General Security

Report: Hacked Syrian officials used '12345' as email password

February 8, 2012

After hundreds of emails from the office of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were leaked on Monday, a report revealed that several of Assad's aides and advisers used the password "12345."

General Security

Hacker releases Symantec source code

February 8, 2012

A hacker released the source code for antivirus firm Symantec's pcAnywhere utility on Tuesday, raising fears that others could find security holes in the product and attempt takeovers of customer computers.

General Security

White House Presses For New Cybersecurity Laws

January 31, 2012

White House Presses For New Cybersecurity Laws The White House is urging Congress to pass President Obama's cybersecurity legislation in 2012 to give officials the authority they need to combat "growing and increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats," according to the leading U.S. cybersecurity official. White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt called for legislators to "modernize" outdated laws […]

General Security

Cybersecurity Receives Emphasis in State of the Union Address

January 27, 2012

An interesting article by Mickey McCarter of Homeland Security Today.com about President Obama take on the cybersecurity issue in the State of the Union address. President Barack Obama called for cybersecurity legislation to provide incentives to businesses to protect their information systems from attacks or intrusions in the course of his State of the Union […]

General Security

Vulnerability Summary for the Week of January 16, 2012

January 23, 2012

This bulletin provides a summary of new vulnerabilities that have been recorded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Vulnerability Database (NVD) the week of January 16, 2012. It is available here:

General Security

Congress withdraws SOPA and PIPA

January 20, 2012

Lawmakers on Friday indefinitely postponed anti-piracy legislation that pits Hollywood against Silicon Valley, two days after major Internet companies staged an online protest by blacking out parts of prominent websites.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid postponed a showdown vote in his chamber on the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA for short, that had been scheduled for January 24.

General Security

Carberp Malware is Back in a New Form to Target Facebook users

January 19, 2012

"Carberp replaces any Facebook page the user navigates to with a fake page notifying the victim that his/her Facebook account is 'temporarily locked,'" says Trusteer CTO Amit Klein in his blog. "The page asks the user for their first name, last name, email, date of birth, password and a Ukash 20 euro [approximately $25 US] voucher number to 'confirm verification' of their identity and unlock the account.

General Security

Security Risk of Shortened URLs and How to Expand Them

January 17, 2012

Shortened URLs are a fixture in the social networking world. They are the cryptic URLs you normally see on your Twitter feed as well as on Facebook.

General Security

Effective password testing using Metasploit

January 17, 2012

Software vulnerabilities receive most of the limelight in network security, but weak, shared, and mismanaged passwords are often the biggest threat to most organizations.

General Security

Oracle Critical Patch Update (CPU) for Tues Jan 17th 2012

January 17, 2012

FYI for those running Oracle products such as OracleDB, Glassfish, MySQL, Solaris, etc. The following links will provide additional information to assist you.

Oracle Critical Patch Update (CPU) Pre-Release Announcement - January 2012