Friday, June 22, 2007

Daily Highlights

The Associated Press reports a missing computer backup tape containing personal information on Ohio state employees also holds the names and Social Security numbers of 225,000 taxpayers. (See item 9)
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United Airlines officials still don't know what caused their flight dispatch system to shut down Wednesday, June 20, grounding takeoffs all over the world; the dispatch system's backup also malfunctioned, raising questions about whether the computer meltdown could happen again. (See item 13)
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WBAY reports the owners of the Log Den restaurant in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, shut down by bad water, continue to explore all possible means that could have contaminated their water, including deliberate tampering. (See item 23)

Information Technology and Telecommunications Sector

30. June 21, eWeek — Apple shuts down IPv6 security hole. Apple has slammed the door shut on denial−of−service (DoS) attacks and a security bypass that Type 0 routing headers in IPv6 let in. The company on Wednesday, June 20, put out an update, Mac OS X 10.4.10, that addresses the problem by disabling support for the headers. This vulnerability has been left wide open in IPv6 even though it was well−known and shut down in IPv4; by default, all routing engines now turn it off. This particular type of packet header can be used to crazily bounce network packets back and forth between hops on their route, clogging up bandwidth and potentially causing a DoS. Apple said in its security advisory that the issue doesn't affect systems prior to Mac OS X 10.4. The update is available for Mac OS X 10.4 through Mac OS X 10.4.9 and Mac OS X Server 10.4 through Mac OS X Server 10.4.9. It can be obtained from Mac OS X's Software Update pane under System Preferences or via Apple's Software Downloads site.
Apple's Software Downloads site: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
Source: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2148908,00.asp

31. June 21, VNUNet — China publishes spammers blacklist. Internet authorities in China have published a blacklist of more than 100,000 Web addresses which have been used to send spam. The online list is intended to help service providers and e−mail recipients filter out spam. China has been ranked as one of the world's most prolific sources of unsolicited commercial e−mail by various sources, including online security firms. The latest official action appears to have been prompted by complaints from inside China, particularly from users troubled by email−borne viruses.
Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2192526/china−rejects−spam −diet

32. June 20, IDG News Service — McAfee: Infrastructure, digital home attacks coming. Online criminals looking for new areas to attack in the next few years will find green fields in the Internet infrastructure and the digital home, researchers with McAfee's Anti−Virus Emergency Response Team (AVERT) labs said Tuesday, June 19. McAfee offered its take on the top security trends for 2007, at a press event in San Francisco, saying that well−known problems such as phishing, spam, bots, and rootkits are on the rise. But in the years ahead, new areas will be top concerns, said Craig Schmugar, virus research manager at McAfee's AVERT labs. "In the short term, it will be the infrastructure side of things," he said. "In the long term, it will be digital entertainment." Schmugar said that the recent flaw in Windows DNS servers, which was exploited in a small number of online attacks, is a good example of things to come. These servers are a critical part of the Internet's infrastructure, used to convert the domain names users type into their browsers into the IP addresses that identify computers on the Internet. McAfee also expects to see hackers focus more on Wi−Fi attacks as PC users become accustomed to connecting to wireless networks wherever they go.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070620/tc_infoworld/89510;_ylt=Al9vDkVOQVjAhtiXSm6BAKYjtBAF

33. June 20, VNUNet — USB Flash drive worm spreads AIDS info. Security experts have disclosed details of a worm that copies itself onto removable drives, such as USB Flash drives, in an attempt to spread information about AIDS and HIV. The LiarVB−A worm hunts for removable drives such as floppy disks and USB memory sticks, as well as spreading via network shares. It creates a hidden file called 'autorun.inf' to ensure that a copy of the worm is run the next time the drive is connected to a Windows PC. "Much of the malware we see is designed to generate income for the hackers, but this worm is different in that it spreads information about AIDS instead," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.
Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2192450/usb−flash−drive−wo rm−spreads

34. June 20, PC Pro (UK) — Hacking of Internet−delivered broadcast reveals security vulnerability. A Czech Webcam was streaming lovely pastoral pictures of a local beauty spot, until hackers gained access and inserted pictures of the area being "nuked." Unfortunately, the video was also then broadcast live on television. The incident occurred on Sunday morning, June 17, on Czech TV program Panorama. Hackers interrupted the regular Webcam transmission with video "footage" of a nuclear explosion. The stunt was pulled by a group of "artists" known as Ztohoven. Their Website promptly went offline as massive numbers of users investigated the pranksters. Security experts warned that this type of hacking demonstrates the security vulnerabilities involved when transmitting information across the Internet. "Internet−delivered broadcasts and Internet TV transmissions are still in their infancy, but this doesn't stop hackers from attacking weak points in the transmission infrastructure," says Geoff Sweeney, chief technology officer of behavioral analysis software company Tier−3.
Source: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/116024/hackers−nuke−czech−beauty −spot.html