Admins warned of brute-force SSH attacks
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Wed, 14 May 2008 14:50:56 -0700
Allowing secure shell access to a server tends to attract the occasional attempt to guess a valid username and password for the service. However, a spike in attacks this week has system administrators worried. Over the weekend, a number of network administrators issued warnings over an order-of-magnitude increase in the number of attempts to guess the username and password of systems running secure shell (SSH), the encrypted access method that replaced the common telnet service. System administrators at universities and some companies have reported login attempts coming from hundreds and thousands of Internet addresses over the past week, a stark increase from the handful of attacks the ... |
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Security researcher devises rootkit for Cisco's routers
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Wed, 14 May 2008 14:30:16 -0700
A security researcher has developed malicious rootkit software for Cisco Systems Inc.'s routers that has placed increasing scrutiny on the routers that carry the majority of the Internet's traffic.
Sebastian Muniz, a researcher at Core Security Technologies Inc., developed the software, which he will unveil on May 22 at the EuSecWest conference in London.
Rootkits are stealthy programs that cover their tracks on a computer, making them extremely hard to detect. To date, the vast majority of rootkits have been written for the Windows operating system; this marks the first time someone has discussed a rootkit written for the Internetworking Operating System used by ... |
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Are remote DBAs a good idea?
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Wed, 14 May 2008 14:26:54 -0700
I got an email from a marketing rep a while back telling me about this company that does remote DBA work and wanted to know if I was interested in doing a story on them. Well, normally I turn stuff like that down flat because I've seen those companies before and they're typically nothing more than a glorified NOC (Network Ops Center). OK, they're probably not even that glorified, just expensive. But there was something about the way she worded it that got me curious. So I emailed her back and before long we were on the phone.
Enough prelims though, here's what I have to tell you.
The company is DatAvail and they do DBA outsourcing. Only it's much more than that. See, I ... |
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Improving Website Security With Server Logs
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Wed, 14 May 2008 12:02:30 -0700
With the escalating tide of targeted website attacks, server administrators and webmasters would be well advised to examine their logs to predict, prevent and interdict enemy attacks. These attacks can come in a variety of forms, but aside from cross-site javascript attacks, the most prevalent in the second quarter of 2008 are PHP and SQL injection attacks targeting vulnerable systems and websites. The more common attacks appear to be targeted at websites using open source platforms and forums such as WordPress and phpBB.
While WordPress and phpBB may be targeted because of their wide use and the fact that hackers can view the code and thus experiment with a variety of hacking ... |
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HowTo: Building a firewall with Freebsd and IPfilter
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Wed, 14 May 2008 11:49:59 -0700
For anyone who's ever been on the internet, even for as little as five minutes, knows that you can't play in the great big world wide web anymore without some kind of protection. Typically this comes in the form of either simple NAT based protection, or something stronger such as a firewall. In this tutorial I will be walking you through the setting up Freebsd for maximum security, and and then as a full fledged firewall. Since security is of the utmost importance, the machine you choose to use as your firewall should be set aside strictly for this task and should not be used for anything else. I say this because additional services on the machine may create a potential security risk you ... |
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Microsoft fixes six flaws, three critical in its May Patch Tuesday
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Wed, 14 May 2008 11:18:28 -0700
One of the flaws (MS08-028) is a zero-day vulnerability in a retired Microsoft database product, the Jet Database Engine, that has been publicly known about since March 31, 2005, Andre Protas, director of research and preview services for eEye Digital Security, told SCMagazineUS.com today.
"This, however, only became a big issue recently because of a new attack vector that resulted in targeted attacks using the zero-day flaw," he said.
The flaw allows attackers to craft a malicious file and take over the user's computer remotely, Jason Miller, security data team manager at Shavlik Technologies, told SCMagazineUS.com.
In this situation, attackers can embed ... |
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Google blurs faces of those caught on Street View
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Wed, 14 May 2008 09:01:24 -0700
In an attempt to quash privacy fears, Google has started blurring the faces of people displayed on its controversial Street View software. Street View, which was launched last year, is an add-on to Google Maps and Google Earth that offers photographs of streets and cities in the US.
However, the software raised a number of privacy concerns regarding how identifiable people and houses were in the images. Among the complaints Google received were those regarding a man pictured exiting a San Francisco strip club and a woman sunbathing.
The search-engine is trialing face-detection technology, which will blur the faces of those caught on camera in Manhattan. If the ... |
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