NewsBits for January 7, 2005 ************************************************************ Australian police charge students with global Internet scam Four Sydney high school students have been charged in connection with a Russian-based Internet scam that stole people's banking passwords and siphoned their cash into accounts in eastern Europe, police said. The four students were promised a cut of the profits for letting their bank accounts be used for laundering money stolen from Internet bankers via a computer virus that dropped a program for secretly recording passwords, police said. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/10591723.htm - - - - - - - - - - Man stabs long-lost Friends Reunited mate 7 times A UK man who traced his long-lost best mate via Friends Reuinted, then stabbed him seven times in a drunken rage because he thought he had attacked his sister, was jailed for three years today at the Old Bailey, Reuters reports. Noel Duff was lucky to survive the assault by Brendan Walsh during which he received a stab wound to the heart. The catalyst for the fracas was Duff's relationship with Walsh's sister subsequent to the two pals' doubtless tearful reunion. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/07/friends_reunited/ - - - - - - - - - - Three jailed in Saudi rape film case Saudi Arabia has jailed three men convicted of organising the rape of a teenage girl and later peddling footage of the assault across mobile networks. Two Saudi men used a video mobile to film the assault of a 17-year-old girl by a Nigerian man, a Saudi court heard. The subsequent distribution of this video across mobile networks ultimately led to the men's arrest and conviction. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/07/saudi_assault_mobile_misuse_case/ - - - - - - - - - - Trojan disguised as Flash player targets cell phones An updated variant of the Skulls Trojan horse comes disguised as a new version of the Macromedia Flash player to fool users of mobile phones running the Symbian operating system. Skulls.D disables applications needed to remove it, drops the Cabir.M worm onto phones and informs users that they have been infected by displaying a full-screen flashing skull, Mikko Hypponen, director of antivirus research at F-Secure (Profile, Products, Articles), in Helsinki, said Friday in a telephone interview. http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/01/07/HNflashtrojan_1.html http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,98799,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Critical Windows fix on the way The fixes, which will carry a maximum threat rating of "critical," will be issued Tuesday, the company said. Under its two-month-old advance notification program, Microsoft typically gives the public early notice of the number of updates it plans to deliver and of the severity of the vulnerabilities the updates fix. The only other detail the software giant revealed Thursday was that people may have to restart their Windows systems for the patches to take effect. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5517567.html IE flaw threat hits the roof http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5517457.html http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=-Extremely-Critical--Flaw-Threatens-Internet-Explorer-Users&story_id=29577 - - - - - - - - - - Phishers catch out Firefox A security flaw in the increasingly popular Firefox browser is exposing millions of users to phishing scams, security experts have warned. Jakob Balle, security specialist at Secunia Research, said that the vulnerability in Firefox and Mozilla allows malicious hackers to execute phishing scams by spoofing the source URL displayed in the browser's Download Dialog box. http://www.vnunet.com/news/1160352 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5517149.html Firefox: When is a flaw not a flaw? http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5517201.html Firefox flaw sparks a fiery debate http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39183365,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - BlackBerry users find devices not so secure A lawsuit in Toronto has triggered concerns about the security of the popular BlackBerry wireless email device. Most Bay St. investment traders and bankers would say they'd feel helpless without a Blackberry, a pocket-sized communication device that allows Internet and email access and text messaging. But a lawsuit launched by the CIBC is raising questions about the devices. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1105113455379_44/ - - - - - - - - - - House homeland security panel to cover cybersecurity The House Rules Committee referred a cybersecurity bill to the reorganized Homeland Security Committee, in a move that partly straightened some tangled lines of authority in the lower chamber. The Rules Committees decision confirmed the Homeland Security Committees authority over cybersecurity issues, which congressional sources said had been left partly unclear in the rule that established the new committee. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/34789-1.html - - - - - - - - - - GAO calls for security strategy Congressional auditors say a federal interagency committee in charge of coordinating the protection of government facilities needs a strategic plan for identifying priorities and implementing security measures, including leveraging technology. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2005/0103/web-facilities-01-07-05.asp - - - - - - - - - - Agencies back plan to delete old e-mails Government agencies generally support a proposal to let federal agencies delete mountains of saved e-mails that have been marked as having no long- term value, but some public advocacy groups and others have expressed concern. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0105/010705tdpm1.htm - - - - - - - - - - NASCIO faces authentication According to a report last month from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, states should have significant privacy concerns related to authenticating electronic communications. E-Authentication technologies are designed to verify user identities during electronic transactions. http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2005/0103/web-privacy-01-07-05.asp - - - - - - - - - - Ensuring wireless security to become easier Wireless routers these days come packed with security features, but they can be difficult to set up. Technology introduced this week at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show could make those problems a thing of the past. Broadcom Corp. of Irvine Calif. is working with Linksys and Hewlett-Packard Co. to make Wi-Fi Protected Access security available at the touch of a button. The new feature will be called Broadcom SecureEasySetup and will automatically handle all the technical issues involved with WPA setup such as network name, encryption key and WPA pass phrase. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/34748-1.html - - - - - - - - - - ThinkPads with fingerprint readers now widely available Instead of relying on long passwords that can be guessed or forgotten, selected models of IBM Corp.s ThinkPad T42s notebooks, aimed at the government market, are starting to ship with biometric fingerprint readers, company officials told GCN Labs this week at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show. The notebooks also ship with an embedded security subsystem to drive even more powerful security protection. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/34749-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Netizens eye Web-enabled surveillance cams Blogs and message forums buzzed this week with the discovery that a pair of simple Google searches permits access to well over 1,000 unprotected surveillance cameras around the world -- apparently without their owners' knowledge. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/10251 *********************************************************** Search the NewsBits.net Archive at: http://www.newsbits.net/search.html *********************************************************** The source material may be copyrighted and all rights are retained by the original author/publisher. The information is provided to you for non-profit research and educational purposes. 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