A nice list! It turns out to run from around $1000 to $3000 depending on how many followers you have.
Source: Here’s How Much Celebrities Make in the Instagram Product Placement Machine
Some ethical hackers still get sued, even though they are following NL gov responsible disclosure guidelines. This was the criticism of the laws when they were introduced two years ago, glad someone is now taking the time to follow up.
Source: D66 wil bescherming ethische hackers – Emerce
Battered Ukrainian electricity utilities are being targeted with backdoors in attacks possibly linked to those fingered for recent blackouts.
The phishing attacks are attempting to get backdoors installed on utility company computers using techniques similar to those seen in the BlackEnergy attacks.
BlackEnergy ripped through Ukrainian utilities in what is largely considered the cause of mass power outages on 23 December in the Prykarpattya Oblenergo and Kyivoblenergo utilities.
Power was cut to some 80,000 customers for six hours and Ukraine’s nation’s security service has pointed the finger at the Kremlin.
Now the utilities are being served malicious Microsoft XLS files, which attempt to execute the open source GCat backdoor, a technique that has been used in many other attacks.
ESET threat man Robert Lipovsky says users are urged to execute macros and will be served with a Trojan downloaded from a remote server. “This backdoor is able to download executables and execute shell-commands,” Lipovsky says.
“Other GCat backdoor functionality, such as making screenshots, keylogging, or uploading files, was removed from the source code.
“The backdoor is controlled by attackers using a Gmail account, which makes it difficult to detect such traffic in the network.”
Source: Ukraine energy utilities attacked again with open source Trojan backdoor
Without trust, Microsoft thinks, nobody is going to use any cloud services, and the Snowden revelations put the trustworthiness of all technology suppliers in the spotlight. So when a warrant arrived at Microsoft’s Dublin data centre one day in 2013, a not uncommon occurrence for a cloud host, Microsoft was ready to kick back.
What Microsoft has done is refuse to comply, putting itself voluntarily in contempt of court. At issue is a piece of legislation called the 1986 Stored Communications Act, and the software firm is challenging two key things about it. Firstly, that the act covers private data that happens to be stored on your behalf by a third party (in this case Microsoft). Microsoft argues that the personal data is not its own, much as a UGC hosted YouTube argues that it doesn’t own material that is “stored at users’ direction”
[…]
“These are the private communications of our customers. They’re not ours. We don’t have access to them. We don’t want access to them,” he told an audience this week. “That’s a very different position to saying that any data stored with a cloud provider is a business record of that cloud provider, that can then be turned over to the government. That is a very dangerous precedent.”And an interview with The Register clarified that point further: “By design we tell customers it is yours, we’re not going to access your data.”
Source: Microsoft legal eagle explains why the Irish Warrant Fight covers your back
In the funniest disclosure I’ve read in some time (well, it would be if it wasn’t so terribly dangerous), it turns out that these teleconferencing units had a hardcoded admin account with extra permissions built in with username BlackWidow. In the first “fix”, AMX basically changed the user to Batman. Poor show.
SEC Consult: Deliberately hidden backdoor account in several AMX (HARMAN Professional) devices
And Google paid Apple $1bn to put its search into iPhones
An Oracle lawyer has blurted out in court how much money Google has made from Android – figures that the web giant has fiercely fought to keep secret.
And those numbers are: US$31bn in revenue, and US$22bn in profit, since 2008, when Android was launched. This money comes from Google’s cut from sales made via the Google Play store and adverts shown in apps.
Source: Oracle blurts Google’s Android secrets in court: You made $22bn using Java, punk
Scores of security bods registering for security outfit RSA’s Executive Security Action Forum (ESAF) have handed over their Twitter account passwords to the company’s website in what is seen something between bad practise and outright compromise.
The registration process for the February 29 event asks delegates to enter their Twitter credentials so that a prefab tweet about their attendance can be sent.
But the page asks for their direct plaintext password, and does not make use of OAUth-enabled single sign-on which is the standard means by which websites can allow Twitter logons without compromising security.
Source: RSA asks for plaintext Twitter passwords on conference reg page
I don’t know what is worse? RSA asking for this, or potential attendees (ie security “experts”) actually filling this in!
Basically the driver updater looks over HTTP and downloads an unencrypted, easily parsable XML file with URLs leading to the files to download and execute as admin. A man in the middle attack could easily exploit this.
Source: Intel Driver Update Utility MiTM
This is a lot like the Drupal update vulnerability.
Wrap web apps natively
Source: nativefier
Don’t have to alt tab through open tabs, but have an app for that site you use a lot…
Over in the multimedia business, users of the company’s D9036 multimedia encoding platform also need to pick up a firmware upgrade, because Cisco devs built the firmware with a static password for both the root account and the guest account.
Source: Cisco patch day fixes CGI script blunder, hard-coded credentials
oh dear
The simcards have an NFC element that belongs to the Rabobank. I guess that means that Rabobank must then get quite a lot of information from the telco provider that you wouldn’t necessarily want them to have. Worrying.
KPN geeft sinds begin dit jaar een nieuw type simkaart uit dat contactloos betalen per telefoon mogelijk maakt. Dat zijn simkaarten met een NFC-element erin. Rabobank huurt als het ware een veilig kluisje op KPN-telefoons. Er zijn geen plannen om vergelijkbare overeenkomsten te sluiten met telecomaanbieders. Omgekeerd staat KPN wel open voor andere banken om ruimte om zijn NFC-simkaarten te huren.
Source: Rabobank zet contactloos betalen op alle KPN-simkaarten – Emerce
Old sad dickless USMC leadership who can’t handle working with equally competent gay men or women are trying to get rid of mr Mabus who has not only insisted on using them in combat roles if they meet the standards but also (shock! horror!) insisted on exploring alternative fuels.
One is the integration of women into Marine infantry, Navy SEALs and other direct-combat jobs by April.
“If you can meet the standards, why should it matter if you are male or female? Why should it matter if you are straight or gay?” Mabus told reporters.
The other issue was the secretary’s push toward deploying ships and planes powered by alternative fuels, including biofuels made from mustard seed, algae or animal fat.
Mabus was in Coronado on Wednesday to preside over the deployment of an aircraft carrier group that included some ships burning a 90-10 blend of petroleum and animal fat fuels.
The secretary’s biofuels initiative became controversial when it became known that a 2011 buy of biofuel cost $15 a gallon for a 50-50 blend — four times the price of regular Navy ship fuel.
“Every single time there were naysayers,” Mabus said during a speech at the launch of his “great green fleet” Wednesday.
He was describing the Navy’s long history of embracing new power sources, including oil and later nuclear energy for ships.
“They were wrong again this time.”
The tenure of Mabus, a former Democratic governor of Mississippi, has included major social changes for the U.S. military — all of which he supported.
They included the end of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on openly gay service members.
Source: Military.com
These old USMC dinosours will go extinct soon, no-one will know such retarded and scared mysogonists put up a fight in a few years time.