase Israel from the Internet. And as expected this is happening, the first quake came from Turkey-based Marxist hacker group named RedHack and Anonymous, where they targeted Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and breached personal data of 35K officials. Operation Israel, was not among those typical rampage of Anonymous, here Anon called other hackers from different part of of the spectrum to join. First it was RedHack who responded, and now the Muslim Liberation Army lead by Pakistani hacker Hitcher, along with Kosova Hacker's Security & few other Albanian hacker's community joined #OpIsrael. 
Yesterday it was Hitcher from Muslim Liberation Army (MLA) who targeted Israel’s Ministry of National Infrastructures (MNI). The hacker managed to breach the server of Israel Ministry and defaced several website belongs to Israel Ministry of Infrastructures. The attack took place at yesterday late night, but still at the time of writing the news, several Israel MNI websites are not performing. Not only MNI, as per sources several other high profile and Israeli government sites have also been taken down in this round attack. While covering this hack of Hitcher, we must have to recap the previous hack of  Pakistan hackers who are constantly against Israel (for Gaza issue) causing massive cyber attack against leading IT industry of Israel and other high profile Israeli sites. Just a couple of months ago, the world seen what it call the black day in the history if Israeli cyber space where another Pak hackers community hacked the main domain controller of Israel, which causes a massive hack against almost all the big Israeli sites such as government, MSN, Bing, Live, Skype, Microsoft Store, BBC, CNN, Coca-Colla, XBOX, Windows, Intel & many more. 


During the hacking rampage, Hitcher delivered the following message - 
“We are outraged at the Palestine present condition and the Illegal occupation of Palestinian Land By the Zionist Israelis. This attack is in response to the Injustice against the Palestinian people. Occupied Palestinian land under the guise of residential settlements are being increased. Palestinians are deprived of their basic human rights. International Aid workers are stopped from providing any humanitarian assistance to the people. The International community and media is not allowed to bring facts to world as due to strict restrictions” 

On the other hand, Kosova Hacker's Security along with few other Albanian hacker's community performed, what it called a demolishing cyber attack, that caused huge damage to the Israeli cyber space. During the attack Kosova Hacker's Security also known as KHS hit several important Israeli government & commercial websites such as  Civil Aviation Authority, Israel Police, Ministry of Health and many more. KHS caused damage to those websites, not by doing defacement by causing data leak. KHS hacked and exposed thousands of sensitive data, including full name, email-id, passwords and other confidential information of those said Israeli websites. All those leaked data have been made available by the hackers in a website called pentagoncrew.com All those hacks have been performed under the banner of Operation Israel also dubbed #OpIsrael for the cause of Gaza. For instance, here we can recap the hack of Kosova Hackers Security (KHS) where they hacked and exposed personal data of 35,000 Israeli people. 

At conclusion, we want to say that, at the time when Anonymous first called Operation Israel, Israeli government presumed that they have taken the threat very seriously and from the government end it has been  stated that they will take almost every steps to avoid any kind of disaster. Now after observing the above scenario it is clear that Israel Government have completely failed to protect their cyber space, in spite of having precaution. Also another thing get spot light, that is different hackers community have already came under a single shade in order to hit Israel against Gaza & Palestine issue. Today is the historical 7th April, I mean the day which Anonymous promised to erase Israel from the Internet. So the clock is running, lets see what more is about to come.  for the time stay tuned with VOGH to get all the latest update on this story and also other cyber issues. 







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Nmap 6.25 Released! With 85 New Scripts, Windows 8 Enhancements & Better Performance

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/05/2012 07:33:00 pm

Nmap 6.25 Released! With 85 New Scripts, Windows 8 Enhancements & Better Performance

Gordon Lyon also known as Fyodor, the author of world's most popular security scanner 'Nmap' announced another update. Almost after five months we got this new version that is Nmap 6.25. This release of Nmap  contains hundreds of improvements, including 85 new NSE scripts, nearly 1,000 new OS and service detection fingerprints, performance enhancements such as the new kqueue and poll I/O engines, better IPv6 traceroute support, Windows 8 improvements, and much more!  It also includes the work of five Google Summer of Code interns who worked full time with Nmap mentors during the summer. 

