Robert Lemos

Attackers have begun targeting fuel-tank monitoring systems, which are known to be vulnerable to manipulation, researchers at security firm Trend Micro stated in a report released on Aug. 5. The researchers used custom-created honeypot programs to emulate a common fuel-tank monitoring device used to monitor the gasoline levels at gas stations and found dozens of […]

An espionage group with links to China has systematically infected more than 100 Web destinations that are popular with a variety of industries and government agencies as part of a scheme to infect sensitive targets, managed-security firm Dell SecureWorks said on Aug. 5. The team of spies, which Dell labeled “Threat Group 3390” and which […]

A Chinese virtual private network (VPN) service, dubbed “Terracotta” by security researchers, has compromised hundreds of Windows servers to use as part of its anonymizing infrastructure, providing both legitimate users and attackers with an encrypted network capable of bypassing China’s Great Firewall, according to an analysis published by security company RSA on Aug. 4. The […]

The sensitive documents stolen from offensive-security firm Hacking Team contain few real surprises, but the leaks resulting from the theft could have serious implications for the security industry. Security and privacy experts knew the company created tools for infecting and monitoring targeted computers using acquired exploits for previously unreported, or “zero-day,” vulnerabilities and sold those […]

Disconnecting a computer from all networks is no longer a foolproof way to make sure that it will no longer communicate to other systems, according to research that will be presented at the USENIX Security 2015 Conference in August. Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev were able to create programs to infect a computer […]

An analysis of three popular smart-home hubs has revealed numerous vulnerabilities in the products that could be used by attackers to gain control of the hubs through malicious Web sites or applications, according to security firm Tripwire. Tripwire tested smart-home control devices manufactured by SmartThings, Vera Control and Wink, finding critical flaws that could allow […]

Automated systems paired with the ability to sift through massive amounts of data have changed numerous industries over the past decade, from delivering search results, to identifying sales trends and optimizing business processes. Now, a combination of Big Data and cognitive computing is being used to ferret out security flaws in software. Keeping security vulnerabilities […]

Hacking Team, the creator of a digital remote-access and surveillance platform, had specifically targeted Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to allow government officials and law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) to follow the money, according to email messages stolen from the company in a breach earlier this month. The messages, posted publicly by Wikileaks, indicated that the company’s platform […]

When antivirus firm Avira began warning its users that software installed from download site Freemium.com came bundled with “potentially unwanted applications,” the site demanded that the security firm stop blocking its downloads. Yet Freemium.com’s practice of bundling other programs violated Avira’s code of conduct for applications, so the security company continued to warn its customers […]

Attackers are using a three-decades-old Internet protocol for passing network information between routers to target systems and networks with massive floods of data, network-security firms said in early July. Created during the 1970s and formalized in 1988, the Routing Information Protocol version 1, or RIPv1, typically allows one router to request network information from another […]