The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Hack - What is Big Pharma Hiding From You?

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Hack - What is Big Pharma Hiding From You?

During the summer of last year, there was a growing controversy surrounding the FDA’s request to hackers to expose holes in medical devices security, such as insulin devices and other wireless and computer connected home and hospital devices. Understandably, many hackers and security experts were not particularly keen to attempt or test the security of these devices, for fear of incorrect perception, and potential outcry. In December last year, the FDA was itself the target of an hacking operation, in particular the system used by pharmaceutical companies to input data on drug tests, results, clinical trials, and so on. Whether this was an attack by cyber thieves, as the FDA claims, or hacktivists remains to be seen. 

Corporate Theft or Exposing the Truth?

The FDA of course, was quick to denounce the attack as a cyber theft. The information reported to have been accessed included medical trial data, marketing information and strategy, and information about drug manufacturing. While on the surface, we could very well accept that this could be a simple case of corporate espionage, it is worth remembering that any company that wants drug approval in the US has to go through the FDA first. Is running the risk of potentially alienating the very body that approves your products a strategy that a multi billion dollar pharmaceutical company would really undertake? While it can’t be rules out as a possibility, unless the hackers come forward, it does seem unlikely. It’s also important to remember that there is a large amount of controversy surrounding the pharmaceutical industry all over the world, but especially in the states. Could hacktivists have been responsible for the attack? If so, what could be the causes for such as attack? As we will see, there may be more than we might initially think.

Practice and Method - How Big Pharma Operates

In the US alone, it is estimated that around 70% of the population takes prescription drugs. Given the amount of people in the US is estimated to be over 300 million, that is a staggering number. With such a large amount of people taking these drugs, addiction rates are rising rapidly - so much so, that currently prescription addicts are more common than illegal drug addicts. It is a very real problem that continues to be skirted around by the US regulators and administration. In fact, where as knowing the signs of heroin or crack cocaine addiction were important pieces of information for people who suspected they may have an addict among friends or family, the same is now true for widely available prescription drugs, and many Americans are being encouraged to learn more about the potential causes and signs of prescription drug abuse, by drug charities and non profit institutions.

At the center of this problem lies the pharmaceutical industry. Adverts for medications are common, and standard practice for getting new drugs to market includes rigging clinical trials to get the desired results in clever ways that do not outright break the law, invasive marketing schemes on family doctors and consumers, where doctors will often be offered ‘sweeteners’ such as free lunches, travel to events, or even help building their reputation as speakers at industry funded conferences. The FDA is also, despite being an independent regulatory body, often effectively ‘bought out’ by companies looking to get drugs to market fast. There is the additional problem that all drug test data is not available for public consumption, meaning academics and doctors are unable to view results of tests or trials for themselves. This has led to a number of large law suits in the US, and around the world, as well as in extreme cases, deaths directly related to withheld side affects of new drugs.

Coincidence or Calculated?

We might then speculate on the nature of the accessed data once again. Bearing in mind the nature of how the industry operates, and the information that was accessed, we could quite easily draw a link between the two, and surmise that the hack may well have been the work of a hacktivist movement. Of course, there is no way to prove whether this was the case or not, but given the ambitious actions of a number of groups over the last few years, it certainly can’t be ruled out.

Disclaimer:- At perfection Team VOGH felicitate Eve Halton for sharing this luminous article with our readers. Eve is a very much passionate Fleet Street, she  has done her graduation in International Business and Journalism. Eve, this time also you have done eminent job, we love you :)

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What Risk We are Posing! Everyone Can Become Target of the Latest Cyber Security Threats

What Risk We are Posing! Everyone Can Become a Target of the Latest Cyber Security Threats

According to a report by the Washington Post, hackers may soon be setting up a plan to unfold in 2013 that will target 30 different U.S. banking institutions. McAfee Labs, who has compiled a new cyber security report, says that banks should be on the lookout for software that creates false online transactions or targets transfers tied to large dollar amounts.

Sources say that these threats can all be tied back to “Project Blitzkrieg”, which is a program that has been around since 2008. Within the past four years, it has already stolen $5 million and plans to continue for as long as possible. During the past few months, between 300 and 500 victims located within the U.S. have fallen victim to Project Blitzkrieg’s schemes. By the spring of 2013, McAfee says that things could get even worse for U.S. banks and their customers.