Here are the most important change since 6.01:
  • Integrated all of your IPv4 OS fingerprint submissions since January (more than 3,000 of them).  Added 373 fingerprints, bringing the new total to 3,946.  Additions include Linux 3.6, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Mac OS X 10.8, and a ton of new WAPs, printers, routers, and other devices--including our first IP-enabled doorbell! Many existing fingerprints were improved.
  • Integrated all of your service/version detection fingerprints submitted since January (more than 1,500)!  Our signature count jumped by more than 400 to 8,645.  We now detect 897 protocols, from extremely popular ones like http, ssh, smtp and imap to the more obscure airdroid, gopher-proxy, and enemyterritory. 
  • Integrated your latest IPv6 OS submissions and corrections. We're still low on IPv6 fingerprints, so please scan any IPv6 systems you own or administer and submit them to http://nmap.org/submit/.  Both new fingerprints (if Nmap doesn't find a good match) and corrections (if Nmap guesses wrong) are useful.
  • Enabled support for IPv6 traceroute using UDP, SCTP, and IPProto(Next Header) probes. 
  • Scripts can now return a structured name-value table so that results are query-able from XML output. Scripts can return a string as before, or a table, or a table and a string. In this last case, the table will go to XML output and the string will go to screen output. See http://nmap.org/book/nse-api.html#nse-structured-output 
  • [Nsock] Added new poll and kqueue I/O engines for improved performance on Windows and BSD-based systems including Mac OS X. These are in addition to the epoll engine (used on Linux) and the classic select engine fallback for other system.  
  • [Ncat] Added support for Unix domain sockets. The new -U and --unixsock options activate this mode.  These provide compatibility with Hobbit's original Netcat. 
  • Moved some Windows dependencies, including OpenSSL, libsvn, and the vcredist files, into a new public Subversion directory /nmap-mswin32-aux and moved it out of the source tarball. This reduces the compressed tarball size from 22 MB to 8 MB and similarly reduces the bandwidth and storage required for an svn checkout.
  • [NSE] Replaced old RPC grinder (RPC enumeration, performed as part of version detection when a port seems to run a SunRPC service) with a faster and easier to maintain NSE-based implementation. This also allowed us to remove the crufty old pos_scan scan engine. 




For additional information and to know the full change log of this release click Here. To download Namp 6.25 (Source Code & Binary Packages) for Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix & few other OS click Here






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USA Accused For Planting "Flame" Malware to Hack France President's Network

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 11/23/2012 07:08:00 pm

USA Accused For Planting "Flame" Malware to Hack France President's Network

A well known French newspaper named "L'Express" has accused that United States is using dangerous cyber weapon "Flame" to break into the computer networks inside France’s presidential palace also known as the Elysee. In his report L'Express has published details of what it claims was a sophisticated state-sponsored hack into the offices of the French presidency earlier this year with the intention of stealing data. According to the newspaper, the malware attack took place in May 2012, shortly before the second round of presidential elections in France, but has been kept secret until now. The newspaper alleges that the attackers reportedly found their targets on Facebook, identifying people working inside the presidential palace and connecting with them on the social network. The social engineering laid the groundwork for the next phase of the attack; the victims were then sent links to a fake Elysee intranet page where their login credentials were stolen. Workers at the Élysée Palace are said to have been befriended on Facebook by hackers, who then sent their victims a link to what purported to be a login page for the Élysée intranet site. In this way, it's claimed, login credentials were stolen. It is alleged that malware was then installed on the network, infecting computers belonging to senior political advisors, including Xavier Musca, Secretary-General of Nicolas Sarkozy's office. The United States Embassy in Paris has denied any involvement in hacking its ally. “We categorically refute allegations of unidentified sources,” Mitchell Moss, Embassy spokesman, told l’Express. “France is one of our best allies. Our cooperation is remarkable in the areas of intelligence, law enforcement and cyber defense. It has never been so good and remains essential to achieve our common fight against extremist threat.” Though the secretary  of Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano did not deny the U.S. was involved. She told l’Express: “We have no greater partner than France, we have no greater ally than France. We cooperate in many security-related areas. I am here to further reinforce those ties and create new ones.”

