Security

Pierluigi Paganini September 09, 2013
Surveillance – NSA can access data on your mobile device

The German news agency Der Spiegel reported last act of US surveillance, the NSA is able to access data stored in a wide range of mobile devices including Android, iPhone and BlackBerry. Here we are with weekly news on NSA surveillance activities, last week we were shocked by the news on Bullrun program meanwhile today we discuss on the capability of the agency to access data stored […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 08, 2013
Mevade botnet responsible for the spike in Tor traffic

Security researchers at Fox-IT firm found evidence that the spike in Tor traffic is caused by a Mevade botnet that hides its C&C in the anonymizing network. Is the Mevade malware the real responsible for the spike observed in the number of users directly connected to the Tor network? In an article I wrote recently I analyzed the impact on the use […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 07, 2013
NSA Bullrun program, encryption and false perception of security

Revelations on Bullrun program demonstrated that NSA has capabilities against widely-used online protocols such as HTTPS and encryption standards. The latest nightmare for US Administration is named Bullrun, another US program for massive surveillance. Snowden‘s revelations represented a heartquake for IT security, the image of NSA and US IT companies are seriously compromised such the trust of worldwide […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 06, 2013
Hesperbot, the new powerful banking trojan found by ESET

Hesperbot is the name of a new banking trojan detected by ESET, it is a very potent malware which includes some very advanced tricks. Hesperbot is the name of the last banking trojan detected by security firm ESET, a malware that due its effectiveness could create serious problems to banks and financial institutions. Just yesterday I wrote about the evolution of cyber threats targeting online banking services, […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 05, 2013
Man In The Browser attacks scare banking world

The majority of financial service professionals considers Man In The Browser as the greatest threat to online banking, cybercrime increases its use. Man In The Browser attack, DDoS attacks, phishing are most insidious cyber threats against banking institutions. Last statistics proposed by principal security firms confirm that online banking is considered a lucrative business for […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 04, 2013
NetTraveler APT hackers still active improved their attacks

Experts at Kaspersky firm provided evidences that the hackers behind cyber espionage campaign NetTraveler are still active and improved their attack methods. Last June Kaspersky firm uncovered a new global cyber espionage campaign dubbed NetTraveler. Kaspersky’s team discovered that NetTraveler targeted over 350 high profile victims from 40 countries. The name of the operation derives from […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 03, 2013
Traffic Correlation Attacks against Anonymity on Tor

The researchers led by Aaron Johnson of the Naval Research Laboratory published the paper on Traffic Correlation Attacks against Anonymity on Tor. Anonymity on Tor network is the primary reason for the use of the popular network, hacktivists, whistleblowers, hackers, and cybercriminals are enticed by the possibility to be not traceable. Straying far from prying eyes is the primary attraction for the user of  Tor project. In reality […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 02, 2013
Reversing Dropbox client code raises security issues

Researchers at last USENIX security symposium presented a new method and consolidated techniques for reversing Dropbox code to bypass Dropbox’s two factor authentication, hijack Dropbox accounts and intercept SSL data. Reversing Dropbox analysis allowed researchers to crack its open cloud storage service, reverse engineering the encryption protecting the client it is possible to open it up […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 01, 2013
Cybercrime abuses Facebook paid advertisements

A reading of an interesting study on the criminal abuse of Facebook’s Paid “Sponsor Ads” system to deliver nefarious websites to the users. In the last weeks I presented on an interesting study of the techniques adopted by the cybercriminals organizations to abuse of the popular social network Facebook. The researchers Frank Angiolelli, Eric Feinberg, Ian Malloy issued a follow up […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 31, 2013
PRISM repercussion on the Tor network accesses

The article proposes the analysis of the impact on the use of the Tor network after the events related to PRISM surveillance program disclosure. The use of Tor Network to preserve user’s anonymity and to avoid government surveillance, we discussed this topic several times explaining that through the analysis of Tor metrics data it was possible to […]