Security Holes

File this one under “really frickin’ scary” -
“Hackers successfully infiltrated Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of the nation’s leading government-run research facilities. The attackers gained access by sending e-mails infected with trojan horses to ORNL employees. The lab claims that no classified information was retrieved, but admits that the perpetrators managed to acquire a [...]

While this isn’t really related to the Internet, my good friends over at ScamBusters have uncovered a brand new scam which is growing rapidly, and taking in a lot of people, as it’s so diabolical and simple.

Both Visa and American Express have announced that they are severing business relations with security-beleagured company CardSystems, Inc.

Top Internet security companies agree and are warning that at least one virus writer is specifically targeting government computer systems, both in the UK and the United States, and elsewhere.

In the latest in a rash of incidents in which the personal data of customers of various institutions has been compromised, Citigroup has revealed that the personal account information of 3.9 million customers has gone missing.

It’s bad enough that military and government computer systems at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were hacked and compromised.

Security firm Secunia has issued a “highly critical” advisory for a security flaw in Netscape. The highly critical flaw was discovered earlier this week, and is known to affect at least Netscape versions 6.2.3 and 7.2. It may also affect other 6.x and 7.x versions of Netscape.

The SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center (ISC) has issued a warning about Internet greeting cards or postcards which bear links leading to Trojan Horse programs. Like the original Trojan Horse, these salutations carry a cargo designed to infiltrate, in this case, your computer.

Quick, what would you say is the most obvious way for data to end up in the wrong hands? If you said “having the laptop on which it resides stolen”, give yourself a pat on the back. Now quick, what is one of the most preventable forms of data theft? If you [...]

Even the most upstanding of Florida’s e-mail citizens can’t seem to avoid running afoul of good e-mail practices if not the law, it seems. It must be something in the tasty Florida water, which, of course, is not just for breakfast anymore.
Case in point: When Jack Nolan, a statistician for Florida’s Palm Beach County [...]

Channel KOKH 25 out of Oklahoma City is reporting that somehow somebody managed to load computer surveillance software onto three computers at the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s office.
According to Oklahoma Sheriff John Whetsel, whomever installed the software gained access to some very sensitive information, including not only personnel files, but also prisonor information and [...]

Last week Aunty told you about Internet baddies who are loading spyware, adware, and viruses (oh my!) into media files, using a loophole in Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) process, and causing the nasties to be installed on the computers of unaware users who think that they are downloading media files.
Shortly after Aunty made that [...]