[00:15.790 --> 00:19.950]  You're watching HNNCast with Space Rogue on the Hacker News Network.
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[00:40.800 --> 00:45.660]  This is Space Rogue for the Hacker News Network, and this is HNNCast for the first week of February 2010.
[00:46.180 --> 00:51.080]  Our top story this week, the push-dough botnet has begun some rather strange activity.
[00:51.460 --> 00:55.240]  It is sending out massive amounts of SSL requests without bothering to answer them.
[00:55.640 --> 01:04.400]  Some of the affected sites include the CIA, Amazon, PayPal, Microsoft, even the defcon.org forums, along with a few hundred other sites.
[01:05.040 --> 01:11.700]  The amount of traffic is basically at nuisance levels for most of the larger sites, but some of the smaller sites are experiencing a denial of services.
[01:12.340 --> 01:20.060]  It is not really known why the botnet is making these requests, but some researchers have theorized that it's a way to help disguise the command and control functions of the botnet.
[01:20.640 --> 01:25.880]  Regardless, the increase in SSL traffic has been ongoing for several days, with no signs of abating.
[01:26.680 --> 01:33.580]  Google has decided to take a page from Mozilla's playbook and start offering cold cash for vulnerabilities found in their new Chromium browser.
[01:34.100 --> 01:40.200]  This is, theoretically, a good way to prevent security issues before they become big problems, and it does work to a limited extent.
[01:40.200 --> 01:47.020]  The problem is that Google is only offering between $500 and $1,337 for each vulnerability.
[01:47.560 --> 01:48.820]  $1,337?
[01:49.260 --> 01:50.400]  Oh, I get it.
[01:50.540 --> 01:50.800]  Cute.
[01:51.520 --> 01:55.740]  Anyway, this is a very low dollar amount when it comes to high-quality zero-day holes.
[01:56.160 --> 02:05.320]  It has been estimated that the zero-day hole found in Internet Explorer recently and used against Google could have possibly fetched as much as $40,000 on the underground market.
[02:06.120 --> 02:10.080]  Bug bounties are nice and all, but they better not be your only security tool.
[02:11.440 --> 02:17.020]  Flaws in the way the iPhone handles digital certificates could fool a user into downloading malware onto their phone.
[02:17.380 --> 02:24.300]  The flaw resides in the way the iPhone handles over-the-air provisioning, trusted root certificates, and configuration files.
[02:24.660 --> 02:30.640]  While this attack wouldn't allow anyone to run code on the iPhone, it could allow a whole lot of other bad things to happen.
[02:30.640 --> 02:39.820]  The big news, in my opinion, is that the anonymous poster of this flaw was able to get a signed cert from VeriSign for a company called Apple Computer.
[02:40.400 --> 02:44.200]  There's obviously something very wrong here, other than just the iPhone.
[02:45.600 --> 02:49.180]  Last week's defacement of the websites of 49 members of the U.S.
[02:49.260 --> 02:53.480]  House of Representatives by the Red Eye crew has caused quite a stir on Capitol Hill.
[02:53.860 --> 02:57.300]  The defacements occurred during the President Obama's State of the Union address.
[02:57.300 --> 03:01.600]  Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and Minority Leader, John Boehner?
[03:01.900 --> 03:02.500]  Boehner?
[03:02.840 --> 03:04.600]  Have requested a full investigation.
[03:05.200 --> 03:12.340]  The investigation request specifically targeted the hosting company, GovTrends, which was responsible for the hosting of all the defaced sites.
[03:12.980 --> 03:18.520]  This was the second time in six months that GovTrends has suffered an embarrassing defacement of government websites.
[03:19.160 --> 03:25.400]  In the latest in an ongoing series of arrests targeting cable modem modders, the feds have arrested WeModder, a.k.a. Matthew Delory of Massachusetts, on charges of selling modified cable modems that enabled free Internet access.
[03:31.500 --> 03:40.520]  Delory has been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of wire fraud, and faces up to 20 years in jail for each charge and a $250,000 fine.
[03:41.160 --> 03:48.160]  Delory allegedly ran the old massmods.com website, where he would sell the modified cable modems, among other products.
[03:51.820 --> 04:04.620]  Delory's arrest follows that of Der Engel, a.k.a. Ryan Harris, author of the book Hacking the Cable Modem, an admin of TCNSIO.net web forum, who was arrested last October, and Thomas Swingler, admin of CableHack.net, who was arrested just last month.
[04:05.140 --> 04:08.500]  It will be interesting to see if any of these cases actually make it to trial.
[04:09.040 --> 04:13.700]  Is it illegal to change the MAC address of a piece of hardware that you own and then resell it?
[04:13.940 --> 04:17.180]  Or is it just illegal to use that hardware to gain free services?