Experts note that this scheme may be tied to reports from back in October by security company RSA that mentioned how a hacker out of Russia named “vorVzakone” has been openly discussing his plan to recruit a team to plan the largest Trojan attack tied to banking. McAfee warns that these threats should be taken extremely seriously as the beginning of 2013 is soon to unfold. The software can become extremely dangerous to those doing their banking online because it can replicate transactions and even delete e-mail notifications about certain transfers.

While U.S. banks will no doubt be increasing their security protocols to protect themselves from any unnecessary attacks, most already know that they are continually being cited as targets from hacking groups around the globe. Back in September, both JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America saw their sites crash because of DDoS attacks.

Samsung Smart TV Dangers

The Register has recently reported that Samsung’s newest Smart TV is completely open and vulnerable to hacking because it gives hackers the ability to steal data very quickly. According to security company ReVuln, this vulnerability most notably affects consumers who own and use their Samsung 3D TVs for internet purposes.

Those who use their Smart TVs can rent movies, browse the web for a cheap line rental, go on Facebook, and more. ReVuln claims that they have found an exploit which allows hackers to see everything the user is doing while they are using their TV, retrieve and access information like web history, and hook up an external thumb drive to the TV to conveniently steal all of this information for future use. While ReVuln noticed this exploit while using a Samsung 3D TV, the true problem is that it seems to affect all of the latest Samsung TVs with internet capabilities, which includes many different makes and models.

As these TVs continue to act more as larger PCs, it is only a matter of time until we see even more security vulnerabilities tied to them in the very near future.

Gas Station Bluetooth Skimming

News site KRCA out of Sacramento notes that crooks are using Bluetooth devices in order to steal credit card information from those who are paying for gas at the pump. The biggest issue the cyber security experts noticed is that these thieves do not even have to be near the gas station in order to steal information.

Crooks are using skimming devices that utilize Bluetooth and contain a variety of common security keys that can be used to access gas pumps for maintenance. They don’t simply pull out their device and begin swiping information for oblivious consumers. Thieves will start by installing skimmers on the pumps to collect information from those pumping gas and then pick them back up. Detectives say that these types of devices are impossible to detect.

According to experts, thieves can be up to 100 yards away and continually collect credit card information from unsuspecting users. Because of this, these crooks are impossible to detect, and the problem may only grow larger in the near future.

Troublesome QR Codes

QR codes seem to be everywhere these days. They’re typically on everything from advertisements to products that we purchase on a daily basis. In the Netherlands, hackers are posting QR codes in heavily trafficked areas like airports and major streets. When these QR codes are scanned in by a user’s smart phone, they are taken to a malicious website that may attempt to phish information from the user or possibly infect their smartphone with malware.

Disclaimer:- Before perfection, on behalf of Team VOGH, I would like to personally thank Eve Halton  for sharing this magnificent article with our readers. Eve is a very much passionate Fleet Street, she  has done her graduation in International Business and Journalism. She gained decent experience in writing articles on several fields like global politics, economics, sustainability issues, cyber security & many more.

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Chinese Hackers Eavesdropping European Diplomats Before G20 Summit

Researchers At FireEye Found -Chinese Hackers Snitching  Europeans Before G20 Summit 

Story of cyber espionage by Chinese hackers used to remain one of most highest pick of breakneck. Yet again another breathtaking issue of  eavesdropping by Chinese hackers get spot light, when  California-based renounced computer security firm FireEye Inc have figured out that a group of Chinese hackers eavesdropped on the computers of five European foreign ministries before last September's G20 Summit, which was dominated by the Syrian crisis. From the detailed analysis we came to know that the hackers have infiltrated the ministries' computer networks by sending emails to staff containing tainted files with titles such as "US_military_options_in_Syria," which sells virus fighting technology to companies. Whenever the targeted recipients opened those documents, they loaded malicious code on to their personal computers. Researchers of FireEye said that they were able to monitor the "inner workings" of the main computer server used by the hackers to conduct their reconnaissance and move across compromised systems for about a week in the late August. But suddenly they lost access to the hackers after they moved to another server shortly before the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Though the company has declined in open press to identify the nations whose ministries were hacked, although it said they were all members of the European Union. But FireEye informed the FBI about the whole issue in details. FireEye also confirmed that the hackers where from China, but they did not find evidence which may link those hackers to the Chinese government. Not surprisingly and obviously like earlier the Chinese government has distanced itself from any claim that it might have hacked foreign governments for data. FireEye also successfully monitor several dozen hacking groups operating in China, most of which they suspect of having ties to the government. The firms also suspect the hacking groups of stealing intellectual property for commercial gain. The researchers had been following the hackers behind the Syria-related attack for several years, but this is the first time the group's activities have been publicly documented. The company calls the group "Ke3chang," after the name of one of the files it uses in one of its pieces of malicious software. "The theme of the attacks was U.S. military intervention in Syria," said FireEye researcher Nart Villeneuv. 

