You can't protect what you don't know about. It may seem trite to bring out that cliché, but the fact is that it remains relevant in information security today. So much of what we do in this industry is about discovery, whether it's discovery of assets, discovery of vulnerabilities, or discovery of an existing compromise. As information security...

Netflix has released a new tool called Sleepy Puppy that helps security researchers capture, manage, and track cross-site scripting (XSS) propagation over extended periods of time. Two application security researchers for the movie-streaming service, Scott Behrens (@helloarbit) and Patrick Kelley (@monkeysecurity), created the Sleepy Puppy tool to...

Siemens, a leading producer of systems for power generation and transmission as well as medical diagnosis, has patched three vulnerabilities affecting a variety of SIMATIC HMI devices. The multinational technology company was first alerted to the vulnerabilities, among them two Schneider kits and a number of remote and local exploits, by the...

Where would the dark web be without Tor? Probably in the bright, uncomfortable spotlight of law enforcement if it doesn't find an alternative method of cloaking itself. Agora, the dark web site that grabbed the dubious honour of being the world's most popular online drugs marketplace following the shut down of Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0, has...

Rutgers University has hired three security firms to test its network for vulnerabilities following a series of targeted attacks during the 2014-2015 academic year. According to The Washington Times, FishNet Security, Level 3 Communications, and Imperva will be working with Rutgers to enhance the university's security as classes resume for the 2015...

Earlier this month, security professionals from all over the world flooded to Las Vegas, Nevada, for Black Hat USA and DEF CON. As two of the largest and most respected events in information security, it is no surprise that they are a preferred choice for security experts and product vendors alike, year after year. Those conferences are indeed...

Every network security manager fights an escalating and asymmetric war against adversaries aiming to penetrate networks or disrupt services hosted there. Symantec reported that major attacker-caused data breaches rose almost 25 percent last year, while Verisign reported almost a 300 percent increase in average DDoS attack size. Asymmetries abound:...

If Microsoft calls a vulnerability "critical," warns that it affects all versions of Windows, and is prepared to issue a patch outside of its normal Patch Tuesday monthly schedule, you should sit up and listen. Today, Microsoft has issued an advisory about a zero-day vulnerability, dubbed CVE-2015-2502, that could allow an attacker to hijack control...

Like more than a few others, I experienced the infosec outrage against Mary Ann Davidson, Oracle's Chief Security Officer, before I actually read the now-redacted blog post. After taking the time to read what she actually wrote (still available through Google's web cache), I think there’s more discussion to be had than I’ve seen so far. First, it...

Security researchers have found a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on the Salesforce website, that could be exploited by malicious hackers to conduct phishing attacks and hijack the accounts of users. The researchers at Elastica report that they uncovered the weakness on one of Salesforce's subdomains, admin.salesforce.com. Specifically, the...

During my talk at DEF CON 23 last week, I discussed my experience developing USB based trojans and highlighted the fact that attempts to patch these vulnerabilities have done little to mitigate the risks associated with this attack vector. The revelation of CVE-2015-0096, which is a continuation of CVE-2010-2568, was believed to have been patched by...

I am not one for quotes and ‘Facebook philosophy’ memes but recently, I was reminded of my favourite quote on a certain social media platform: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates The pursuit of education can convert a criminal into a solicitor; it can envelop minds and...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses 14 new Microsoft Security Bulletins. VERT is actively working on coverage for these bulletins in order to meet our 24-hour SLA and expects to ship ASPL-628 on Wednesday, August 12th. MS15-079 Multiple Memory Corruption Vulnerabilities MULTIPLE Multiple ASLR Bypass Vulnerabilities ...

Security researchers have uncovered a zero-day deserialization vulnerability that allows for arbitrary code execution in 55% of Android devices. For their presentation at USENIX WOOT '15, researchers Or Peles and Roee Hay at IBM Security explain that their vulnerability (CVE-2015-3825) can be exploited in the context of many apps and can be used to...

The 18th annual Black Hat USA conference gathered thousands of professionals, researchers and enthusiasts to discuss not only the industry’s current trends and threats but also what we, as a community, can do to improve the security of ourselves, and of those around us. With over 100 briefings to choose from, this year’s presentations discussed a...

A security firm has released the results of an experiment that used a honeypot script named "GasPot" to determine the security threats facing gas tanks. These results were announced by Trend Micro researcher Kyle Wilhoit and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) expert Stephen Hilt during their presentation for Black Hat 2015, "The Little Pump Gauge that...

Fiat Chrysler and Harman International, the maker of the Uconnect dashboard computer, have been slammed with a class-action lawsuit after two security researchers successfully exploited a vulnerability in uConnect to hijack a 2014 Jeep. As reported in The State of Security's July 24th security roundup, researchers Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller...

RFID is one of those ubiquitous technologies showing up everywhere from contactless payment cards to the neighborhood swimming pool. Some of these technologies offer appropriate security controls but many applications still use legacy technology that is easily subverted by an attacker. Back in 2013, data from HID Global indicated that 70-80% of...

A true zero day, such as the recent vulnerability affecting Apple’s DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE variable that an adware installer is said to be exploiting in the wild, is called that because it comes without warning, because by the time you know about it, you have already been compromised. They're expensive; they are the domain of nation states and the most...

A security researcher has found the first known exploit of a zero-day vulnerability affecting Apple's DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE variable in the wild. The vulnerability, which was first found by researcher Stefan Esser in July, involves the addition of DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE as a new environment variable to the dynamic linker dyld. As of this writing, this...