[04:18.160 --> 04:19.560]  Hopefully they won't take a plea.
[04:19.820 --> 04:22.060]  The answers to these questions could be really interesting.
[04:23.060 --> 04:31.320]  Earlier this week, a previously unknown researcher that went by the name of Notrax claimed to have defeated 11 out of 15 voice encryption technologies.
[04:32.060 --> 04:42.800]  Notrax claimed that by using a Trojan horse-style software surreptitiously installed onto the victim's smart mode, he was able to bypass mobile voice encryption and eavesdrop on captured conversations in real time.
[04:43.380 --> 04:47.180]  According to Notrax, only products from Secure Star could not be defeated.
[04:47.740 --> 04:54.580]  Well, it didn't take very long for Notrax to be revealed as a complete and utter fraud, perpetrated probably by Secure Star themselves.
[04:55.480 --> 04:59.660]  Evidently, Notrax posted this drivel directly from the Secure Star offices.
[05:00.280 --> 05:03.060]  Secure Star, of course, vehemently denied the accusations.
[05:03.600 --> 05:10.580]  Remember, kids, if you're going to do bad things, FUNNY DO FUNNY DO FUNNY DO BAD THINGS don't do them from your home IP.
[05:11.360 --> 05:14.300]  We'll be back with more HNNCast right after these messages.
[05:19.780 --> 05:20.260]  FIRE!
[05:20.260 --> 05:20.820]  FIRE!
[05:20.900 --> 05:21.220]  FIRE!
[05:22.080 --> 05:22.720]  FIRE!
[05:23.680 --> 05:24.320]  FIRE!
[05:24.800 --> 05:25.440]  FIRE!
[05:25.940 --> 05:26.060]  FIRE!
[05:26.100 --> 05:26.380]  FIRE!
[05:27.340 --> 05:27.480]  FIRE!
[05:27.480 --> 05:27.500]  FIRE!
[05:28.360 --> 05:28.620]  FIRE!
[05:28.620 --> 05:35.600]  Hacker News T-Shirts, $25 US at www.hackernews.com
[05:38.900 --> 05:41.000]  Welcome back to HNNCast.
[05:41.100 --> 05:48.660]  The website for the Russian opposition newspaper, Novoia Gazeta, has been paralyzed by an ongoing DDoS attack for over a week.
[05:48.660 --> 05:52.820]  At its peak, the website recorded over 1.5 million visits per second.
[05:53.160 --> 05:59.900]  The paper has contacted the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry, which has promised to launch an investigation.
[06:03.600 --> 06:11.260]  Back in December, we told you about H.R. 2221, the Data Accountability and Trust Act, which is designed to help prevent data breaches and therefore help protect people from identity theft.
[06:11.820 --> 06:17.000]  Well now, here come the dentists, doctors, and veterinarians asking for an exemption to the law.
[06:17.000 --> 06:26.200]  They say that protecting their customers from identity theft is too hard for them, and it can't really be held to the same standards as the corner liquor store that accepts credit cards.
[06:27.160 --> 06:34.080]  This, despite the fact that according to the Data Loss database, medical professionals have lost over 7.5 million patient records.
[06:34.480 --> 06:41.360]  With Obama's mandate that all medical records be digitized, shouldn't there be adequate safeguards in place for those very same records?
[06:42.200 --> 06:46.800]  There's been a bunch of news to come out of Black Hat DC, which was held this week in...
[06:46.800 --> 06:47.320]  D.C.
[06:47.740 --> 06:53.480]  A widely used secure microchip from Infineon has been defeated using the Electron Microscope Attack.
[06:53.960 --> 06:58.420]  A major hole in Oracle, which allows complete access to any database, was announced.
[06:59.060 --> 07:08.580]  A new attack, called a Connection String Parameter Pollution Attack, was said to be able to disrupt communication between a web app and a database, allowing bad things to happen.
[07:08.900 --> 07:13.740]  And Microsoft has released a few new tools in its security development lifecycle program.
[07:14.500 --> 07:19.300]  Slides and white papers from a lot of the talks are already posted to the BlackHat.com website.
[07:20.320 --> 07:27.300]  The Greater Manchester Police in the UK were unable to use their network for up to five days after it was infected by Conficker.
[07:27.540 --> 07:36.220]  They disconnected themselves from the police national computer system as a precaution to prevent further infection, forcing them to call to neighboring departments to do name and license checks.
[07:36.600 --> 07:39.620]  The department called in a team of experts to remove the infection.
[07:40.160 --> 07:42.800]  They had to call in experts to remove Conficker?
[07:43.580 --> 07:45.080]  Guys, it's not that hard.
[07:46.200 --> 07:49.220]  We'll be right back with the HNN Quickies right after these messages.
[08:13.420 --> 08:17.880]  Welcome back to HNNCast, and now for a few quick stories we found on the net this week.
