If you haven’t heard, Google Glass, the latest gadget from the Silicon Valley giant, has set the media and tech world abuzz, with both admiration and controversy surrounding the device. Google Glass was released to the public last week and combines smartphone technology with wearable glasses that is reminiscent of something seen on Star Trek. Public, in this case, actually means beta testers (called Glass Explorers) who had to apply for the chance to purchase the spectacles in advance by writing a 50 word essay using the hashtag, #ifihadglass. Those chosen had the opportunity to purchase the device for $1,500 USD.

Along with the admiration of a device that appears to do everything, comes controversy.  The 8,000 individuals who were able to purchase the device were bound to a restrictive end user license agreement, in which the product would be deactivated and rendered...

Nearly every week now we can read about a data breach case somewhere, where millions of user accounts and potential other sensitive data has been compromised. Most people are not even shocked by such news anymore, as it is starting to become humdrum.

One of the most common attacks used in such breaches is an SQL injection. This attack has ranked first place on OWASPs Top 10 faults in Web applications for many years. There are several well-known methods to prevent SQL injections, but unfortunately it is still often encountered in productive sites. Furthermore, mis-configured Web servers and vulnerabilities in remote management tools can allow attackers to gain access to systems and read potentially sensitive files.

There has long been a heated discussion about how best to store passwords and that discussion is still ongoing. Most people agree that storing passwords in clear text in a database...

Recently, I discovered a back door Trojan horse program (detected as Backdoor.Trojan) that does not work on Microsoft Windows XP. I would like to present some of the details of this threat, especially as the malware author encoded a special trick into the functionality of the Trojan. The trick appears to have been designed to allow the threat be used in targeted attacks.

The fseek function

In this threat, the author uses the fseek function, which is unusual as it is normally used to process data. For example, if the program reads 100 bytes of data from the top of the file, the fseek function process is used to move the 100 bytes.

Figure 1. The fseek code trick used by the malware

However, in the...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK are being offered up to £5,000 (approximately $7,600 USD) in order to improve their cybersecurity. The Innovation Vouchers scheme, being run by the government’s Technology Strategy Board, is designed to help businesses “innovate and grow” by funding outside expertise. The government has made available £500,000 ($762,600 USD) to SMEs that do not already have internal cybersecurity expertise and who are working with a new technology supplier for the first time.

Attacks targeted towards SMEs are on the increase. According to Symantec’s ...