I wonder how
that contract was worded?
Danny Yadron, Paul
Ziobro and Charles Levinson report:
The
hackers who stole 40 million credit- and debit-card numbers from
Target Corp. appear to have breached the discounter’s systems by
using credentials stolen from a vendor.
The
finding will help to start unraveling the riddle of how the software
that carried out the attack got into Target’s systems. It also
underscores the risks companies face as they operate vast,
interconnected business systems.
“We
can confirm that the ongoing forensic investigation has indicated
that the intruder stole a vendor’s credentials which were used to
access our system,” Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said.
Read more on
WSJ.
(Reated) For my
Ethical Hackers. Slick. Sounds like the TJMaxx breach, only
smarter.
New
Clues in the Target Breach
… As I noted in
Jan. 15′s story – A
First Look at the Target Intrusion, Malware – the attackers
were able to infect Target’s point-of-sale registers with a malware
strain that stole credit and debit card data. The
intruders also set up a control server within Target’s internal
network that served as a central repository for data
hoovered up from all of the infected registers
That
analysis looked at a malware component used in Target breach that was
uploaded to Symantec’s ThreatExpert scanning service on Dec. 18 but
which was later deleted (a local PDF copy of it is here).
The ThreatExpert writeup suggests that the malware was responsible
for moving stolen data from the compromised cash registers to that
shared central repository...
…
“Attackers exfiltrate data by creating a mount point for a remote
file share and copying the data stored by the memory-scraping
component to that share,” the SecureWorks paper notes.
Perspective.
“It's not you father's malware.”
Redefining
Malware: When Old Terms Pose New Threats
… Long
ago, malware was typically created and deployed by script kiddies
bent on flexing their programming muscles. That’s not to say that
all malware attacks were harmless pranks; some were severe, and all
of them were technically illegal. But they generally weren’t
devastating, and enterprises found that setting up perimeter security
(e.g. signature-based antivirus products, firewalls, secure web
gateways, and so on) was enough to keep malware from infecting their
network and causing major damage. But that was then.
Now,
just as the business world is in many ways unrecognizably different
compared to years ago, today’s malware is a completely different
and qualitatively more dangerous threat to enterprises for three core
reasons:
1.
New Threat Actors:
As the technology to create and deploy malware has entered the
mainstream, rebellious script kiddies have given way to sophisticated
adversaries, hacktivists and nation states intent on fulfilling their
illicit economic, social or political agendas. As such, instead of
merely damaging machines, today’s threat actors are using malware
to gain access and control corporate networks, as well as steal an
enterprise’s intellectual property (IP) and other private data.
2.
New Attack Approaches:
In the past, malware attacks were typically quick, broad and
indiscriminate. Now, they’re precise, targeted and unfold in
multiple stages that include an initial probe of a victim’s network
security system to identify vulnerabilities, and render perimeter
security systems defenseless and ineffectual. In fact, it’s not
unusual these days for some malware to do nothing except invade a
network for the purposes of “opening a door” for future attacks
that will occur much later.
3.
New Masking Tactics:
There was a time when one of the main objectives of a malware attack
was to make as much noise as possible. Now the opposite is true, and
today’s advanced malware is unnervingly capable of silently
persisting on a network for weeks, months or even years without
making a sound and setting off perimeter security alarm bells.
What’s more, if today’s adversaries find that their attack is too
noisy for their liking, they can outright destroy machines to cover
their tracks (which is what happened in the Shamoon malware
campaign), or they can deploy polymorphic malware that keeps changing
to avoid detection by traditional security products.
(Related)
“What's in your network?” (Worth reading)
Preparing
for the Inevitable Data Breach: Discussion
Companies
need to start thinking of themselves as stewards of consumer data and
be proactive about data protection, a panel of experts said this week
at a town hall event in honor of Data
Privacy Day.
Businesses
need to understand they will experience a breach incident and plan
accordingly how they would protect the data, said Craig Spiezle,
executive director and founder of Online
Trust Alliance
(OTA). If
they don't, "they're really not meeting their obligations to
their customers or their stockholders,"
Spiezle said.
I'm
hoovering up a lot of stuff from Data Privacy Day activities.
The Future of Privacy
Forum and Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society have
released a collection
of papers (pdf) on Big Data and Privacy.
For my
Ethical Hackers. Being expert means you never show up on this kind
of infographic (or on those wanted posters in the post office)
The
9 Master Hackers Of The World (That We Know Of)
Very
handy! Try it! Perhaps my nephew can feed his
“music addiction” for free? Also works for podcasts.
Your
Favorite Song Is Playing Somewhere. Find It With RadioSearchEngine
… Radio
Search Engine regularly indexes online radio stations, allowing
you to search for a specific song playing…somewhere. You can then
listen to the song (usually halfway through), then continue to listen
to whatever station you stumble upon. You might find yourself
listening to a Japanese top-forty station, but that’s half the fun.
… radio stations
long ago added live web streams of their programming to the web.
… RadioSearchEngine
takes advantage of this fact, as well as the song metadata these
stations offer, to make it possible to hear any top-40 song
instantly. Head to the site and you’ll see our local stations, to
the right of a list of current top songs:
Click any of the song
and you’ll be taken to a random station playing it. This will
usually occur partway through a song, and occasionally occur after
it’s played.
… Search for any
song or artist and you’ll be shown a number of stations playing
them (as seen above). Click to start listening. The service claims
around 40,000 songs are playing at any given time, so you won’t
find everything you’re looking for.
… If
you’re not sold on the whole “search” idea, but would like to
explore online radio some more, I’d recommend checking out TuneIn.
It lets you tune
into 50,000 stations worldwide, and offers an easy user interface
for the job.
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