January 2017 – Page 10 – Computer Security Articles

One of the leading cybercrime investigators at antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab was reportedly arrested in Russia as part of a probe into activities that could represent high treason.

According to Russian newspaper Kommersant, Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of the computer incidents investigation team at Kaspersky, was arrested in December as part of an investigation that also targeted Sergei Mikhailov, the deputy head of the Information Security Center at the FSB, Russia’s internal security service.

Russian authorities are investigating Mikhailov in connection to the receipt of money from a foreign organization, an unnamed source close to the FSB reportedly told the newspaper.

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January 25, 2017 admin

Cyber criminals avoid fraud within their own ranks with new site

Sometimes it’s not easy being a cyber criminal. In addition to law enforcement and private security companies, cyber thieves have to battle fraudsters out to beat them at their own game, but a website offers to help.

Ripper.cc has been maintaining a database of known “rippers” or scammers since June last year and security firm Digital Shadows, which has been investigating it, says it may help online black markets flourish.

Fraud is a nagging problem in the cyber criminal world, according to Digital Shadows. Although some hackers believe in honor amongst thieves, others are peddling bogus goods, such as stolen credit card numbers or user credentials that turn out to be fake.

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 25, 2017 admin

GPG Suite updated for secure email on OSX Sierra

GPG Suite, an application that brings encrypted email to Mac OS, is now available in public beta for Sierra.

The software package had been compatible up to El Capitan but wasn’t working with Sierra, which was released by Apple in September. The new software can now be downloaded from the GPG Tools website.

It adds support for the OpenPGP encryption standard, which is an open-source version of the PGP encryption package first developed in 1991.

Four software apps are contained in the package:

— GPG Mail is a plugin for Apple Mail that allows users to encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify mails sent using OpenPGP.

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 25, 2017 admin

Court denies U.S. government appeal in Microsoft overseas email case

A U.S. appeals court will not reconsider its groundbreaking decision denying Department of Justice efforts to force Microsoft to turn over customer emails stored outside the country.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a 4-4 decision Tuesday, declined to rehear its July decision that denied the DOJ access to the email of a drug trafficking suspect stored on a Microsoft server in Ireland. Microsoft has been fighting DOJ requests for the email since 2013.

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 25, 2017 admin

IDG Contributor Network: Microsoft to release Windows Defender Security Center in April

Microsoft has announced that as part of the Creator’s Update coming in April, it will introduce a new security service called Windows Defender Security Center, which is designed to act as a dashboard for all of your security features, including third-party security. The Security Center is already available to Windows Insiders using preview builds of Windows 10.

Though Windows Defender has never been a top-flight performer in detecting malware compared to vendors like Trend Micro and Kaspersky (see the latest AV Comparatives in PDF format), Microsoft has stuck with it, and it does make for a decent second line of defense. With the Security Center, Microsoft is expanding beyond mere malware detection into overall system security.

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 25, 2017 admin

Pompeo sworn in as CIA chief amid opposition from surveillance critics

Mike Pompeo was sworn in late Monday as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency amid protests from surveillance critics who worry about his conflicting views on a number of key issues.

The oath of office was administered by Vice President Mike Pence after the Senate voted in favor of his confirmation in a 66-32 vote.

Critics of Pompeo, a Republican representative from Kansas, are concerned that he may weigh in with the government on a rollback of many privacy reforms, including restrictions on the collection of bulk telephone metadata from Americans by the National Security Agency under the USA Freedom Act. There are also concerns that the new director may try to introduce curbs on the use of encryption and bring in measures to monitor the social media accounts.

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 25, 2017 admin

Apple quashes bugs in iOS, macOS and Safari

Apple on Monday updated macOS Sierra to 10.12.3, patching 11 security vulnerabilities and addressing a graphics hardware problem in the latest 15-in. MacBook Pro laptop.

At the same time, Apple released iOS 10.2.1, an update that fixed 18 security flaws, the bulk of them in WebKit, the foundation of the baked-in Safari browser.

According to Apple’s typically terse update documentation, macOS 10.12.3 “improves automatic graphics switching on MacBook Pro (15-in., October 2016).” Another fix addressed “graphics issues” on both the 15-in. and the smaller 13-in. sibling when encoding in Adobe Premiere Pro; that bug attracted attention after a video showing a notebook wildly cycling through colors went viral.

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Computer Security Articles

Month: January 2017

Kaspersky Lab employee reportedly arrested in Russia on treason charges

Cyber criminals avoid fraud within their own ranks with new site

GPG Suite updated for secure email on OSX Sierra

Court denies U.S. government appeal in Microsoft overseas email case

IDG Contributor Network: Microsoft to release Windows Defender Security Center in April

Pompeo sworn in as CIA chief amid opposition from surveillance critics

Apple quashes bugs in iOS, macOS and Safari