A Linksys SOHO router vulnerability has been discovered and is making headlines at the standard sites. A quick comment - it appears that you are at risk only if the remote management feature is enabled. Some advice - that shouldn't be turned on for any reason. Most people should be OK - I believe that is disabled by default. Upgrade your firmware though, just in case.
posted by mt at 09:31

George Smith has a funny piece up at Security Focus. The topic? A computer virus horror movie...

At this point, The Mangler 2.0 swerves wildly into the world of Richard Clarke and Howard Schmidt.

Clarke has repeated many times that the electricity can be turned off by cyber-attack and that if this happens, people will die. The writer of the flick must have had been paying attention to the man because Mangler 2.0 turns off the lights at the school and that's when people begin to die.

The first guy to go is the janitor, a porno fiend, who is killed off-screen by a computerized hedge-trimmer.

posted by mt at 13:46

The WSJ reports that a professor from India has discovered a new way to quickly determine if a number is prime. While this won't have the same impact on encryption as factoring large numbers would, it's definitely a noteworthy achievement - one that will probably lead to something greater. Can't link to the story, but if you subscribe, take a look.
posted by mt at 08:26

Remember the story from earlier this summer about the 7 people in Ohio who got raided by the FBI for uncapping their cable modems? Well, they went to trial. The case still baffles me. Aren't there more serious problems in the world of network security than bandwidth hogs? I can think of several.

Mike Yunker, a Sylvania police detective, said he planned to file delinquency charges today in Lucas County Juvenile Court against 15 and 16-year-old boys for the altering of modems in their Sylvania homes.

posted by mt at 07:53

The AP reports that federal agencies are promising to protect the identities of corporate cracking victims. Interesting move, certainly some companies keep major incidents under wraps out of fear for negative publicity.

Senior law enforcement officials assured technology executives Thursday that government will increasingly work to keep secret the names of companies that become victims to major hacking crimes, along with any sensitive corporate disclosures that could prove embarrassing.

posted by mt at 10:44