While talking about Flame, we would like to remind you that after the episode of 'Duqu'; In the middle of this year The Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team (MAHER) claims to have discovered a new targeted Stuxnet attacking the country's internal system. This newly found Stuxnet have been dubbed Flame (also known as Flamer or Skywiper). Flame the next generation cyber weapon which is also known as 'The Super Spy' has already fascinated the cyber-security industry with its sophistication and versatility as a Swiss-Army knife of cyber-spying. Later it was spotted in the wild when software giant Microsoft confirmed that its Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows Update (WU) has been infected by Flame malware. Also in many fields, the name of 'Flame' was on the high node. 


-Source (NS & threatpost)







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Hackers Breached Adobe Server in Order to Compromise Certificate to Sign malware

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/29/2012 02:33:00 am

Hackers Breached Adobe Server in Order to Compromise Certificate to Sign malware

Few advanced hackers have managed to break into an internal server at Adobe to compromise a digital certificate that allowed them to create at least two files that appear to be legitimately signed by the software maker, but actually contain malware. This security breach took place on Thursday and the software giant Adobe confirmed that the attackers signed at least two malicious utility programs with the valid Adobe certificate. The company traced the problem to a compromised build server that had the ability to get code approved from the company’s code-signing system. As a result of the breach, which appears to date back to early July, Adobe on Oct. 4 expects to revoke the compromised certificate that was used to sign the malicious files. According to Brad Arkin, senior director of product security and privacy for Adobe “This only affects the Adobe software signed with the impacted certificate that runs on the Windows platform and three Adobe AIR applications that run on both Windows and Macintosh,” 

Arkin wrote. “The revocation does not impact any other Adobe software for Macintosh or other platforms.” The company uncovered the breach after coming across two malicious "utilities" that appeared to be digitally signed with a valid Adobe cert. It is unclear how or whether those files were used in the wild to target anyone. "Sophisticated threat actors use malicious utilities like the signed samples during highly targeted attacks for privilege escalation and lateral movement within an environment following an initial machine compromise," Arkin wrote

In another blog posted by Arkin, he said that, generally speaking, most Adobe users won't be affected. "Is your Adobe software vulnerable because of this issue?" he wrote. "No". This issue has no impact on the security of your genuine Adobe software. Are there other security risks to you? We have strong reason to believe that this issue does not present a general security risk. The evidence we have seen has been limited to a single isolated discovery of two malicious utilities signed using the certificate and indicates that the certificate was not used to sign widespread malware."
The "build" server that was compromised was not configured according to Adobe's corporate standards, but that shortfall wasn't caught during the provisioning process, Arkin said. He added that the affected server did not provide the adversaries with access to any source code for other products, such as the popular Flash Player and Adobe Reader and Acrobat software. 
Here we would like to give you reminder that in the last few months we have been a slew of attacks against the following sites: Guild Wars 2, Gamigo, Blizzard, Yahoo, LinkedIn, eHarmony, Formspring, Android Forums, Gamigo,  Nvidia,Blizzard and  Philips. And after this breach Adobe also enlisted its name among those who was fallen victim to cyber criminals in this year. For all the latest on cyber security and hacking related stories; stay tuned with VOGH. 

