Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity has just been awarded the prestigious Excellence in Financial Journalism Award for general audience books from the New York State Society of Certified Public Accounts. Thanks goes out to all our security, tech, law enforcement, financial services industry, legal and other contacts and sources who have so graciously helped us with guidance and expertise. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
Conficker timeline
2008 - 2009
2008
Aug. 20: The Gimmiv Trojan, which exploited the vulnerability Conficker capitalises on, is first spotted running in a virtual machine on a server in South Korea. Experts speculate this was a a test run prior to it being released in the wild. (Source: BBC)
Sept. Chinese malware brokers are spotted selling a $37 tool kit that allows anyone to exploit this newly-discovered security hole in a component of Windows, called RPC-DCOM, which enables file and print sharing. RPC-DCOM is built into all PCs of Windows XP vintage and earlier, some 800 million machines worldwide
Sept. 29: Gimmiv first seen in the wild infecting a PC in Hanoi, Vietnam. Over the next few weeks it manages to infect 200 more machines in 23 nations - most of which were in Malaysia. Mistakes in the way it is coded limit its ability to spread. (Source: BBC)….More at LastWatchdog.com
Monday, March 9th, 2009
The sudden resignation of Rod A. Beckstrom, the Department of Homeland Security’s senior official tasked with unifying the federal government’s cybersecurity intiatives, bodes ill for a new age of transparency and collaborative problem-solving in government. Beckstrom was unable to maneuver around, much less partner with, the powerful National Security Agency (NSA).
In this stunningly frank March 5th resignation letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom, Director of the National …More at LastWatchdog.com
