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  1. #1
    Adviser Team AplusWebMaster's Avatar
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    Thumbs down Bulletproof cybercrime hosting & the Cloud

    FYI...

    Bulletproof cybercrime hosting & the Cloud
    - http://hostexploit.com/blog/14-repor...the-cloud.html
    20 October 2011 - "... In Q3 2011, there were several changes in the top positions in the Top Bad Hosts table:
    • The title of #1 Bad Host (Overall Category) now goes to AS33626 Oversee.net*, a monetizer of domain names, for high levels of hosting malicious URLs, badware, Zeus botnet servers and infected sites.
    • The US share of the Top 50 has dropped from 23 in Q2 to 16 In Q3 although 5 of the Top 10 are still hosting from the United States including the #1 spot.
    • #1 in the most important category, Exploit Servers, in the analysis of malware, phishing or badness as a whole, is AS47583 Hosting-Media**, hosted in Lithuania....

    Discussed in this quarter report, also, is the rise of GHOSTing, or 'Bulletproof Cybercrime Hosting and the Cloud', which is increasingly being used as a way of serving malicious material and yet remaining under the radar. It gives, by all intents and purposes, the impression of clean and responsible hosting as no obvious sign of criminal activity is detected on the providers’ servers. This is achieved through the legitimate offering of VPN or VPS services to those clients who wish to host illicit or objectionable badness e.g. malware, botnet C&Cs, phishing, spam operations or even images of child sexual abuses. In this way hosts can feign ignorance or turn a blind eye to their customers’ real intentions. Further information on this practice can be found in the Q3 report..."
    > http://hostexploit.com/downloads/viewdownload/7/32.html

    * http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/d...?site=AS:33626
    "... over the past 90 days, 3 site(s)... served content that resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent... the last time suspicious content was found was on 2011-10-20... we found 3 site(s) on this network... that appeared to function as intermediaries for the infection of 4 other site(s)... We found 443 site(s)... that infected 8141 other site(s)..."
    ** http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/d...?site=AS:47583
    "... over the past 90 days, 973 site(s)... served content that resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent... the last time suspicious content was found was on 2011-10-20... we found 99 site(s) on this network... that appeared to function as intermediaries for the infection of 467 other site(s)... We found 99 site(s)... that infected 685 other site(s)..."

    The machine has no brain.
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    Browser check for updates here.
    YOU need to defend against -all- vulnerabilities.
    Hacks only need to find -1- to get in...
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  2. #2
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    Unhappy Amazon cloud 'pre-configured images' risk ...

    FYI...

    Amazon cloud 'pre-configured images' risk...
    - http://h-online.com/-1376578
    10 November 2011 - "Amazon cloud customers have access to more than 8,000 pre-configured Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) worldwide... many of these AMIs contain a variety of security holes... more than half of the images that are available worldwide and identified the same vulnerabilities, as well as additional problems. The Windows AMIs, which represented a small proportion of the 5,300 images that were examined, were particularly badly affected. Security issues were found in 246 out of 253 Windows appliances. A bug that allows arbitrary code to be executed when a certain web site is accessed in Internet Explorer was especially common... researchers found authentication data in about one-fifth of the examined AMIs and were able to reconstruct deleted files in 98 per cent of images. Amazon has informed its customers of these problems and has released guidelines* on how to avoid AMI security issues. A tutorial** is provided to help developers create secure AMIs."
    * http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AW...aringamis.html

    ** http://aws.amazon.com/articles/0155828273219400

    The machine has no brain.
    ......... Use your own.
    Browser check for updates here.
    YOU need to defend against -all- vulnerabilities.
    Hacks only need to find -1- to get in...
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  3. #3
    Adviser Team AplusWebMaster's Avatar
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    Thumbs down Cloud network abused by trojan