UPDATE: Recently we got an update, where Adobe denies the breach. In their later press release an Adobe spokeswoman said the certificate was not actually stolen: "Adobe has stringent security measures in place to protect its code signing infrastructure. The private keys associated with the Adobe code signing certificates were stored in Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) kept in physically secure facilities. We confirmed that the private key associated with the Adobe code signing certificate was not extracted from the HSM."


-Source (Adobe, SC Magazine, WIRED)





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Prison CCTV System are Under Attack By Worm Named 'Conficker'

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/29/2012 02:32:00 am

Prison CCTV System are Under Attack By Worm Named 'Conficker'

Yet again worm named 'conficker' has been spotted in the wild and this time it's showing some dangerous tricks. Security researcher from Symantec has unveiled that is infamous malware have managed to hack all the computers that control closed circuit television (CCTV) system of an unknown prison. Representatives from the correctional institutions were adamant that all the required security measures be all set and be in place so that the malware might be blocked, thus claiming that the threats were identified by protective software that were most likely false positives. Symantec experts found that a different Windows server 2003 system was required to control the prison CCTV system after examining the whole incident, and that system had remained unpatched as updates are formed interoperability problems with the cameras. An infection is introduced unintentionally through a USB drive while a contractor doing maintenance on the system. The recorded footage is modified by the threat insisting the prison's representative to catalogue it as "tampered evidence". While commenting on the matter, Director of Managed Security Services for the Asia Pacific and Japan region at anti-virus firm (Symantec), Peter Sparkes denoted that a CCTV was found to cause infection and identified as a threat, through a maintenance device. It is a software update by the involvement of a third party was that was into maintaining the CCTV.


-Source (SPAMfighter News)







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Three Secrets & Full Analysis of Flame's Command & Control Servers Unraveled

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/20/2012 05:40:00 pm

Three Secrets & Full Analysis of Flame's Command & Control Servers Unraveled

Flame the next generation cyber weapon which is also known as 'The Super Spy' has already fascinated the cyber-security industry with its sophistication and versatility as a Swiss-Army knife of cyber-spying. Recently security firm Kaspersky lab has published a new report on the sophisticated nation-state sponsored Flame cyber-espionage campaign. During the research, conducted by Kaspersky Lab in partnership with International Telecommunication Union’s cybersecurity executing arm - IMPACT, CERT-Bund/BSI and Symantec, a number of Command and Control (C&C) servers used by Flame’s creators were analyzed in detail. The analysis revealed new, groundbreaking facts about Flame. Particularly, traces of three yet undiscovered malicious programs were found, and it was discovered that the development of the Flame platform dates back to 2006.