On reaction Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said- "U.S. internet companies are keen on hyping up the so-called hacker threat from China, but they never obtain irrefutable proof, and what so-called evidence they do get is widely doubted by experts. This is neither professional nor responsible," 

While talking in this story of Chinese eavesdropping, I also want to dig some points from decent parts where we all became very habituated of seeing Europe & U.S. countries blaming China for engaging cyber attacks; and China also do the same for accusing U.S. like vice versa. I am reviving your memories of last few years where If you look at the story of major cyber attacks of this year we will find that the name of China has been involved several times for engaging cyber attacks against several high profile websites and organization of U.S. including New York Times, Twitter, NBC and so on. And if you refresh our memory then then we will find the scenario of big cyber attack and espionage by Chinese hackers have been spotted several times. In 2012 Chinese hackers had  breached Telvent's corporate network & gained control of US Power Grid. Also in the middle of last year, we have seen that Chinese hackers have broken into Indian Navy's Computer System & stolen sensitive data. Few months before this hack, Tokyo based computer security firm Trend Micro confirmed that Chinese hackers were responsible for biggest cyber-espionage in India, Japan & Tibet. Also the director of National Security Agency (NSA) General Keith Alexander confirmed that hackers from China was responsible for the serious attack on one of the leading IT security & cyber security company RSA. Also in 2011 China was responsible behind the attack on US Chamber of Commerce, Satellite System of U.S, Nortel Network & so on.  But few days ago National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC), China's primary computer security monitoring network claimed that China fallen victim of one of biggest cyber attacks originated from US, Japan & South Korea. We must have to say that this statement is truly irrelevant. Cyber crime investigator have found that China was directly responsible for the hack into Japan's Biggest Defense Contractor Mitsubishi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) & Parliament of Japan. In case of South Korea  more than 13 Million of MapleStory players data has been stolen, there also hackers from China was responsible.  

Before I conclude, I request you to closely look at the above mentioned stories, you will find China majorly responsible for eavesdropping & security breach. On the same side China also been effected by the same way. So in conclusion, we cant put a full stop in this chain of cyber attacks, hacking & eavesdropping, as it comes from both end. So this exciting episode will be continued like it does. If you want to stay updated then don't forget to stay tuned with VOGH. 

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Microsoft Along With FBI & EC3 Shattered The Notorious ZeroAccess Botnet

Microsoft Along With FBI & EC3 Shattered The Notorious ZeroAccess Botnet Responsible For Infecting More Than 2 Million Computers

Redmond based software giant Microsoft yet again got a huge success against a big racket of cyber criminals while shattering one of the world's largest and most rampant botnets named 'ZeroAccess'. The Sirefef botnet, also known as ZeroAccess, is responsible for infecting more than 2 million computers, specifically targeting search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines, and is estimated to cost online advertisers $2.7 million each month. Tech giant Microsoft working alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) have successfully disrupted this notorious botnet. This is Microsoft’s first botnet action since the Nov. 14 unveiling of its new Cybercrime Center — a center of excellence for advancing the global fight against cyber crime — and marks the company’s eighth botnet operation in the past three years.

“This operation marks an important step in coordinated actions that are initiated by private companies and, at the same time, enable law enforcement agencies around Europe to identify and investigate the criminal organizations and networks behind these dangerous botnets that use malicious software to gain illicit profits,” said Troels Oerting, head of the EC3. “EC3 added its expertise, information communications technology infrastructure and analytic capability, as well as provided the platform for high-level cooperation between cyber crime units in five European countries and Microsoft.”

Due to its botnet architecture, ZeroAccess is one of the most robust and durable botnets in operation today and was built to be resilient to disruption efforts, relying on a peer-to-peer infrastructure that allows cyber criminals to remotely control the botnet from tens of thousands of different computers. ZeroAccess is used to commit a slew of crimes, including search hijacking, which “hijacks” people’s search results and redirects people to sites they had not intended or requested to go to in order to steal the money generated by their ad clicks. ZeroAccess also commits click fraud, which occurs when advertisers pay for clicks that are not the result of legitimate, interested human users’ clicks, but are the result of automated Web traffic and other criminal activity. Research by the University of California, San Diego shows that as of October 2013, 1.9 million computers were infected with ZeroAccess, and Microsoft determined there were more than 800,000 ZeroAccess-infected computers active on the Internet on any given day.