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    Cloud network abused by trojan...
    - http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/62...from_the_cloud
    November 17, 2011 - "... we discovered a malicious program called Trojan-Downloader.Win32.MQL5Miner.a which also uses the resources of infected computers, but this time to make money in MQL5 Cloud Network, a distributed computing network... MetaQuotes is a developer of software for financial markets. Several weeks ago, information appeared on the net that the company was offering to pay users to participate in distributed computing. Apparently, this is what attracted malicious users to the new cloud service... There are grounds to believe that the malicious program spreads via email. Having infected a computer, the malicious program first determines if the operating system is 32-bit or 64-bit. It then downloads the appropriate version of the official software from MetaQuotes SoftWare. MQL5Miner then launches the service to participate in the cloud computing network. But the cybercriminals specify their own account data and receive the payments for any distributed computing operations that are performed on an infected machine... When it comes to making money, cybercriminals don’t miss a trick. That includes exploiting the resources of infected computers without their owners’ knowledge or consent. We have notified MetaQuotes about the account being used by cybercriminals."

    The machine has no brain.
    ......... Use your own.
    Browser check for updates here.
    YOU need to defend against -all- vulnerabilities.
    Hacks only need to find -1- to get in...
    .

  4. #4
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    Lightbulb Cybercriminal attack strategy shifts - 2012 ...

    FYI...

    Cybercriminal attack strategy shifting to corporate networks
    - http://www.crn.com/232300457/printablearticle.htm
    Dec. 13, 2011 - "... Cisco... made predictions* on the weapons cyber-criminals are most likely to use in 2012, based on the return on investment from cyber-crimes. The weaponry expected to reap the most money included data theft Trojans, spyware, click fraud and web exploits. Targets expected to get lots of attention from criminals based on the potential ROI include mobile devices and cloud infrastructure. Clouds service providers have been growing so fast that they have not had the time or inclination to make security a top priority... three in five of the respondents working for companies believed their employers, not themselves, were responsible for protecting information and devices. In addition, more than half allowed others to use their computers without supervision, including family, friends, coworkers and strangers."
    * http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/coll...eport_2011.pdf
    13 Dec 2011 - 5.3MB PDF file

    The machine has no brain.
    ......... Use your own.
    Browser check for updates here.
    YOU need to defend against -all- vulnerabilities.
    Hacks only need to find -1- to get in...
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  5. #5
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    Unhappy Migration plans to Cloud apps dropped ...

    FYI...

    Migration plans to Cloud apps dropped...
    - https://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...d_apps_dropped
    December 22, 2011 - "After more than two years of trying, the City of Los Angeles has abandoned plans to migrate its police department to Google's hosted email and office application platform saying the service cannot meet certain FBI security requirements. As a result, close to 13,000 law-enforcement employees will remain indefinitely on the LAPD's existing Novell GroupWise applications, while other city departments will use the Google Apps for Government cloud platform. Council members last week amended a November 2009 contract the city has with systems integrator Computer Science Corp. (CSC) under which CSC was supposed to have replaced LA's GroupWise e-mail system with Google's email and collaboration system. Under the amended contract, the LAPD will no longer move its email applications to Google... Google maintains that the LAPD's security requirements were never part of the original contract..."

    The machine has no brain.
    ......... Use your own.
    Browser check for updates here.
    YOU need to defend against -all- vulnerabilities.
    Hacks only need to find -1- to get in...
    .

  6. #6
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    Post Cloud patch management issues...

    FYI...

    Cloud patch management issues...
    - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12...ch_management/
    22 December 2011 - "... Cloud-based application vendors update their software regularly without customer input. As an enterprise user, you may be able to stay on an earlier revision for a while by negotiating with the vendor... Other challenges include the consumerisation of IT, which encourages employees and contractors to bring in devices such as tablets and smartphones. Making sure these are adequately patched creates a whole new set of problems, landing us in the sticky area of network access control, network quarantine and policy servers to manage... every so often, a patch appears that takes down a piece of software. For example, Microsoft's recent gaffe, in which it accidentally decided that Google Chrome was a piece of malware*, caused problems for many users."
    * http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09...google_chrome/

    The machine has no brain.
    ......... Use your own.
    Browser check for updates here.
    YOU need to defend against -all- vulnerabilities.
    Hacks only need to find -1- to get in...
    .

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