Main findings:
  • The development of Flame’s Command and Control platform started as early as December 2006.
  • The C&C servers were disguised to look like a common Content Management System, to hide the true nature of the project from hosting providers or random investigations.
  • The servers were able to receive data from infected machines using four different protocols; only one of them servicing computers attacked with Flame.
  • The existence of three additional protocols not used by Flame provides proof that at least three other Flame-related malicious programs were created; their nature is currently unknown.
  • One of these Flame-related unknown malicious objects is currently operating in the wild.
  • There were signs that the C&C platform was still under development; one communication scheme named “Red Protocol” is mentioned but not yet implemented.
  • There is no sign that the Flame C&Cs were used to control other known malware such as Stuxnet or Gauss.
The Flame cyber-espionage campaign was originally discovered in May 2012 by Kaspersky Lab during an investigation initiated by the International Communication Union. Following this discovery, ITU-IMPACT acted swiftly to issue an alert to its 144 member nations accompanied with the appropriate remediation and cleaning procedures. The complexity of the code and confirmed links to developers of Stuxnet all point to the fact that Flame is yet another example of a sophisticated nation-state sponsored cyber operation. Originally it was estimated that Flame started operations in 2010, but the first analysis of its Command and Control infrastructure (covered by at least 80 known domains names) shifted this date two years earlier.
The findings in this particular investigation are based on the analysis of the content retrieved from several C&C servers used by Flame. This information was recovered despite the fact that Flame’s control infrastructure went offline immediately after Kaspersky Lab disclosed the existence of malware. All servers were running the 64-bit version of the Debian operating system, virtualized using OpenVZ containers. Most of the servers’ code was written in the PHP programming language. Flame’s creators used certain measures to make the C&C server look like an ordinary Content Management System, in order to avoid attention from the hosting provider.
Sophisticated encryption methods were utilized so that no one, but the attackers, could obtain the data uploaded from infected machines. The analysis of the scripts used to handle data transmissions to the victims revealed four communication protocols, and only one of them was compatible with Flame. It means that at least three other types of malware used these Command and Control servers. There is enough evidence to prove that at least one Flame-related malware is operating in the wild. These unknown malicious programs are yet to be discovered.
Another important result of the analysis is that the development of the Flame C&C platform started as early as December 2006. There are signs that the platform is still in the process of development, since a new, yet not implemented protocol called the “Red Protocol” was found on the servers. The latest modification of the servers’ code was made on May 18, 2012 by one of the programmers.
“It was problematic for us to estimate the amount of data stolen by Flame, even after the analysis of its Command and Control servers. Flame’s creators are good at covering their tracks. But one mistake of the attackers helped us to discover more data that one server was intended to keep. Based on this we can see that more than five gigabytes of data was uploaded to this particular server a week, from more than 5,000 infected machines. This is certainly an example of cyber espionage conducted on a massive scale,” commented Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert, Kaspersky Lab. 
Here we want to remind you that after the episode of 'Duqu'; In the middle of this year The Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team (MAHER) claims to have discovered a new targeted Stuxnet attacking the country's internal system. This newly found Stuxnet have been dubbed Flame (also known as Flamer or Skywiper). Later it was spotted in the wild when software giant Microsoft confirmed that its Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows Update (WU) has been infected by Flame malware. Also in many fields, the name of 'Flame' was on the high node. 
For detailed analysis on Flame's command and control (C&C) servers click Here

-Source (Kaspersky)


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Microsoft Issues 'fix it' To Close Internet Explorer 0-day Vulnerability

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/20/2012 05:40:00 pm

Microsoft Issues 'fix it' To Close Internet Explorer 0-day Vulnerability 

Last few days the whole cyber world have gone through with so many drama of Internet Explorer's security bug, as researchers have unveiled four active exploits of a zero-day vulnerability in the browser. As expected the software giant Microsoft has released an emergency fix to get rid of these major security issues. Microsoft released a “fix it” tool for a critical security flaw in most versions of Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8 and 9  that hackers have been exploiting to break into Windows systems. The company said it expects to issue an official patch (MS12-063) for the vulnerability on Friday, Sept. 21. "While we have only seen a few attempts to exploit this issue, impacting an extremely limited number of people, we are taking this proactive step to help ensure Internet Explorer customers are protected and able to safely browse online," said Yunsun Wee, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing in a statement. The zero-day in IE 6-9 is a use-after-free memory corruption vulnerability, similar to a buffer overflow, that would enable an attacker to remotely execute code on a compromised machine. The original exploit payload dropped the PoisonIvy remote access Trojan (RAT) via a corrupted Flash movie file. The latest payload discovered dropped the PlugX RAT via the same corrupted Flash movie, Blasco said. He also said the new exploits are the work of the Chinese hacker group Nitro, the same group behind a pair of Java zero-day exploits disclosed in August.

Blasco also said the new exploits appear to be targeting defense contractors in the United States and India.
Microsoft recommended several workarounds Tuesday morning before announcing its intention to send out a FixIt.
  • Setting Internet and local Internet security zone settings to high, which would block ActiveX Controls and Active Scripting in both zones
  • Configure IE to prompt the user before running Active Scripting, or disable Active Scripting in both zones
  • Use of Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit provides mitigations as well, and would not impact website usability, as both of the first two options might.
Microsoft also said that IE running on Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2008R2 runs in a restricted mode that mitigates the vulnerability. Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail also open HTML messages in a restricted zone, mitigating the vulnerabilty but should a user click a link in a message, they could still be vulnerable to exploit.





