Transport Minister planning to make hi-vis jackets mandatory for cyclists
The minister also spoke of a number of new transport initiatives, such as mandatory use of high visibility jackets by cyclists.
(tags: cycling safety law ireland leo-varadkar)
The Malware That Duped Target Has Been Found
a Windows ‘RAM scraper’ trojan known as Trojan.POSRAM, which was used to attack the Windows-based point-of-sales systems which the POS terminals are connected to. part of an operation called Kaptoxa. ‘The code is based on a previous malicious tool known as BlackPOS that is believed to have been developed in 2013 in Russia, though the new variant was highly customized to prevent antivirus programs from detecting it’ … ‘The tool monitors memory address spaces used by specific programs, such as payment application programs like pos.exe and PosW32.exe that process the data embossed in the magnetic strip of credit and debit cards data. The tool grabs the data from memory.’ … ‘The siphoned data is stored on the system, and then every seven hours the malware checks the local time on the compromised system to see if it’s between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. If so, it attempts to send the data over a temporary NetBIOS share to an internal host inside the compromised network so the attackers can then extract the data over an FTP … connection.’ http://www.pcworld.com/article/2088920/target-credit-card-data-was-sent-to-server-in-russia.html says the data was then transmitted to another US-based server, and from there relayed to Russia, and notes: ‘At the time of its discovery, Trojan.POSRAM “had a zero percent antivirus detection rate, which means that fully updated antivirus engines on fully patched computers could not identify the software as malicious,” iSight said.’ Massive AV fail.
(tags: kaptoxa trojans ram-scrapers trojan.posram posram point-of-sale security hacks target credit-cards pin ftp netbios smb)
Full iSight report on the Kaptoxa attack on Target
‘POS malware is becoming increasingly available to cyber criminals’ … ‘there is growing demand for [this kind of malware]’. Watch your credit cards…
(tags: debit-cards credit-cards security card-present attacks kaptoxa ram-scrapers trojans point-of-sale pos malware target)
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Both Heartland Payment Systems and Hannaford Bros. were in fact certified PCI-compliant while the hackers were in their system. In August 2006, Wal-Mart was also certified PCI-compliant while unknown attackers were lurking on its network. […] “This PCI standard just ain’t working,” says Litan, the Gartner analyst. “I wouldn’t say it’s completely pointless. Because you can’t say security is a bad thing. But they’re trying to patch a really weak [and] insecure payment system [with it].”
Basically, RAM scrapers have been in use in live attacks, sniffing credentials in the clear, since 2007. Ouch.(tags: ram-scrapers trojans pins pci-dss compliance security gartner walmart target)
ISPAI responds to TD Patrick O’Donovan’s bizarre comments regarding “open source browsers”
ISPAI is rather dismayed and somewhat confused by the recent press release issued by Deputy Patrick O’Donovan (FG). He appears to be asking the Oireachtas Communications Committee (of which he is a member) to investigate: “the matter of tougher controls on the use of open source internet browsers and payment systems” which he claims “allow users to remain anonymous for illegal trade of drugs weapons and pornography.” Deputy O’Donovan would do well to ask the advice of industry experts on these matters given that legislating to curtail the use of such legitimate software or services, which may be misused by some, is neither practical nor logical. Whether or not a browser is open source bears no relevance to its ability to be the subject of anonymous use. Indeed, Deputy O’Donovan must surely be confusing and conflating different technical concepts? In tracing illegal activities, Law Enforcement Agencies and co-operating parties will use IP addresses – users’ choice of browser has little relevance to an investigation of criminal activity. Equally, it may be that the Deputy is uncomfortable with the concept of electronic payment systems but these underpin the digital economy which is bringing enormous benefit to Ireland. Yes, these may be misused by criminals but so are cash and traditional banking services. Restricting the growth of innovative financial services is not the solution to tackling cyber criminals who might be operating what he describes as “online supermarkets for illegal goods.” Tackling international cybercrime requires more specialist Law Enforcement resources at national level and improved international police cooperation supported by revision of EU legislation relating to obtaining server log evidence existing in other jurisdictions.
(tags: ispai open-source patrick-o-donovan fine-gael press-releases tor darknet crime)