John E. Dunn reports: A small US law firm has bravely admitted losing its entire cache of legal documents to the Cryptolocker Trojan despite attempting to pay the $300 (£180) ransom in a bid to have them unscrambled. According to TV reports, Goodson’s law firm in the North Carolina state capital Charlotte [The Law Offices of Paul M. Goodson, P.C.] became the…
Category: Malware
Target’s “Second-Rate” Fix for Hacking Victims May Leave Customers Vulnerable
Dana Liebelson discusses a concern that has been raised here and elsewhere – that Target negotiated a credit-monitoring deal with Experian that only includes Experian’s own database and not the Equifax and TransUnion databases as well. Read her report on Mother Jones.
Hundreds of Canadian credit cards hacked by infected terminals, firm warns
Tu Thanh Ha reports: A new strain of computer malware infecting payment card terminals in restaurant and gas station has compromised nearly 700 credit cards in Canada, a computer security firm says. The viral code, JackPOS, infects point-of-sales terminals, a security breach similar to other highly publicized recent cases that struck victims such as the…
Target breach happened because of a basic network segmentation error
Following up on Brian Kreb’s report that attackers were able to get to Target’s payment card system after compromising the login credentials of HVAC contractor Fazio Mechanical Services,, Jaikumar Vijayan gets responses and comments from several experts on what appears to be Target’s failure to properly segment its network. You can read his article on Computerworld.
Target Hackers Broke in Via HVAC Company – Krebs
Brian Krebs gets the scoop again: Last week, Target told reporters at The Wall Street Journal and Reuters that the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now tell KrebsOnSecurity that the vendor in question was a refrigeration, heating and air conditioning subcontractor that has worked at a…
Target security breach lasted longer than previously thought
David Rothberg reports: A Target Corp. official told a Senate committee that a massive security breach affecting up to 110 million holiday shoppers lasted three days longer than previously thought. Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan disclosed the latest information in written testimony at a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering ways to protect consumers’…