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BlackHole Exploit Kit 2.0 Released !! (Collection of Latest Exploit Modules)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/15/2012 03:47:00 pm

BlackHole Exploit Kit 2.0 Released !! (Collection of Latest Exploit Modules)

BlackHole exploit kit - which is so far recognized as the most successful exploit kit that includes a collection of exploits to take advantage of vulnerability in the target's machine to download malwares & infect the victim, now became more power full as The BH developers have unleashed a new version of their exploit toolkit on the net. With BlackHole 2.0, the software has been "rewritten from scratch" to fool antivirus & firewall, said the unknown developers in a Russian-language release announcement on Pastebin. In their posting, they advertise new features such as temporary exploit URLs that are only valid for a few seconds, making them harder to analyse. The other features are also quite worthy and makes it a quite faster exploit kit like the new version doesn’t rely on plugindetect to determine the Java version installed. This will speed up the malware download routine. As the link to the malicious payload was easily identified by security software earlier, the BlackHole 2.0 comes with a feature that allows the customer to choose the link. The creators of the exploit kit claim that this way none of the commercial antivirus solutions is able to detect it. Old exploits that were causing the browser to crash have been removed. 
A total of 16 improvements have been claimed to be done in BlackHole’s administrator panel. Now it’s faster, statistics are easier to view, and mobile phones and Windows 8 have been added to allow customers to see precisely what types of devices are infected. The price for the services are quite comparative. All you need is criminal intent and money. The toolkit can now even be rented for a $50 a day and will then run on a server that is owned by the BlackHole team. The annual licence fee for criminals who use their own servers is $1,500. Detailed information about BH 2.0 can be here. 





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Microsoft Releases Windows Server 2012 [Download Now]

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/06/2012 04:32:00 pm

Microsoft Releases Windows Server 2012 With Complete Virtualization, Cloud Services, Improved Scalability & Performance [Download Now]

In March this year software giant Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows Server 8, later in April it has been renamed to Windows Server 2012. Windows Server powers many of the worlds' largest datacenters, enables small businesses around the world, and delivers value to organizations of all sizes in between. Windows Server 2012 redefines the server category, delivering hundreds of new features and enhancements spanning virtualization, networking, storage, user experience, cloud computing, automation, and more. Simply put, Windows Server 2012 helps you transform your IT operations to reduce costs and deliver a whole new level of business value. With Windows Server 2012, Microsoft delivers a server platform built on our experience of building and operating many of the world's largest cloud-based services and datacenter. Whether you are setting-up a single server for your small business or architecting a major new datacenter environment, Windows Server 2012 will help you cloud-optimize your IT so you can fully meet your organization's unique needs. 

Features at a Glance:- 

Beyond Virtualization:- Offers a dynamic, multitenant infrastructure to help you scale and secure workloads and build a private cloud. Windows Server 2012 can help you provide:

  • Complete Virtualization Platform- A fully-isolated, multitenant environment with tools that can help guarantee service level agreements, enable usage-based chargeback, and support self-service delivery.
  • Improved Scalability and Performance- A high-density, scalable environment that you can modify to perform at an optimum level based on your needs.
  • Connecting to Cloud Services- A common identity and management framework to enable highly secure and reliable cross-premises connectivity.

The Power of Many Servers, the Simplicity of One:- Delivers a highly available and easy to manage cloud-optimized platform. Windows Server 2012 can help you provide:

  • Flexible Storage- Diverse storage choices that can help you achieve high performance, availability, and storage resource efficiency through virtualization and storage conservation.
  • Continuous Availability- New and improved features that provide cost-effective, highly available services with protection against a wide range of failure scenarios.
  • Management Efficiency- Automation of a broad set of management tasks and simplified deployment of workloads as you move toward full, lights-out automation.

