Malware On ATMs Allowing Criminals To Steal Data and Cash

Approximately 20 ATMs have been found in Europe that have malware on them allowing thieves to steal cash as well as acount data and PINS from account holders.

The ATMs are located mostly in Russia and the Ukraine however their seems to be indications that the Unites States may have compromised ATMS as well.

Since the malware needs to be directly installed onto the ATM an insider is suspected but whether that insider works at a bank, an ATM vendor, a company that services the machines or someone close to an insider is unknown at this time.

The discovery was made by SpiderLabs at Trustwave.

The ATMs were running the Windows XP Operating System and had an executable on them that was masquerading as a legitimate Windows protected storage service, he said. The malware looks at all the data being processed by the ATM and records account information that is stored on the magnetic stripes on cards inserted into the machine and encrypted PIN blocks that are generated when someone types in their personal identification number.

Even though PINs are encrypted, the criminals could potentially intercept the encryption keys exchanged with the bank and use them to decrypt the PINs or even use other methods to decrypt the keys once they have the information.

For more on this story please refer to the reference below.

Obama's Marine One Classified Data Leaked Over P2P, Found On Iranian Computer

The highly classified Helicopter that carries the President of the United States, known as Marine One has been leaked, compromising its security and usefulness.

According to Gormley, Tiversa first found information about Marine One's avionics floating around on file-sharing networks last summer and notified the contractor and the authorities about the discovery. Last week's search shows that copies of the document are still available on P2P networks to anyone who knows how to look for it, he said.

To read more please refer to the Computer World Reference Below.

Feds Stop Computer Virus In Plot To Destroy Fannie Mae

The Justice Department today announced that they foiled a plot by a former Fannie Mae contractor who was fired from unleashing a virus.

According to the Feds the virus would have destroyed data on all of the finance company's 4,000 computers tomorrow (Saturday January 31).

Rajendrasinh B. Makwana, 35, of Glen Allen, Va., a citizen of India, was fired early on the afternoon of Oct. 24 from his job at Fannie Mae's data center. An affidavit states he was fired for erroneously writing programming instructions two weeks earlier that changed the settings on high-speed computers.

However, beofre surrendering his Fannie Mae badge and laptop computer at the end of the day Oct. 24, Makwana "intentionally and without authorization caused and attempted to cause damage to Fannie Mae's computer network by entering malicious code."

The indictment says the virus was found "by chance" in late October and removed.

Downadup Worm Continues To Spread, Get Conficker Patch To Protect Systems

The Downadup worm (also known as Conficker,or Kido) continues to spread across the world affecting more than 20 million systems as security experts fear the results should it kick-off other malicious activities.

Referred to as "very well-engineered" by Alfred Huger, vice president of development at Symantec Corp.'s security response group. Alfred Huger also called the malicious software "very complex" adding that "At the byte level, it implements [things] in some novel ways." Compared to most malware, which Huger said is "written off the cuff," Downadup is downright elegant.

The worm first surfaced in November and appears to have originated in the Ukraine. It currently keeps users from accessing antivirus sites to obtain updates, though the worm is capable of downloading a second stage of code for as yet unknown intentions, though security experts are saying we could see that soon.

Microsoft Virus Alert for Downadup, Conficker

F-Secure.com has a Disinfecting Tool available and has excellent Downadup (Conficker) Information.