TippingPoint Threat Intelligence and Zero-Day Coverage – Week of March 27, 2017

Credit to Author: Elisa Lippincott (TippingPoint Global Product Marketing)| Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 12:00:49 +0000

The world lost a funny, talented and wonderful soul late last week. I only knew him for a year, but Raimund Genes made those of us who came to Trend Micro via the TippingPoint acquisition feel right at home. I appreciated his candor, his love of life and his creative cocktails. He was a tremendous…

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Post-FCC Privacy Rules, Should You VPN?

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 21:33:48 +0000

Many readers are understandably concerned about recent moves by the U.S. Congress that would roll back privacy rules barring broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) from sharing or selling customer browsing history, among other personal data. Some are concerned enough by this development that they’re looking at obfuscating all of their online browsing by paying for a subscription to a virtual private networking (VPN) service. This piece is intended to serve as a guidepost for those contemplating such a move.

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Review: Consider VPN services for hotspot protection

Credit to Author: Eric Geier| Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 13:41:00 -0700

Virtual private networks have many uses. Typically, businesses deploy VPNs so employees can securely access the corporate network from outside the office. However, we’ve seen a rise in third-party VPN services that use the same underlying technology, the encrypted tunnel, to simply provide a secure Internet connection.

Why would you ever need to do this?

When connected to a VPN service, the websites you access think you’re at the location where the VPN server is located. This can help anonymize your Internet traffic so it’s much harder for websites to track your personal browsing history.

This also allows you to access websites, services, and content that’s restricted where you are currently located, such as Netflix or Hulu when traveling overseas.

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Senator: Russia used 'thousands' of internet trolls during U.S. election

Credit to Author: Grant Gross| Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 13:13:00 -0700

The Russian government used “thousands” of internet trolls and bots to spread fake news, in addition to hacking into political campaigns leading up to the 2016 U.S. election, according to one lawmaker.

Disinformation spread on social media was designed to raise doubts about the U.S. election and the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat.

“This Russian propaganda on steroids was designed to poison the national conversation in America,” Warner said Thursday during a Senate hearing on Russian election hacking. The Russian government used “thousands of paid internet trolls” and bots to spread disinformation on social media.

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Google patches Chrome bug from fizzled Pwn2Own hack

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 12:03:00 -0700

Google yesterday updated Chrome to patch several vulnerabilities, including a bug in the browser’s JavaScript engine that a Chinese team tried to exploit at a recent hacking contest.

The update to version 57.0.2987.133 contained fixes for five vulnerabilities, one marked “Critical” — the most serious rating in Google’s system — and the others tagged “High.”

Of the four vulnerabilities ranked High, one was attributed to “Team Sniper,” one of five groups from Chinese company Tencent Security that participated in this year’s edition of Pwn2Own, one of the world’s best-known hacking contests. Pwn2Own ran March 15-17 alongside the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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