Independent – Page 140 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Tue, 14 May 2019 03:00:00 -0700

After more than a year in development, Microsoft has chosen Bitcoin as the blockchain platform for a decentralized identification (DID) verification system that will allow users to have secure access to an online persona via an encrypted database hub.

The implications of the new ID network could include the elimination of passwords. A company would be able to verify the background of a new employee and onboard them with the click of a single virtual button, or a banking customer could verify their identity for a loan without exposing personally identifiable information – again with a click of a button.

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Independent Krebs

May 10, 2019 admin

Nine Charged in Alleged SIM Swapping Ring

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 10 May 2019 17:02:56 +0000

Eight Americans and an Irishman have been charged with wire fraud this week for allegedly hijacking mobile phones through SIM-swapping, a form of fraud in which scammers bribe or trick employees at mobile phone stores into seizing control of the target’s phone number and diverting all texts and phone calls to the attacker’s mobile device. From there, the attackers simply start requesting password reset links via text message for a variety of accounts tied to the hijacked phone number. All told, the government said this gang — allegedly known to its members as “The Community” — made more than $2.4 million stealing cryptocurrencies and extorting people for restoring access to social media accounts that were hijacked after a successful SIM-swap.

ComputerWorld Independent

May 9, 2019 admin

No, Google, Apple's privacy is not a luxury item

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Thu, 09 May 2019 06:10:00 -0700

Why is privacy a luxury? Possibly because surveillance capitalist firms have subsidized product prices by collecting and trading in the personal data of the people that use their products, enabling them to sell hardware cheap.

The consequences of convenience

The crux of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s argument against firms such as (obviously including but never named) Apple is that his company offers convenience in exchange for personal secrets, makes its services available for free, and has a “profound commitment” to protecting user privacy.

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ComputerWorld Independent

May 8, 2019 admin

The SAP/Apple partnership changes everything

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Wed, 08 May 2019 06:11:00 -0700

SAP and Apple are working together to help businesses build applications that use Apple’s machine learning and augmented reality technologies.

Apple is the enterprise

Apple CEO Tim Cook joined SAP CEO Bill McDermott at the latter company’s SAPPHIRE conference to announce the news.

“A man who is the last to accept the status quo, and the first to change it,” said McDermott introducing Cook.

Since entering into a business app development partnership with Apple in 2016, SAP itself has become an increasingly Apple-based business with around 100,000 Apple devices in use across the company.

That’s a revealing statistic, given Cook’s admission:

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Independent Krebs

May 7, 2019 admin

What’s Behind the Wolters Kluwer Tax Outage?

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 07 May 2019 19:56:44 +0000

Early in the afternoon on Friday, May, 3, I asked a friend to relay a message to his security contact at CCH, the cloud-based tax division of the global information services firm Wolters Kluwer in the Netherlands. The message was that the same file directories containing new versions of CCH’s software were open and writable by any anonymous user, and that there were suspicious files in those directories indicating some user(s) abused that access. Shortly after that report, the CCH file directory for tax software downloads was taken offline. As of this publication, several readers have reported outages affecting multiple CCH Web sites. These same readers reported being unable to access their clients’ tax data in CCH’s cloud because of the ongoing outages.

ComputerWorld Independent

May 6, 2019 admin

Mozilla issues fix after it lets cert expire and Firefox add-ons go belly-up

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Mon, 06 May 2019 12:21:00 -0700

Mozilla over the weekend scrambled to come up with a fix for a bug that crippled most Firefox add-ons.

Engineers issued an update for the desktop browser Sunday afternoon that addressed the issue. That update followed a Saturday hotfix released via a little-known component that lets Mozilla feed pre-release code to Firefox users and then collect data from the browser.

The problem was traced to the certificate used by Mozilla to digitally sign Firefox extensions. When the organization neglected to renew the certificate, Firefox assumed the add-ons could not be trusted – that they were, in other words, illegitimate at best, potentially malicious at worst – and then disabled any already installed. Add-ons could not be added to the browser for the same reason.

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Independent Krebs

May 3, 2019 admin

Feds Bust Up Dark Web Hub Wall Street Market

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 03 May 2019 16:48:36 +0000

Federal investigators in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands announced today the arrest and charging of three German nationals and a Brazilian man as the alleged masterminds behind the Wall Street Market (WSM), one of the world’s largest dark web bazaars that allowed vendors to sell illegal drugs, counterfeit goods and malware. Now, at least one former WSM administrator is reportedly trying to extort money from WSM vendors and buyers (supposedly including Yours Truly) — in exchange for not publishing details of the transactions.

Independent Krebs

May 3, 2019 admin

Credit Union Sues Fintech Giant Fiserv Over Security Claims

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 03 May 2019 14:30:36 +0000

A Pennsylvania credit union is suing financial industry technology giant Fiserv, alleging that “baffling” security vulnerabilities in the company’s software are “wreaking havoc” on its customers. The credit union said the investigation that fueled the lawsuit was prompted by a 2018 KrebsOnSecurity report about a glaring security weakness a Fiserv platform that exposed personal and financial details of customers across hundreds of bank Web sites.