Every App, Any Cloud:- Offers a cloud-optimized server platform that gives you the flexibility to build and deploy applications and websites on-premises, in the cloud, or across both. Windows Server 2012 can help you deliver:

  • Flexibility to Build On-Premises and in the Cloud- A consistent set of tools and frameworks that enables developers to build symmetrical or hybrid applications across the datacenter and the cloud.
  • A Scalable and Elastic Infrastructure- New features to help you increase website density and efficiency, plus frameworks, services, and tools to increase the scalability and elasticity of modern applications.
  • An Open Web and App Development Environment- An open platform that enables mission-critical applications and provides enhanced support for open standards, open-source applications, and various development languages.


Modern Workstyle, Enabled:- Provides users with flexible access to data and applications while simplifying management and maintaining security, control, and compliance. Windows Server 2012 can help you offer:

  • Access to Applications and Data from Virtually Anywhere, Any Device- Seamless, on-demand access to virtualized work environments from virtually anywhere.
  • A Full Windows Experience Anywhere- A personalized and rich user experience from virtually any device that adapts to different network conditions quickly and responsively.
  • Enhanced Data Security and Compliance- Granular access to data and corporate resources based on strong identity, data classification, and centralized policy administration and auditing.

To Download Windows Server 2012 (Both iso & VHD) Click Here


-Source (Microsoft) 







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Oracle Released Emergency Update to Patch Java 0day (CVE-2012-4681)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 8/31/2012 06:06:00 pm

Oracle Released Emergency Update to Patch Java 0day (CVE-2012-4681)

Zero-day vulnerabilities in Java, which was on the spotlight for last few days; takes a new direction. Several security firms have already declared that, this newly found Java exploit had been added to Blackhole, a popular hacker's tool that bundles numerous exploits and tries each in turn until it finds one that will work against a personal computer. As expected  Oracle has released an emergency update to address those zero-day vulnerabilities. This Security Alert addresses security issues CVE-2012-4681 (US-CERT Alert TA12-240A and Vulnerability Note VU#636312) and two other vulnerabilities affecting Java running in web browsers on desktops. These vulnerabilities are not applicable to Java running on servers or standalone Java desktop applications. They also do not affect Oracle server-based software.
These vulnerabilities may be remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e., they may be exploited over a network without the need for a username and password. To be successfully exploited, an unsuspecting user running an affected release in a browser will need to visit a malicious web page that leverages this vulnerability. Successful exploits can impact the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of the user's system.
In addition, this Security Alert includes a security-in-depth fix in the AWT subcomponent of the Java Runtime Environment.
Due to the severity of these vulnerabilities, the public disclosure of technical details and the reported exploitation of CVE-2012-4681 "in the wild," Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply the updates provided by this Security Alert as soon as possible.

Supported Products Affected

Security vulnerabilities addressed by this Security Alert affect the products listed in the categories below.  Please click on the link in the Patch Availability column or in the Patch Availability Table to access the documentation for those patches.
Affected product releases and versions:
Java SEPatch Availability
JDK and JRE 7 Update 6 and beforeJava SE
JDK and JRE 6 Update 34 and beforeJava SE

Patch Availability Table and Risk Matrix

Java SE fixes in this Security Alert are cumulative; this latest update includes all fixes from previous Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts.

Patch Availability Table

Product GroupRisk MatrixPatch Availability and Installation Information
Oracle Java SEOracle JDK and JRE Risk Matrix

Also Java 7 Update 7 is now available to download for Windows (32- and 64-bit), Linux (32- and 64-bit), Mac OS X (64-bit), Solaris x86 (32- and 64-bit) and Solaris SPARC (32- and 64-bit). JDKs with the updated Java runtimes are also available. Users with Java installed on their systems, whatever operating system, should install the updates as soon as possible because malicious software that uses the vulnerability is already in circulation. For detailed information click here. 






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