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Posted in Microsoft, Security, Windows at 2:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Security news roundup
THE United States military is repeatedly being invaded by crackers (example from December). This is caused by the use of Windows and the latest incident too alludes to the failure of anti-virus software, which gives clues away.
=> example from December | ↺ alludes to the failure of anti-virus software
Anti-U.S. Hackers Infiltrate Army Servers[...]The hacks are troubling in that they appear to have rendered useless supposedly sophisticated Defense Department tools and procedures designed to prevent such breaches. The department and its branches spend millions of dollars each year on pricey security and antivirus software and employ legions of experts to deploy and manage the tools.
When foreign enemies enter your premises and access your data — especially in an age of modern warfare — this can be critical. As the following new article from The New York Times suggests, choice of software and its maintenance can determine winners or losers in a dispute or even war. Weapons become digital.
=> ↺ article from The New York Times
The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.[...]“It’s the domestic spying problem writ large,” one senior intelligence official said recently. “These attacks start in other countries, but they know no borders. So how do you fight them if you can’t act both inside and outside the United States?”
Looking elsewhere in the news, Microsoft now acknowledges that its software is under attack and there is no patch available to fix this. Coverage includes:
The Register: Critical Windows vulnerability under attack, Microsoft warns
=> ↺ Critical Windows vulnerability under attack, Microsoft warns
Microsoft has warned of a critical security bug in older versions of its Windows operating system that is already being exploited in the wild to remotely execute malware on vulnerable machines.
Heise: Microsoft warns about critical DirectShow vulnerability
=> ↺ Microsoft warns about critical DirectShow vulnerability
Microsoft has found a critical vulnerability in the DirectX library for Quicktime video playback, and it appears that the flaw is now being actively exploited. The software giant has issued a security advisory which contains quite detailed information about the vulnerability.
It is rather surprising that the Obama administration even considers Windows for its operations, especially gives that the army is moving from Windows to GNU/Linux (mostly Red Hat), for security reasons at the very least. Todd Bishop makes the following new claim:
Obama reforming online security[...]The government report (PDF) cites Microsoft repeatedly, but not in a bad way. Instead, it refers to testimony and research from the Redmond company to back up its contention that sweeping changes are needed in government coordination.
Given that Microsoft — with help from its front, the BSA — put its staff on top of the Department of Homeland Security [1, 2, 3], such an outcome should not be so shocking. In fact, given the lobbying and pressure Microsoft puts on the Democrats [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], decisions that are driven by favours rather than rationale are only to be expected. █
=> 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
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