Author: nathan

Yup, well before a patch is available, Blackhole now has an update to exploit the newly discovered JRE vulnerability.  Details are available over at the F-Secure website here.

At some point yesterday, one of the Cyber Tech Cafe mail server IP Addresses was blacklisted and a large number of emails were rejected by receiving servers.  We have isolated the problem (we believe, more on this below) and have contacted the various blacklists to get de-listed but some email is still being rejected.  We expect that this will continue through the evening and, for some providers, through mid-day tomorrow.  We will continue monitoring this and will post when the issue has been resolved.  In the interim, we will try to keep everyone up-to-date on their tickets via phone and all updates are also posted to the Customer Service Center at http://helpdesk.cybertechcafe.net .   The problem appears to have been a routing glitch that allowed traffic from one of our…

According to this article from F-Secure, a new vulnerability has been found in the Java Runtime Environment and is currently being integrated into several toolkits.  The article is very well written, clear and to the point.  If you have JRE installed but don't need it / aren't using it, remote it.  If you do need it or are using it, at least disable the browser plug-in.   This is a vulnerability in the Java Runtime Environment so an attacker with an appropriate payload could attack Windows, Mac or Linux based machines. At this point, there are some questions as to whether or not Google Chrome is vulnerable but it still would not be a bad idea to disable the plug-in if you have it.

We knew it was coming, but this article from Ars Technica does a good job of reminding folks of the importance of making sure that their updates are installed (and not just saying 'oh, I've got the automatic updates turned on', which isn't the same as making sure that they're installed).  The article points out not just the Microsoft vulnerabilities (about 26 of them) but also touches on the Adobe vulnerabilies and sings the praises of Google Chrome's Flash Player that gets automagically updated.  A good, quick read. Full Story

One of my favorite Linux distributions is Backtrack.  Backtrack is a penetration testing distribution and includes (among a *lot* of other things) the Metasploit framework, which is the tool that we typically use in demos for showing how easily an attacker can breach a network.  Metasploit includes tools to scan for hosts (computers / potential victims), check for vulnerabilities, exploit any available vulnerabilities and install software (viruses, malware, etc.) via those exploited vulnerabilities and then interact with the newly compromised systems (including using those systems to then compromise new systems).  By default, Metasploit is command line only, but Backtrack inlcudes a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that makes the process even easier.  It's tyipcally not a user-friendly tool for new users or those unfamiliar with security but it can be a…

According to iMore.com, we may see iPhone 5 pre-orders as early as 12 September with an official launch 9 days later on 21 September.  Not sure if this is a sure thing or not but, historically, this has been a good source of intel on all things i-whatever. http://www.imore.com/iphone-5-pe-orders-planned-september-12-second-release-wave-first-week-october

The sidebar is enabled by default in most new installations of MS Windows Vista and MS Windows 7.  Microsoft has confirmed potential security issues with this and has issued a fix that disables the Sidebar and Gadgets to mitigate the vulnerability. From the article: "Revision Note: V1.0 (July 10, 2012): Advisory published.Summary: Microsoft is announcing the availability of an automated Microsoft Fix it solution that disables the Windows Sidebar and Gadgets on supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Disabling the Windows Sidebar and Gadgets can help protect customers from vulnerabilities that involve the execution of arbitrary code by the Windows Sidebar when running insecure Gadgets. In addition, Gadgets installed from untrusted sources can harm your computer and can access your computer's files, show you objectionable content, or change…

It's patch time again, and the August 2012 batch promises to be exciting.  Microsoft has 5 bulletins listed as critical and Adobe has an update to Acrobat Reader that's also critical.   Microsoft - The August 2012 Patch Tuesday updates includes 5 bulletins rated as critical and 4 rated as important with 8 bulletins addressing vulnerabilities that can allow remote code execution (the 5 critical can allow remote code execution without user intervention).  The updates seem to cover pretty much every Microsoft software product currently supported but the ones topping the list are all supported versions of Windows (including server), all supported versions of Office, all supported versions of Exchange, all supported versions of SQL Server and all supported versions of Internet Explorer.  It should be understood that any /…

Everyone, we were just notified that there had been an issue with one of the RBL (realtime blacklists) that we use for managing SPAM.  We have removed the RBL from our SPAM filter, but messages that were rejected were not received.  If you received an error with email sent to any address at Cyber Tech Cafe, please re-send the email.  We apologize for the inconvenience. The RBL appears to have gone down sometime around 6:51PM Eastern time.  The issue was resolved at 10:58PM Eastern time.