How It Happened:- 

Last week, Microsoft filed a civil suit against the cyber criminals operating the ZeroAccess botnet and received authorization from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to simultaneously block incoming and outgoing communications between computers located in the U.S. and the 18 identified Internet Protocol (IP) addresses being used to commit the fraudulent schemes. In addition, Microsoft took over control of 49 domains associated with the ZeroAccess botnet. A10 Networks provided Microsoft with advanced technology to support the disruptive action.

As Microsoft executed the order filed in its civil case, Europol coordinated a multijurisdictional criminal action targeting the 18 IP addresses located in Europe. Specifically, Europol worked with Latvia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany to execute search warrants and seizures on computer servers associated with the fraudulent IP addresses located in Europe. This is the second time in six months that Microsoft and law enforcement have worked together to successfully disrupt a prevalent botnet. It demonstrates the value coordinated operations have against cyber criminal enterprises. For more information about this botnet operation click here

ZeroAccess is counted as a very sophisticated malware, blocking attempts to remove it, therefore recommended for every Microsoft user to click Here for detailed instructions on how to remove this threat. As Microsoft found that the ZeroAccess malware disables security features on infected computers, leaving the computer susceptible to secondary infections, it is critical that victims rid their computers of ZeroAccess by using malware removal or antivirus software as quickly as possible. 

In conversation with press David Finn, executive director and associate general counsel of the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit said -“Microsoft is committed to working collaboratively — with our customers, partners, academic experts and law enforcement — to combat cybercrime. And we’ll do everything we can to protect computer users from the sinister activities and criminal networks that victimize innocent people and businesses around the world.” 

While talking about ZeroAccess botnet take down, I would like to remind you that in Match, last year Microsoft has successfully shutdown two command and control (C&C) server of world's of the most dangerous banking trojan Zeus.

-Source (Microsoft Official Blog)

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E!Online Official Twitter Account Hijacked By Syrian Electronic Army (#twithackery)

E!Online Official Twitter Account Hijacked By Syrian Electronic Army (#twithackery) Fake Tweet Claimed Justin Bieber is Gay

The massive ongoing twitter hijacking also known as twithackery carried by carried by the infamous pro-Assad group of hackers known as the Syrian Electronic Army targeted another high profile twitter account. After the successful hijack of three high profile twitter account of CBS news followed by the hack of BBC and the Associated Press twitter account, now Syrian Electronic Army aka SEA have caught another big fish  that is E! Online -one of the leading resource of entertainment and celebrity gossip news. The official twitter account of E!Online that has over five million followers fallen victim to these dangerous hacker collective group. As per several legitimate sources this high valued twitter account was hacked on Saturday afternoon and subsequently posted several false tweets about a few celebrities, most specifically Justin Bieber. After the successful hijack, exactly like earlier the hacker group started tweeting false message. Among those One tweet read, “Exclusive: Justin Bieber to E!Online: I’m a gay,” followed by a shortlink.  Another read, “Exclusive: Selena Gomez tells E! she will fully supporting Justin in his coming out” [sic], also followed by a shortlink.  (Selena Gomez was Bieber’s girlfriend up until recently).  And another made reference to Angelina Jolie blaming Jordan for “the Syrian refugees’ atrocious conditions.” Here is screen capture of those fake tweets:- 

After this mishap security experts have figured out that many of those links associated with the above fake tweets redirecting users to malicious webpages. So users were urged not to click on the links. Not only the official twitter account, but also the hacking group also managed to infiltrate the E!’s text messaging system, sending hundreds of thousands of subscribers similar messages including an obscene message relating to President Barack Obama. 

While talking about twitter hacking, widely known as #twithackery; we would like to remind you the following names, WWE champion John Cena, Star Rita Ora, Justin Bieber, Teyana Taylor,American pop singer Kesha, NBC News, Fox News Politics, USAToday, Lady Gaga’s Twitter Account, Anders Breivik, Mahesh Bhatt, Huffington Post & CBS; these are the famous names who have fallen victim to twithackery before E!Online. In the wake of all the recent cyberattacks on news organizations, Twitter has warned media accounts that they will continue to be targets of hackers, and has advised them to take all appropriate steps to further secure their Twitter accounts. 

