For most people, it’s enough to learn how to hold a garden implement and dig a hole and plants some flowers like roses. But for those who are very particular about their plants and flowers like these beautiful roses, they will really spend some time and money learning in planting roses and pruning them the right way to make them grow healthy and strong. I, myself, would really like to learn all these things and I could make some money out of it. Next month would be the month of love, February, right? Well, then, I know lots of people will be buying roses and that means, I could sell my own roses for a profit and it would be the greatest Valentine celebration for me. How about you? Would you like to learn how to plant and care for roses or would you just settle in buying some from me?
This will be the last post for the Security Fix blog. Dec. 31 marks my final day at The Washington Post Company. Over the last 15 years, I've reported hundreds of stories for washingtonpost.com and the paper edition. I have authored more than 1,300 blog posts since we launched Security Fix back in March 2005. Dozens of investigative reports that first appeared online later were "reverse published" in the newspaper, including eight front-page stories and a Post Magazine cover. Through it all, you - the reader - have been my most valuable source, most reliable critic, and most persistent muse. Loyal readers are the reason Security Fix has consistently been among the most-visited blogs on washingtonpost.com. Thank you. I will continue to remain engaged in this increasingly vital news beat. Please stay in touch for updates in the New Year. I can be reached directly at this e-mail address.
Hackers broke into an online comic strip syndication service Thursday, embedding malicious code that sought to exploit a newly discovered security flaw in Adobe Reader and Acrobat, Security Fix has learned. On Monday, Adobe Systems Inc. said it was investigating reports that criminals were attacking Internet users via a previously unknown security flaw in its Adobe Reader and Acrobat software. Experts warned that the flaw could be used to foist software on unsuspecting users who visit a hacked or booby-trapped Web site. Albany, N.Y.-based Hearst publication Timesunion.com now reports that on Thursday readers of its comics section began complaining of being prompted to download malicious software. In an update posted to its site, Timesunion.com said the attack took advantage of the recently disclosed Adobe flaw. The news outlet said it had traced the attack back to a problem at King Features, which serves comics on its Web site, and that
Hackers hijacked the Web site of micro-blogging community Twitter.com early Friday, briefly redirecting users to a Web page for a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army." The attackers apparently were able to redirect Twitter users by stealing the credentials needed to administer the domain name system (DNS) records for Twitter.com. DNS servers act as a kind of phone book for Internet traffic, translating human-friendly Web site names like "Twitter.com" into numeric Internet addresses that are easier for computers to handle. "Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed," the company said in a brief statement on its Web site. "We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon." Twitter's DNS service is provided by Manchester, N.H. based Dyn Inc. Tom Daly, chief technology officer at Dyn, said the incident was not the result of a security failure on its services. Daly
Internet service providers in Russia and Ukraine are home to some of the highest concentrations of customers whose machines are infected with the Conficker worm, new data suggests. The report comes from the Shadowserver Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks global botnet infections. Shadowserver tracks networks and nations most impacted by Conficker, a computer worm that has infected more than 7 million Microsoft Windows PCs since it first surfaced last November. "Conficker has managed to infect, and maintain infections on more systems than any other malicious vector that has been seen before now," Shadowserver stated on its Web site. Shadowserver's numbers indicate that the largest numbers of Conficker-infested PCs are in the East, more specifically China, India and Vietnam. For example, Chinanet, among the nation's largest ISPs, has about 92 million routable Internet addresses, and roughly 950,000 -- or about 1 percent of those addresses -- appear to be sickened with
Adobe Systems Inc. said Monday it is investigating reports that attackers are exploiting a previously unidentified security hole in its Acrobat and PDF Reader software to break into vulnerable computers. The acknowledgment coincided with an alert published by the Shadowserver Foundation, a nonprofit group that tracks the spread of malicious programs that criminals use to control infected systems remotely. Shadowserver member Steven Adair said the flaw is present in the most recent versions of Adobe Acrobat and Reader. Adair warned that security experts have observed cyber crooks using the vulnerability in targeted attacks since at least Dec. 11, but that more widespread attacks are likely to emerge over the next few weeks. In addition, few anti-virus vendors currently detect malicious PDF files harboring this exploit. At the moment, there is no patch available for this flaw, and Adobe's brief advisory offers little in the way of mitigation advice. However, Internet
If you use Facebook and care about your privacy, take a moment to read this blog entry. Facebook has made some major changes that may allow a great deal more people to see your personal photos and videos, date of birth, family relationships, and other sensitive information. While logged in to Facebook, click the "Settings" link and you should see a box that looks like the one pictured below. You may see that Facebook has reset your privacy settings, so that the everyone can now see the information on your "About Me" page, as well as your "Family and Relationships" data; "Work and Education"; and most importantly "Posts I Create," which includes status updates, links, photos, videos and notes. Below is a screen shot of what my privacy settings looked like when I recently logged in. The new privacy settings instituted across the Facebook network may also expose your birthday,
More than one quarter of data breaches so far this year involved consumer records that were jeopardized when organizations lost control over sensitive paper documents. Experts say those incidents came to light in large part due to a proliferation of state data breach notification laws, yet current federal proposals to preempt those state measures would allow paper-based breaches to go unreported. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego based nonprofit, at least 27 percent of the data breaches disclosed publicly in 2009 stemmed from collections of sensitive consumer information printed on paper that were lost, stolen, inadvertently distributed or improperly disposed of. Some 45 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws requiring companies that lose control over sensitive consumer data such as Social Security or bank account numbers to alert affected consumers, and in some cases state authorities. Concerned about the mounting costs of complying
Microsoft released six software updates on Tuesday to fix at least a dozen security vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Windows Server and Microsoft Office. More than half of the flaws earned a "critical" rating, meaning criminals could exploit them to break into vulnerable systems without any help from users. Separately, Adobe Systems Inc. issued critical security updates to its Flash Player and AIR Web-browser plugins. The updates are available from the Windows Update Web site, or via the Automatic Update feature in Windows. Probably the most important update for most users is the one for Internet Explorer, which corrects five critical flaws in IE 6, 7 and 8. These are vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to quietly install malicious software on your machine if you browse with IE to a hacked or booby-trapped site. A description of the rest of the vulnerabilities patched in this month's release from Microsoft is
