Items tagged with virus
Whoever oversees IT for TSMC's factories is probably in hot water right now. The company suffered from a major virus attack recently that forced it to shut down some of its factories. TSMC has now stepped up and admitted that while the cause of the shutdowns was a virus infection, the ultimate cause of that infection was unpatched Windows systems. Initially, TSMC was vague about the exact cause only admitting that the issue was an unspecified computer virus. TSMC has stated that the specific virus that infected its systems leading to the shutdown was WannaCry, which has previously been linked to...
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Tawian Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is recovering from a major internal computer virus outbreak that ravaged its systems, forcing the chipmaker to shut down several factories. A full recovery is expected by Monday, August 6, however the fallout from the virus will result in shipment delays and additional costs, the company said. The virus affected TSMC's computer systems and fabrication tools in Taiwan. TSMC attributed the outbreak to a some sort of misoperation when installing software for a new tool, though the company did not go into specifics. Once the virus tool went online, it spread...
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The Internet of Things (IoT) sounded like a great idea at first glance when it first began picking up steam. However, the problem with giving every single gadget that we come in contact with access to the internet is that no one really thought much about security, leaving many these things vulnerable to viruses and malware. The Mirai DDoS attack taught us a valuable lesson about IoT devices with poor security practices: they can be a huge threat to networks, with attacks involving nearly a million bots. The big rub here is that many of those devices are still a threat, leaving security researchers...
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Linux users have long been able to claim that their platform of choice is about as safe as an OS can get, but that sentiment is getting a little harder to side with thanks to the recent discovery of the 'Hand of Thief' trojan - it's a bad one, so listen up. Hand of Thief's goal is to lead you to financial ruin by stealing sensitive information that you input into forms on supported Web browsers (Firefox and Chrome lead the pack here), such as those that you will use on banking websites. Hand of Thief's developers aren't going to be the ones milking your bank account dry, however. Instead, they're...
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Forget the school bully who wants your kid’s lunch money: today’s 11-year-old wants your kid’s digital gold, and he’s writing malicious code to steal it. Feeling out of your league, yet? AVG recently took to the airwaves and the Internet to warn parents that kids are learning to code at an early age – and that some of them are getting into serious trouble with those skills. It points to a recent Trojan for stealing data from gamers who play RuneScape. Cheating doesn't pay, especially if the tool you're using to cheat is actually stealling from you. Image credit: AVG....
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The antivirus market is enormous, responsible for billions in revenue each year. That being the case, it'd be easy to believe that current offerings are quite good, but not so claims a report (PDF) by security company iMPERVA. This report states a couple of alarming facts, including one that shows that less than 5% of newly-crafted viruses are picked up by scanners right away. For most antivirus solutions, it could take upwards of 4 weeks before a virus is even added to a detection file. For software that promises to keep you safe, this is a disappointing statistic. It's all the more disappointing...
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According to the latest McAfee Threats Report, the threat of malware is stronger than it has been in the last four years. The McAfee Threats Report for the Second Quarter 2012 found an increase in malware compared to the first quarter of this year (which was previously rated as the busiest period in recent history). This increase is significant: There were 1.5 million more unique malware samples in McAfee's "zoo" collection than the previous quarter. Overall, McAfee found growth in established rootkits as well as an increase among password-stealing Trojans. Mac users aren't immune, either:...
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There seems to be a recurring phenomenon in the technology press, where any trojan that affects Linux or Macs becomes front page news. On the other hand, trojans that affect Windows are mostly ignored, perhaps because this is considered to be the normal state of affairs. There are two common statements made in the discussions of these rare events: 1, No operating system will ever be secure from Trojans and 2, Linux/Mac only have fewer viruses because no one uses them. The first statement is almost correct, whereas the second one is a flat out myth in my opinion. Let me explain, and I’ll...
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There seems to be a recurring phenomenon in the technology press, where any trojan that affects Linux or Macs becomes front page news. On the other hand, trojans that affect Windows are mostly ignored, perhaps because this is considered to be the normal state of affairs. There are two common statements made in the discussions of these rare events: No operating system will ever be secure from Trojans. Linux/Mac only have fewer viruses because no one uses them. The first statement is almost correct, whereas the second one is a flat out myth in my opinion. Let me explain,...
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It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt, or until someone uses a the same programming language behind one of the most popular mobile games of all time to construct one of the largest cyberweapons the world has ever seen. The folks at Fox News spoke with a number of cyber security experts who said that the sophisticated 'Flame' malware currently wreaking havoc in the Middle East was written in the LUA computer language, which happens to be the same language Rovio used to build Angry Birds. Small world, eh? Roel Schouwenberg, a senior security researcher with Kaspersky Labs, told Fox News...
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A well-known German hacker group has accused the German government of releasing a Trojan horse program into the wild. According to the Chaos Computer Club, the program is the stuff of political fiction: it was designed to allow the government to spy on its citizens. The CCC released its findings on its website, in the form of a 20-page PDF file (in German), along with an accompanying post in English. In part, the CCC said the following, "The malware can not only siphon away intimate data but also offers a remote control or backdoor functionality for uploading and executing arbitrary other...
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Apparently, another one of the somewhat all-too-common malware-related problems in the U.S. military has resulted in the systems used by pilots who control U.S. Air Force drones being infected by a "keylogger." Although detected by the military's security systems, they've been unable to wipe it off their systems, at least permanently. A source familiar with the infection said, "We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back. We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know." It's hard to see how a keylogger could be benign. Keyloggers infesting computers are often attempting to gain access...
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The Mac Security Blog from Intego, a Mac security software developer, has posted a security memo warning users of a new Trojan, dubbed Flashback, that is infecting OSX based systems. The Flashback Trojan masquerades as an Adobe Flash Player installer, and if an unsuspecting user downloads the file package and ultimately installs the Trojan, it will deactivate some security software, delete the installation package itself, install auto-launch code, and place a library in the /Library/Preferences/ folder that’s used to inject code into applications launched by the user. The Trojan then...
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A story on the FoxNews website reports that in a matter of days, PC gamers have been able to decipher the structure of a retrovirus protein that has stymied scientists for years. The protein is a critical component in how some viruses multiply, including HIV. It is hoped that the findings will help open the door to the creation of new drugs that can inhibit the virus’s ability to multiply and ultimately stop the spread of the virus. To pull of the feat, the researchers at the University of Washington used a game called FoldIt, which is available for PC, Mac, and Linux, that tasks gamers...
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