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Linux/Cdorked.A: One of The Most Sophisticated Apache Backdoor Targets Millions of Websites

Linux/Cdorked.A: One of The Most Sophisticated Apache Backdoor Targets Millions of Websites to Serve Blackhole Exploit

ESET one of the world renowned security firm headquartered in Bratislava have figured out what it called a malicious cyber rampage targeting millions of cPanel-based servers. Since last few months security experts have been tracking server level compromises that have been utilizing malicious Apache modules to inject malware into websites and  redirecting some of its requests to the infamous Blackhole Exploit packs. On cPanel-based servers, instead of adding modules or modifying the Apache configuration, the attackers started to replace the Apache binary (httpd) with a malicious one. This new backdoor is very sophisticated and this new malware has been dubbed "Linux/Cdorked.A." Several analysis reveals that it is a sophisticated and stealthy backdoor meant to drive traffic to malicious websites. According to the official blog post of ESET - Linux/Cdorked.A is one of the most sophisticated Apache backdoor's we have seen so far. The backdoor leaves no traces of compromised hosts on the hard drive other than its modified httpd binary, thereby complicating forensics analysis. All of the information related to the backdoor is stored in shared memory. The configuration is pushed by the attacker through obfuscated HTTP requests that aren't logged in normal Apache logs. This means that no command and control information is stored anywhere on the system.

This malicious cyber rampage was first detected by another security firm named 'Sucuri' and later ESET published a detailed analysis of the issue. But still there are thoughtful matter as already thousands of websites get infected. The attack is particularly dangerous as Apache web servers are among the most well-known and widely-used in the world and are used by numerous companies. This means that a successful security breach can affect numerous different businesses across a diverse range of industries.

As this malware also known as Linux/Cdorked.A has already been spotted in the wild, so on behalf of cyber media, we urge all the concern system administrator, security analyst to take care of the above issue while to checking their servers and verify that they are not affected by this threat. Detailed instructions to perform this check are provided in the ESET blog.

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Hcon Security Testing Framework (HconSTF) v0.5 Codename 'Prime' Released

Hcon Security Testing Framework (HconSTF) v0.5 Codename 'Prime' Released

Previously we have discussed couple of times about HconSTF - a browser based security testing framework. Earlier in last year we got HconSTF version 0.4, now after almost 14 month, the author of Hcon, Mr. Ashish Mistry (Information Security Researcher) has proudly released the version 0.5 of HconSTF code named "Prime." No doubt that Hcon has already became a very popular and widely used browser based pen testing framework. Not only in hackers community but also several security experts and infosec researcher's prefers Hcon as one of their all time favorite pentesing tool as HconSTF is very flexible and very handy multipurpose tool for any IT Security Professionals, Web Bug bounty Hunters, Web Developers or any one interested in IT security. As expected this version of Hcon, came with enhanced features and more functionality, so lets take a glance of HconSTF v0.5 -

HconSTF is semi-automated but you still need your brain to work it out. It can be use in all kind of security testing stages, it has tools for conducting tasks like,

• Web Penetration Testing
• Web Exploits Development
• Web Malware Analysis
• Open Source Intelligence ( Cyber Spying & Doxing )
• and much more with lots of hidden features

HconSTF v0.5 in Brief:-

• Based on Firefox 17.0.1
• Designed in Process based methodology
• Less in size (40mb packed-80mb extracted), consumes less memory
• More than 165+ search plugins
• New IDB 0.1 release integrated
• Underlined Logging for each and every request
• More NEW scanners for DomXSS, Reflected XSS
• New reporting features like note taking, url logging for easy report making
• Smart searchbox - just select and it will copy it and just change search engine to search
• Integrated Tor, AdvoR, I2p and more proxies
• New Grease monkey scripts (18 scripts)

To Download HconSTF v0.5 Click Here [Download Type- Portable (no need to install , run from usb drive or any memory card) Platform : Windows XP , Vista , 7 both x32 & x64]

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'The Secret Files'- Hackers Exposed Personal Details of Celebrities, Public Figure, FBI Director & National Leaders

'The Secret Files'- Hackers Exposed Personal Details of Celebrities, Public Figure, FBI Director & National Leaders 

Yet again celebrities fallen victim to cyber attack, no this time not the nude photo but confidential personal information. Renowned public figure, national leaders, celebrities like Kim Kardashian, US Vice President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Mel Gibson, Michelle Obama, Ashton Kutcher, Jay Z, Beyoncé, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Sarah Palin, Hulk Hogan, Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger together became prey. The list does not end here, the hacker catches two more big fishes in his net and they are head of the Los Angeles police force Charlie Beck and FBI Director Robert Mueller. Many of you might be astonished of how such big public figure, including Vice President, FBI Director became victim in single round of cyber attack! Let me tell you what exactly happened- the hacked data dubbed "The Secret Files" by the hackers contains personal information and credit reports (including social security numbers, details of their mortgages, addresses, and details of their credit card and banking details) was made public by those hackers on a new website, as shown in the picture below. 

