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Symantec Reports Spate of Attacks Via Recent Windows Flaw
Surprised Giraffe writes "Symantec is warning of a sharp jump in online attacks that appear to be targeting a recently patched bug in Microsoft's Windows operating system, an analysis that some other security companies disputed. Symantec raised its Threat Con security alert level from one to two because of the attacks, with two denoting 'increased alertness.' The attacks spotted by Symantec target a flaw in the Windows Server Service that Microsoft says could be exploited to create a self-copying worm attack."
First infection!
Raise the security alert level! All hands to battle stations! The CEO needs to buy his daughter a pony! Okay, maybe I'm being a bit of an ass now with that last statement.. Still, I have this mental image of their offices resembling the corridors of a starship when they do this.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Arbor Networks disputed Symantec's interpretation, saying, "we're not seeing this rise, not on TCP port 445 and not on TCP port 139. Looking over the last month we don't see this rise in MS08-067 attacks that would raise any alarms for us," in a Friday blog posting.
Both McAfee and Microsoft echoed those sentiments.
Seems like a shameless plug for Symantec to "look better" than their competitors. Crying wolf here won't get them the additional sales they think they will get.
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
I read this as: "Symantec has jumped the shark."
I Jhumpa the shark
I Jhumpa the shark
I Jhumpa the shark
What's the maximum? Maybe eleven, or perhaps over 9000?
Have any of these corps, in their pissing contest, ever think that maybe the problems could be compund (e.g. exploit one flaw after using another to deliver the exploit)?
Cripes - I'd be more worried about someone using a 0-day or undisclosed flaw to deliver that nasty little Vista Kernel exploit that MSFT has said it won't have patched for at least six months...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Give us the real link, not some random .au page.
The 'levels' are :
1 - Normal alertness
2 - Increased alertness
3 - ???
4 - PROFIT !!!
@neonux
Both anti-virus vendors are a joke. I mean I am glad that they are out there but I've seen so many different Trojans and spyware bust right through McAfee and Symantec that I've completely lost faith in both products.
I just wish the virus/spyware crafters would fill their crap with some better advertisements. Throw some gaming spam my way and I won't see too many differences between Anti-virus 2009 and Madden 2009.
Guitar amps go to 11.
Virus warnings go to 0xF
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
I can also report a spate of recent frustration via the recent Slashdot homepage changes. I can't find anything, links and blockquotes are impossible to read in some section colour schemes and there's no way to turn it off!!
May the Maths Be with you!
I just flew in from Portugal and boy are my arms tired. Portugal, as you all know, is where the national import-export trade organization (colorfully known as AICEP) decided to show off the new tech direction the country is taking, highlighting it in the Portugal Tecnológico 2008 trade show in Lisbon.
Of course, on my return to the USA, United Airlines managed once again to lose my luggage. (I still do not have it as of this writing.) Actually I took a TAP Portugal flight to Newark, where I had to reclaim my suitcase, go through customs, and then recheck the bag at the airport's disorganized rechecking area. I did actually see my luggage go onto the conveyor and into the room where it should have been routed to UAL flight 95. It wasn't. I guess that was just too hard to do.
Much of this problem stems from the ludicrous concept of "shared" flights, whereby an airline can place passengers on a flight operated by another airline, and each airline gives the flight a different flight number. What idiot dreamed up this idea? It's unnecessarily complicated to route luggage to these flights.
I mention this only because it's ironic that everyone around the world is jacked up about high tech, but the airlines cannot move a piece of luggage from point A to point B without losing it. This is the third time in the last few years that my luggage has been mishandled--and I never check luggage unless I have to. On this flight I had to, since I had picked up a premium olive oil that would have been confiscated because of the 3-ounce maximum liquid allowance. Somehow, this prevents anyone from blowing up a plane with a "liquid bomb."
This despite the fact that nobody has blown up a plane with a liquid bomb, ever.
Plastic explosives could probably be taken aboard, but not olive oil. So I checked my bag. I figure its missing the flight wasn't an accident, since it gave the handlers time to rummage through my stuff for goodies.
According to some stats from 2006, there are about 200,000 lost or stolen bags a year. These are the ones people never get back. The number of bags mishandled and eventually returned is in the millions. The real numbers aren't generally available. But the Travel Insider Web site says that only 2 percent of all lost luggage is actually lost forever. That would put the mishandled and missing total at 10,000,000 bags per year. Does this sound like competence to you?
I do not recall having ever been on a flight where one or more passengers haven't lost their luggage. One report estimated that airlines lose $2.5 billion a year in expenses to deal with lost and mishandled baggage.
It's apparently gotten much worse since 9/11. The joke of this is that right after 9/11, there was a strict rule about making sure people traveled with their own luggage to prevent someone from checking a bomb, skipping the flight, and then blowing up the plane. This "rule" is obviously not enforced, since bags get put on alternative (or wrong) flights all the time.
Until airlines are forced to compensate passengers for the inconvenience with a stiff penalty, this will obviously never be resolved. You do get some payment for what you lost, of course...well, kind of. The airlines essentially will not compensate you for anything that's valuable. According to the Travel Insider site I mentioned earlier, the list of things you won't be compensated for includes: antiques, computer equipment and related items, documents, electronic equipment, irreplaceable items, jewelry, medication, money, art, pets, cameras, watches, silverware, and securities. In other words, anything actually worth something besides suits and ties.
Meanwhile they want to limit carry-on luggage. In other words, the entire baggage-handling industry is ripe for a no-risk scheme: Simply steal items of value and fence them into the grey market. And here I was at Newark airport. People there can simply X-ray each bag, checking to see if there are any cameras or computers. Steal them and nobody is liable. Every so often a
Does any commercial add-on security software for Windows allow state-based checks yet?
Windows server services are fine inside your LAN, if you have a Linux, BSD or commercial Unix-based gateway. Otherwise, any online transaction is like running through a pickpocket convention with your money hanging out of your pockets.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
*Jack Nicholson voice*
Is there any other kind????
Anybody want to join my AntiVirus start up? We are at Threat Con Three currently and the sales are pouring in.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Windows isn't safe?!
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
I haven't had a problem with viruses. I run XP pro at work, with AVG, and although i have had a few viruses, from d/ling stuff, AVG finds them, and no problems. now i might ask, Where can i find thses viruses? I know that warez sites from russia care them, but how can i contract them from legit sites? I seems to me, if you doing what your suppsoed to do with a computer (pr0n browsing) you shouldnt have these problems
Go go Gadget Nailgun!
Anyone else misread that as a "shark jump in online attacks?" I was beginning to wonder if the Simpsons writers had turned to malware writing.
Definitely showing up here: http://isc.sans.org/port.html?port=445
... just run this executable to verify my identity and we are all set!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Why don't we just have a running headline banner that says something like...
{someone} discovered a serious security flaw in Microsoft's {product} and {offered to sell a solution|berated Microsoft}. They say the flaw should be {ignored|taken seriously} and that if it wasn't that there was a strong possibility of {not much|major|catastrophic|universe collapsing} repercussions.
{Mac|Linux} users were reported to gloat and tell everyone they were idiots for not switching to {Mac|Linux}. BSD users were running around naked, covered in crayon scribbling, and jabbering "definitely time for BSD, definitely....or Wopner"
Microsoft responded today by {downplaying|ignoring|finally patching after months but breaking something else with the patch} the threat.
So you post a story about how Symantec are more on the ball then their competition and follow it up with comments about how their sensing capability is much more advanced than their competition without referencing any sources. This has to be the lamest astroturf I've ever seen.
Nick