Sophos wrote:Thieves drained $800,000 from a fuel distribution company in the US state of North Carolina earlier this month - a loss that the company thinks might have something to do with its bank having recently upgraded its security system.

According to security journalist Brian Krebs, the loss could have been a lot less if the bank or the targeted company - Mooresville, N.C. based J.T. Alexander & Son Inc. - had noticed the penetration earlier.

As it is, the attackers drained money for five days before a reporter notified either business of what was going on. Krebs didn't identify the reporter.

On the morning of May 1, the cyber thieves started carving out sub-$5,000 and sub $10,000 chunks of cash from J.T. Alexander's bank, Peoples Bancorp of North Carolina Inc.

They then sent the money via automated clearing house (ACH) payment to about a dozen money mules who laundered the stolen funds.

On top of the funds stolen from the bank, the ACH payments themselves were deducted from J.T. Alexander's payroll account, Krebs writes.

David Alexander, J.T. Alexander & Son’s president, told Krebs that the loss was “pretty substantial” and “painful” for the small company, which employs a staff of only 15.

The company typically spends less than $30,000 on its total payroll every two weeks. In five days, the crooks managed to steal more than a year's worth of salaries.

Read more: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/05/...tion-firm/

Source : DHS Warns Employees Of Potential Breach Of Private Data

Quote:The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is warning current and former employees that their data may have been compromised after a vulnerability was uncovered in software used by a DHS vendor to process personnel security investigations. According to DHS, the unidentified vendor uses software that gathers and stores sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) for background investigations. As a result, the vulnerability could have left information ranging from Social Security numbers, names, and birth dates exposed to an unauthorized user.

Network World wrote:Security researchers have identified multiple samples of the recently discovered "KitM" spyware for Mac OS X, including one dating back to December 2012 and targeting German-speaking users.

KitM (Kumar in the Mac), also known as HackBack, is a backdoor-type program that takes unauthorized screen shots and uploads them to a remote command-and-control (C&C) server. It also opens a reverse shell that allows attackers to execute commands on the infected computers.

The malware was initially discovered last week on the Mac laptop of an Angolan activist at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a human rights conference in Norway, by security researcher and privacy activist Jacob Appelbaum.

The most interesting aspect of KitM is that it was signed with a valid Apple Developer ID, a code-signing certificate, issued by Apple to someone named "Rajinder Kumar." Applications signed with a valid Apple Developer ID bypass the Gatekeeper security feature in Mac OS X Mountain Lion, which verifies the origin of files to determine whether they pose any risks to the system.

The first two KitM samples found last week connected back to C&C servers hosted in the Netherlands and Romania. Researchers from security vendor Norman Shark linked the domain names of those servers to the attack infrastructure of a large cyberespionage campaign of Indian-origin dubbed "Operation Hangover."

On Wednesday, F-Secure researchers obtained more KitM variants from a Germany-based investigator. These samples were used in targeted attacks between December and February and were distributed via spear-phishing emails carrying .zip archives, the F-Secure researchers said in a blog post.

Read more: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/05...ml?hpg1=bn

Network World wrote:A Google security engineer accused Microsoft of treating outside researchers with "great hostility" just days before posting details of an unpatched vulnerability in Windows that could be used to crash PCs or gain additional access rights.

Microsoft acknowledged the vulnerability late Tuesday. "We are aware of claims regarding a potential issue affecting Microsoft Windows and are investigating," said Dustin Childs, a spokesman for the company's security response group, in an email. "We will take the appropriate action to protect our customers."

Childs declined to answer additional questions, including whether Microsoft had been aware of the vulnerability before it surfaced on the Full Disclosure security mailing list May 17, or when it would release a patch.

Tavis Ormandy, a Google security engineer, revealed the bug on Full Disclosure, where he discussed the flaw in the Windows kernel driver, "Win32k.sys," and asked for help in overcoming a roadblock. "I don't have much free time to work on silly Microsoft code, so I'm looking for ideas on how to fix the final obstacle for exploitation," he wrote.

Ormandy had first published information about the vulnerability in March to GitHub in an effort to solicit help or entice other researchers to investigate. That information no longer appears on GitHub, however.

On Monday, Ormandy again posted to Full Disclosure, going into more detail and providing demonstration code. "I have a working exploit that grants SYSTEM on all currently supported versions of Windows," claimed Ormandy. "Code is available on request to students from reputable schools."

Tuesday, Danish vulnerability research firm Secunia published a skeletal advisory, claiming it had confirmed the bug in a fully-patched copy of Windows 7 Professional and that Windows 8 and other editions might also be affected.

Secunia said that the vulnerability could be exploited to generate a denial-of-service (DoS) attack or to give an attacker elevated privileges.

Microsoft dubs the latter an "elevation of privilege," or EoP, vulnerability

Read more: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/05...ml?hpg1=bn

BBC News wrote:Russian officials say the country's most popular social network, VKontakte, was mistakenly put on a blacklist of banned websites, but the error has now been fixed.

In some parts of Russia, including St Petersburg, the mistake immediately blocked access to the site on Friday.

But the state communications regulator says access has now been restored.

VKontakte has 200 million registered users. Last year it was used heavily by opponents of President Vladimir Putin.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22651973

German software company SAP is looking to recruit people with autism as programmers and product testers, drawing on skills that can include a close attention to detail and an ability to solve complex problems.
SAP has asked start-up Danish recruitment company Specialisterne to help it find, train and manage employees diagnosed with the disability.
"They bring a special set of skills to the table, which fits with SAP," said a spokesman for the company, which has already hired people with autism in India and Ireland.
Specialisterne Chief Executive Steen Thygesen said the partnership was his first with a multinational company to help with its worldwide recruitment.
The Danish company says it has already helped several hundred autistic people to find a job. Sufferers often find it harder to communicate and some have lifelong learning disabilities.
Those with a form of autism known as Asperger syndrome can sometimes have above-average intelligence. As children, they may prefer mathematics and other subjects rooted in logic and systems, according to Britain's National Autistic Society.
"People with autism have some unique abilities to really focus on their task and stay focused for long periods of time. They are also good at spotting discrepancies in data," said Thygesen, a former manager with Microsoft and Nokia whose 14-year-old son has Asperger syndrome.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in every 88 children in the United States and almost 1 in 54 boys are diagnosed with autism.
The SAP spokesman said the company aimed to reflect the proportion of people diagnosed as autistic in society within its 65,000-strong workforce - or about 1 percent.
A Berlin-based company, Auticon, already exclusively employs autistic people as software testers. It has a team analyzing data for Vodafone Germany, an Auticon spokesman said.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/22...z2U7ifMkzR

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Quote: In April, unconfirmed reports hit the Internet that Twitter was beginning to test their own form of two-factor authentication for user accounts. Today, Twitter confirmed that option is now being rolled out, offering some better protection against hackers.