The hacker left a message or in other word a satire while saying "The Secret Files - If you believe that God makes miracles, you have to wonder if Satan has a few up his sleeve." Such hack, is very rare, where numbers of big fish get caught. The nature of this hack can be categorized as a clear identity theft. But the question is how? Well the answer is some of the United States' top credit bureaus have come forward and acknowledged that fraudulent and unauthorized access to the records of well-known figures have taken place. Most of the reports were apparently obtained from one of the three major U.S. credit ratings agencies Equifax, TransUnion and Experian — via a special Internet portal they maintain for the public to check their own credit ratings. All three companies have said that some of their reports had been fraudulently accessed since Monday by someone using personal data about the victims. Security experts said that suggests the attack is a “social hack” rather than a classic cyber security data breach. 

-Source (Sophos & WT)

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Pwn2Own 2013 Result: Chrome, Firefox, IE, Adobe Reader, Flash & Java Owned

Pwn2Own 2013 Result: Chrome, Firefox, IE, Adobe Reader, Flash & Java Owned Only Safari Survived 

Couple of months ago we have talked about 'Pwn2Own 2013' hacking contest sponsored by HP TippingPoint, ZDI and Google where the most famous and widely used browsers have to face challenges. Now the result of this long awaited security competition has came which is showing that the entire browser security landscape can change in a single day, as browsers thought to be secure are proven to be otherwise. Of the Big Four browsers, only Apple's Safari has so far survived the onslaught of the browser-breakers where Chrome, Internet Explorer 10 and Firefox all fell to the mercy of the hackers. Not only browsers but also three other popular applications that is Adobe Reader, Flash Player and yet again Java fallen victim to hackers at 'Pwn2Own'. And for Java it was a true disaster as Java fell three times, though under the contest rules, only the first attacker was due to win the $20,000 prize. Vupen, a renowned security research firm based in France, cracked both Firefox and Internet Explorer. It roughly explained the attack in a tweet, “We’ve pwned Firefox using a use-after-free and a brand new technique to bypass ASLR/DEP on Win7 without the need of any ROP.” This bug hint leads them winning $100,000 for finding a huge hole. Again in a tweet, Security firm Vupen explained “We’ve pwned MS Surface Pro with two IE10 zero-days to achieve a full Windows 8 compromise with sandbox bypass.” Lastly, U.K.-based security firm MWR Labs cracked Chrome and also gained full control of the operating system, this time Windows 7. It also “demonstrated a full sandbox bypass exploit.” The company explained in a blog post that it found a zero-day in Chrome “running on a modern Windows-based laptop.” It was able to exploit the vulnerability by performing a very similar attack to what took down Facebook, Microsoft, and a number of other well-known companies: It had the laptop visit a malicious website. 

Now lets take look at the final score board of Pwn2Own 2013:

Wednesday:
1:30 - Java (James Forshaw) PWNED
2:30 - Java (Joshua Drake) PWNED
3:30 - IE 10 (VUPEN Security) PWNED
4:30 - Chrome (Nils & Jon) PWNED
5:30 - Firefox (VUPEN Security) PWNED
5:31 - Java (VUPEN Security) PWNED

Thursday:
12pm - Flash (VUPEN Security) PWNED
1pm - Adobe Reader (George Hotz) PWNED
2pm - Java (Ben Murphy via proxy) PWNED

The total damage to the prize fund comes out at a whopping $480k. With HP's announcement that everyone will get paid for each attack, the prize monies will be divvied up as follows:-

1. James Forshaw: Java = $20K
2. Joshua Drake: Java = $20k
3. VUPEN Security: IE10 + Firefox + Java + Flash = $250k
4. Nils & Jon: Chrome = $100k
5. George Hotz: Adobe Reader = $70k
6. Ben Murphy: Java = $20k

As you all know that the main motive of these contest is to make applications, software more safe and secure while figuring out hidden vulnerabilities  Here also for Pwn2Own the security holes figured out by the above experts have already been submitted and taken carefully by those organization  along with that, the expected patch for the browsers have already been released. Those who are still using the older version of those above applications are requested to update their system. So, stay tuned with VOGH and be safe on the Internet. 

