Malware has infected backend systems used by Brit high street chain Debenhams – and swiped 26,000 people’s personal information in the process.

The cyber-break-in targeted the online portal for the retailer’s florist arm, Debenhams Flowers. Miscreants had access to the internal systems at Ecomnova, the biz that runs the Debenhams Flowers business, for more than six weeks.

Customer payment details, names and addresses from between February 24 and April 11 were all potentially exposed as a result of the breach, reports ex-Register vulture Alex J Martin, who just flew off to Sky News. Affected customers have all reportedly been notified.

El Reg asked Debenhams for confirmation of the scope of the breach but we’re yet to hear back at the time of writing.

Security tech slingers said the snafu shows how brands can be exposed through the infosec shortcomings of third-party suppliers.

“The hackers allegedly gained access to site operator Economova’s systems using malicious software to access customers’ personal and financial information,” said Dr Jamie Graves, chief exec at ZoneFox. “The Debenhams hack is a key reminder to businesses that the third-party vendors you partner should be properly vetted to ensure they have secure systems in place.”

Source: Debenhams Flowers shoppers stung by bank card-stealing tech pest

A remote hijacking flaw that lurked in Intel chips for seven years was more severe than many people imagined, because it allowed hackers to remotely gain administrative control over huge fleets of computers without entering a password. This is according to technical analyses published Friday… AMT makes it possible to log into a computer and exercise the same control enjoyed by administrators with physical access [and] was set up to require a password before it could be remotely accessed over a Web browser interface. But, remarkably, that authentication mechanism can be bypassed by entering any text string — or no text at all…

“Authentication still worked” even when the wrong hash was entered, Tenable Director of Reverse Engineering Carlos Perez wrote. “We had discovered a complete bypass of the authentication scheme.” A separate technical analysis from Embedi, the security firm Intel credited with first disclosing the vulnerability, arrived at the same conclusion… Making matters worse, unauthorized accesses typically aren’t logged by the PC because AMT has direct access to the computer’s network hardware… The packets bypass the OS completely.

Slashdot

WikiLeaks isn’t done exposing the CIA’s arsenal of hacking tools used to infiltrate computer systems around the globe. Last month, we told you about Weeping Angel, which targeted select Samsung Smart TVs for surveillance purposes. Today, we’re learning about Archimedes, which attacks computers attached to a Local Area Network (LAN).

Although we have no way of knowing whether Archimedes is still in use by the CIA, the details of how it is unleashed on unsuspecting parties has been revealed in full. In its teaser announcing the exploit, WikiLeaks writes, “It allows the re-directing of traffic from the target computer inside the LAN through a computer infected with this malware and controlled by the CIA.
[…]
Fulcrum uses ARP spoofing to get in the middle of the target machine and the default gateway on the LAN so that it can monitor all traffic leaving the target machine. It is important to note that Fulcrum only establishes itself in the middle on one side of the two­-way communication channel between the target machine and the default gateway. Once Fulcrum is in the middle, it forwards all requests from the target machine to the real gateway.

Archimedes can be deployed on machines running Windows XP (32-bit), Windows Vista (64-bit) and Windows 7 (64-bit) operating systems. The CIA documentation also says that the binaries required for Archimedes/Fulcrum will “run on any reasonably modern x86-compatible hardware”.

Source: WikiLeaks Reveals CIA Man-in-the-Middle LAN Hacking Tool Archimedes