News

Plus special guest stars Adobe and SAP in this month's security fixes

Patch Tuesday  Microsoft, Adobe, and SAP may have just ruined more than a few summer vacation plans, thanks to a massive and critical Patch Tuesday bundle of security fixes this month.…

Google guru shows how WinXP-era text code grants total control

Patch Tuesday  Software buried in Windows since the days of WinXP can be abused to take complete control of a PC with the help of good ol' Notepad and some crafty code.…

Operators cut throttle during go-around. Aircraft crashed

A British Army Watchkeeper drone that crashed near its home base of Aberporth in north Wales did so after its crew overrode its autopilot, causing the unmanned aircraft to hit a tree.…

But it claims just 32 people had 'non-public' info disclosed. Eh?

The American Securities and Exchange Commission is said to be investigating a US insurance company that allegedly left 885 million personal records accessible "without authentication to anyone with a web browser".…

Alternative Services spec bungled by browser makers

The HTTP Alternative Services header can be abused to conduct network reconnaissance and attacks, to bypass malware protection services, and to foil tracking defenses and privacy assumptions, according to a paper scheduled to be presented at the WOOT '19 security conference on Tuesday.…

Expensive renewals once a year... or free certificates any time? Tough choice

CA/Browser Forum – an industry body of web browser makers, software developers, and security certificate issuers – is considering slashing the lifetime of HTTPS certs from 27 months to 13 months.…

Child abuse swap-shop admins to spend decades behind bars

The FBI is keeping quiet how exactly it brought down a Tor-hidden pedophile haven, having secured decades-long prison sentences for four of the website's administrators.…

Powerful code signed by Microsoft littered with vulns

DEF CON  Too many trusted Windows 10 peripheral drivers, signed off by Microsoft and running with powerful kernel-level privileges, are riddled with exploitable security vulnerabilities, according to infosec biz Eclypsium.…

Plus: The spambot that actually DOES record screens of pr0n users

Roundup  Here is your friendly summary of recent news from the front lines of information security beyond everything else we've already reported.…

Politicians appeal to hackers to take up the fight

DEF CON  Despite some progress, the US is still massively underprepared for a serious cyber attack and the current administration isn't helping matters, according to politicians visiting the DEF CON hacking conference.…

Faulty F-15s, at-risk airbases and much more

DEF CON  For the first time, Vegas's annual DEF CON hacking conference has an "aviation hacking village", and the US military is scouting around there for a few good hackers to find bugs that its own hackers have missed.…

More unregulated creepycams blight London

Britons working for Google at its London HQ are being secretly spied on by creepy facial recognition cameras – but these ones aren't operated by the ad-tech company.…

Thousands of tons of metal and iPads don't mix, it would seem

The US Navy is ditching touchscreens and going back to physical throttles after an investigation into the USS John S McCain collision partly blamed poor design of control systems for the incident.…

You've heard of ROP? Now get a load of QOP

DEF CON  At the DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas on Saturday, infosec gurus from Check Point are scheduled to describe a technique for exploiting SQLite, a database used in applications across every major desktop and mobile operating system, to gain arbitrary code execution.…

Elaborate browser break-out betrayed by unusual behavior

Coinbase chief information security officer Philip Martin this week published an incident report covering the recent attack on the cryptocurrency exchange, revealing a phishing campaign of surprising sophistication.…

The benefits of outsourcing your IT's infosec – and what to look for. Here's our gentle guide for you

Backgrounder  Managed security services are – by revenue – the fastest expanding field of cyber security, according to IDC, which reckons they should grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.2 per cent to 2022. Gartner says managed and subscription-based security services will account for half of all cyber-security spending by 2020.…

Maybe Douglas Adams was right about mice

Black Hat  Deepfakes, the AI-generated talking heads that can say whatever their creator wants them to, are getting harder to detect. But boffins have enlisted an unlikely ally in the quest for truth – mice.…

Revenge plan morphs into data leak discovery

Black Hat  When Europe introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) it was supposed to be a major step forward in data safety, but sloppy implementation and a little social engineering can make it heaven for identity thieves.…

As it emerges non-internet-connected election systems are actually connected to the internet

Black Hat  While various high-tech solutions to secure electronic voting systems are being touted this week to election officials across the United States, according to infosec guru Bruce Schneier there is only one tried-and-tested approach that should be considered: pen and paper.…

Apple expands bug bounties, and more from Vegas this week

Black Hat  Here's a quick summary of some important infosec happenings from inside and outside the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas on Thursday.…