-Source (HP, Naked Security) 

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Twitter Account of Hacktivist Group Anonymous Hacked By 'Rustle League'

Twitter Account of Hacktivist Group Anonymous Hacked By 'Rustle League'

The scenario of hackers targeting another hacker has became a very common matter, in last two years we have seen many instances of the above matter where a hacker hit another hacker's site, community, blog, forums and so on. Today the story which I will about to discuss is the same matter where infamous hacker community named 'Anonymous' fallen victim. A newly formed hacker group calling them selves "Rustle League" targeted one of the officially recognized twitter account (@Anon_Central) belongs to hacktivist group which have more than 160,000 followers. According to security experts  "the reason Anonymous fell victim is probably human weakness." Or in other word many of twitter accounts get hacked due to choosing week passwords. "Chances are that they followed poor password practices, like using the same password in multiple places or choosing a password that was easy to crack. Everyone should learn better password security from incidents like this - if it can happen to an account run by Anonymous supporters, it could happen to you" said another expert of security firm Sophos. The hack on Anonymous twitter account placed Thursday morning and three hours later, those running the feed tweeted that they had gained back control of their account. 

While talking about attack on Twitter, we would like to remind you that, in this month a sophisticated cyber attack compromised the security system of the social networking giant twitter, where more than 250,000 twitter users have fallen victim. Though the hack of Anonymous twitter account does not resembles to the said matter, but the hack can be considered in the list of twitter hacking, widely known as #twithackery; where hackers gain temporary access of celebrity and famous twitter accounts. If you did the history we will find the following names, WWE champion John Cena, Star Rita Ora, Justin Bieber, Teyana Taylor,American pop singer Kesha, NBC News, Fox News Politics, USAToday, Lady Gaga’s Twitter Account, Anders Breivik, Mahesh Bhatt, Huffington Post; these are the famous names who have fallen victim to twithackery. 

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Apple Hacked By The Same Group Who Attacked Facebook

Apple Hacked, Macintosh Computers Infected  By The Same Group Who Attacked Facebook 

The month of February is not going good for cyber space, specially for giant organization. Last week the social networking giant Facebook fallen victim of a devastating cyber attack which did effected a number of  systems. Facebook admitted that it faced a "sophisticated attack" on computers where it has been found the attackers used a zero-day Java exploit to initiate the attack, but that no user data was compromised. The same thing happened to micro blogging site Twitter and New York Times. And now it was the turn for Apple. The California based multinational company acknowledged that recently their systems has been attacked by hackers who infected Macintosh computers of some employees. Like Facebook here also no data has been effected, "there was no evidence that any data left Apple." -said Apple. 

According to an exclusive report of Reuters -some unknown hackers infected the computers of some Apple workers when they visited a website for software developers that had been infected with malicious software. The malware had been designed to attack Mac computers. The same software, which infected Macs by exploiting a flaw in a version of Oracle Corp's Java software used as a plug-in on Web browsers, was used to launch attacks against Facebook, which the social network disclosed on Friday. The malware was also employed in attacks against Mac computers used by "other companies," Apple said, without elaborating on the scale of the assault. Experts are presuming that all these cyber attacks of February, that is Twitter, New York Times, Facebook & Lastly Apple Inc was originated from China, and executed by the same hacker group. On the other side few experts are also saying that the group responsible for the hack, has been identified as "Unit 61398" of the People's Liberation Army. But so far there is no proof. 

Apple also revealed that it plans to release a software tool later Tuesday that will protect customers against the same type of software that was used against its employees. 

Apple also provided a statement as follows:-

"Apple has identified malware which infected a limited number of Mac systems through a vulnerability in the Java plug-in for browsers. The malware was employed in an attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for software developers. We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network. There is no evidence that any data left Apple. We are working closely with law enforcement to find the source of the malware.

Since OS X Lion, Macs have shipped without Java installed, and as an added security measure OS X automatically disables Java if it has been unused for 35 days. To protect Mac users that have installed Java, today we are releasing an updated Java malware removal tool that will check Mac systems and remove this malware if found..."

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Pentagon Assigning More Experts to Boost Cyber Security & Protect U.S. Computer Networks

Pentagon Assigning More Experts to Boost Cyber Security & Protect U.S. Computer Networks

Cyber security has become one of the most sophisticated area of National security and defense, and in order to implement that Pentagon has increased their estimated expense on cyber security. And this deceleration has been made while publishing the budget late in last year. Now that implementation is getting executed as the Pentagon is moving toward a major expansion of its cyber security force to counter increasing attacks on the nation’s computer networks, as well as to expand offensive computer operations on foreign adversaries. This confirmation has came from defense officials. The expansion would increase the Defense Department’s Cyber Command by more than 4,000 people, up from the current 900, an American official said. Defense officials acknowledged that a formidable challenge in the growth of the command would be finding, training and holding onto such a large number of qualified people. The Pentagon “is constantly looking to recruit, train and retain world class cyberpersonnel,” a defense official said Sunday.