[08:17.880 --> 08:24.360]  The website for the tax commission of the state of Oklahoma was recently compromised and reconfigured to spread malware.
[08:24.740 --> 08:28.760]  It is unknown how the intruders got in or how many people may have been infected.
[08:30.060 --> 08:37.800]  A South Korean woman who had been barred from entering Japan has defeated their brand new $64 million fingerprint biometric scanning system.
[08:38.180 --> 08:39.240]  How'd she do it?
[08:39.580 --> 08:42.020]  Special tape on her fingers and a fake passport.
[08:42.940 --> 08:45.220]  Biometrics are obviously not the answer.
[08:45.220 --> 08:54.620]  A server at Humboldt State University was found to have been infected by a login-stealing virus, placing the personal information of at least 3,500 people at risk.
[08:55.120 --> 09:03.520]  The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission says someone gained access to one of their computer servers that holds more than 80,000 records containing casino employee information.
[09:04.340 --> 09:08.780]  Investigators say that the attack at least passed through China if it didn't originate there.
[09:08.780 --> 09:16.160]  If you recently got an email from Twitter encouraging you to change your password, it was probably because you used the same password on a different site.
[09:16.700 --> 09:27.620]  Twitter found that numerous users who had used the same name and password on other sites, usually sites offering torrent files, had their Twitter accounts compromised because they used the same login information.
[09:28.100 --> 09:30.020]  People use different passwords.
[09:32.020 --> 09:37.040]  The U.S. Navy, not to be outdone by the Air Force or the Marines, has announced that it will have its very own Cyber Command.
[09:37.840 --> 09:43.400]  The Naval Cyber Command will be part of the newly reactivated 10th Fleet and headquartered at Fort Meade in Maryland.
[09:43.760 --> 09:50.240]  Of course, the Naval Cyber Command is different and separate from the Naval Network Warfare Command, which is also at Fort Meade.
[09:50.500 --> 09:52.260]  You see how it would be easy to be confused?
[09:52.820 --> 09:53.980]  That's the Navy for you.
[09:54.860 --> 10:04.840]  Stop Badware, an anti-malware project started four years ago at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has broken free and has become a standalone non-profit corporation.
[10:05.560 --> 10:08.940]  Google, PayPal, and Mozilla each provided some initial funding.
[10:09.740 --> 10:12.140]  Vint Cerf and Esther Dyson will be joining the board.
[10:12.420 --> 10:12.940]  Wow.
[10:13.860 --> 10:16.500]  Be sure to keep a tight watch on your Twitter account password.
[10:16.840 --> 10:23.820]  According to Kaspersky, they have seen Twitter accounts for sale in underground forums for as much as $1,000 and with only 300 or so followers.
[10:25.400 --> 10:32.360]  DotCon, or 312Con, taking place in Chicago this spring at an undisclosed location, has announced their impressive speaker lineup.
[10:32.660 --> 10:35.280]  They are also looking to fill five sponsor slots.
[10:36.180 --> 10:41.600]  Security B-Side San Francisco, taking place alongside RSA next month, has opened the voting for talks.
[10:41.920 --> 10:44.860]  Be sure to cast your vote, or don't complain that you didn't learn anything.
[10:45.780 --> 10:53.000]  DEFCON 18 is right around the corner, well, at the end of July, but there is already talk on the DEFCON forums of reviving PokerCon.
[10:53.000 --> 10:55.800]  If you're interested, check out DEFCON.org.
[10:56.320 --> 11:02.740]  If you haven't been paying attention, ShmooCon is this weekend in Washington, D.C., and they plan to have twice as many talks as last year.
[11:03.000 --> 11:04.940]  They also plan to have about two feet of snow.
[11:05.340 --> 11:06.060]  Should be fun.
[11:06.660 --> 11:08.380]  Tickets are all sold out, but don't worry.
[11:08.600 --> 11:14.940]  HNN will be there, and we will bring you all the juicy goodness in full color video in an upcoming episode of Behind the Firewall.
[11:15.340 --> 11:16.120]  Watch for it.
[11:17.440 --> 11:23.460]  And now for this week's Stack of Shame, the list of all known open vulnerabilities as catalogued by the Zero Day Initiative.
[12:26.580 --> 12:28.340]  That's it for this week's HNNCast.
[12:28.340 --> 12:31.440]  I've been your host, Space Rogue, and you've been watching the Hacker News Network.
[12:35.370 --> 12:40.270]  Remember, if you have any news you think we should report, send it to news at hackernews.com.
[12:43.830 --> 12:45.850]  You have been watching HNNCast.
[12:46.130 --> 12:48.190]  This is Space Rogue for the Hacker News Network.
[12:53.250 --> 12:55.650]  Find to do, find to do, find to do bad things.