The Coming Storm

April 12, 2016

New Threat Can Auto-Brick Apple Devices

This post was originally published on this site If you use an Apple iPhone, iPad or other iDevice, now would be an excellent time to ensure that the machine is running the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system — version 9.3.1. Failing to do so could expose your devices to automated threats capable of rendering them unresponsive and perhaps forever useless. Zach Straley demonstrating the fatal Jan. 1, 1970 bug. Don’t try this at home! On Feb. 11, 2016, researcher Zach Straley posted a Youtube video exposing his startling and bizarrely simple discovery: Manually setting the date of your iPhone or iPad all […]
May 31, 2016

Got $90,000? A Windows 0-Day Could Be Yours

This post was originally published on this siteHow much would a cybercriminal, nation state or organized crime group pay for blueprints on how to exploit a serious, currently undocumented, unpatched vulnerability in all versions of Microsoft Windows? That price probably depends on the power of the exploit and what the market will bear at the time, but here’s a look at one convincing recent exploit sales thread from the cybercrime underworld where the current asking price for a Windows-wide bug that allegedly defeats all of Microsoft’s current security defenses is USD $90,000. So-called “zero-day” vulnerabilities are flaws in software and hardware that even […]
June 6, 2016

Password Re-user? Get to Get Busy

This post was originally published on this siteIn the wake of megabreaches at some of the Internet’s most-recognized destinations, don’t be surprised if you receive password reset requests from numerous companies that didn’t experience a breach: Some big name companies — including Facebook and Netflix — are in the habit of combing through huge data leak troves for credentials that match those of their customers and then forcing a password reset for those users. Netflix sent out notices to customers who re-used their Netflix password at other sites that were hacked. This notice was shared by a reader who had re-used […]
June 10, 2016

IRS Re-Enables ‘Get Transcript’ Feature

This post was originally published on this siteThe Internal Revenue Service has re-enabled a service on its Web site that allows taxpayers to get a copy of their previous year’s tax transcript. The renewed effort to beef up taxpayer authentication methods at irs.gov comes more than a year after the agency disabled the transcript service because tax refund fraudsters were using it to steal sensitive data on consumers. During the height of tax-filing season in 2015, KrebsOnSecurity warned that identity thieves involved in tax refund fraud with the IRS were using irs.gov’s “Get Transcript” feature to glean salary and personal information they […]