As part of the expansion, officials said the Pentagon was planning three different forces under Cyber Command: “national mission forces” to protect computer systems that support the nation’s power grid and critical infrastructure; “combat mission forces” to plan and execute attacks on adversaries; and “cyber protection forces” to secure the Pentagon’s computer systems. Cyber Command’s connections to the NSA are also leading some officials to ask how much of the expansion will be focused domestically, especially considering the opening of the NSA’s new, $2 billion Utah Data Center, scheduled to go live later this year. An unnamed "senior defense official" said that the agency’s efforts would remain focused outside US networks, unless it were asked to assist "another agency with domestic authority, such as the FBI." There is significant overlap between Cyber Command and the NSA — until recently, some employees of the former had nsa.gov email addresses, for instance — and there is some doubt that the nascent offshoot of US Strategic Command will be able to achieve true independence under NSA Director Alexander.

-Source (NY Times, Washington Post)

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Chinese Hackers Breached New York Times & Stolen Employee's Password

Chinese Hackers Breached New York Times & Stolen Employee's Password 

Yet again the story of cyber espionage by Chinese hackers spotted in the wild, when the famous and one of the most popular American news daily reported that their system has been compromised by a round of sophisticated cyber attack generated from China. After the hack of White House unclassified network, it is the second time in last six month; when Chinese hackers have targeted the American cyber space. The New York Times has reported that for the last four months Chinese hackers have been infiltrating its networks, broken into the email accounts of senior staff, stolen the corporate passwords for every Times employee and used those to gain access to the personal computers of  more than 50 employees. 

According to a blog post of NYT - The timing of the attacks coincided with the reporting for a Times investigation, published online on Oct. 25, that found that the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, had accumulated a fortune worth several billion dollars through business dealings. Security experts hired by The Times to detect and block the computer attacks gathered digital evidence that Chinese hackers, using methods that some consultants have associated with the Chinese military in the past, breached The Times’s network. They broke into the e-mail accounts of its Shanghai bureau chief, David Barboza, who wrote the reports on Mr. Wen’s relatives, and Jim Yardley, The Times’s South Asia bureau chief in India, who previously worked as bureau chief in Beijing. 

“Computer security experts found no evidence that sensitive e-mails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied,” said Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times. The hackers tried to cloak the source of the attacks on The Times by first penetrating computers at United States universities and routing the attacks through them, said computer security experts at Mandiant, the company hired by The Times. This matches the subterfuge used in many other attacks that Mandiant has tracked to China.

Cyber Espionage of China (2011-2012) at a Glance:-

While talking about this cyber attack, we would like to refresh your memory last two years, where the scenario of big cyber attack and espionage by Chinese hackers have been spotted several times. In 2012 Chinese hackers had  breached Telvent's corporate network & gained control of US Power Grid. Also in the middle of last year, we have seen that Chinese hackers have broken into Indian Navy's Computer System & stolen sensitive data. Few months before this hack, Tokyo based computer security firm Trend Micro confirmed that Chinese hackers were responsible for biggest cyber-espionage in India, Japan & Tibet. Also the director of National Security Agency (NSA) General Keith Alexander confirmed that hackers from China was responsible for the serious attack on one of the leading IT security & cyber security company RSA. Also in 2011 China was responsible behind the attack on US Chamber of Commerce, Satellite System of U.S, Nortel Network & so on.  But few days ago National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC), China's primary computer security monitoring network claimed that China fallen victim of one of biggest cyber attacks originated from US, Japan & South Korea. We must have to say that this statement is truly irrelevant. Cyber crime investigator have found that China was directly responsible for the hack into Japan's Biggest Defense Contractor Mitsubishi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) & Parliament of Japan. In case of South Korea  more than 13 Million of MapleStory players data has been stolen, there also hackers from China was responsible. 

All those above stories it has been clearly identified that China was the point of those said attacks, but it doesn't necessarily prove that it the operation is backed by the Chinese government or intelligence services. It could just as easily be a patriotic group of skilled, independent Chinese hackers upset with how the Western media is portraying their country's rulers. For all kind of cyber related topics and expert reviews on those matters just stay tuned  with only VOGH. 

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