 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
San Francisco (AFP) March 24, 2011 Hackers from Iran are suspected of swiping authentication data from a US computer security firm in an attempt to impersonate popular Google or Yahoo! sites. "The incident got close to, but was not quite, an Internet-wide security meltdown," Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff technologist Peter Eckersley said in a message posted at the group's website. Hackers using computers with addresses in Iran posed as a European affiliate of New Jersey-based Comodo on March 15 to get digital certificates allowing the creation of imitation Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft or Skype log-in pages. "The attacker was well prepared and knew in advance what he was to try to achieve," Comodo said in an online message regarding the attack. "He seemed to have a list of targets that he knew he wanted to obtain certificates for." The hacker got "SSL certificates," essentially digital credentials, to pose as mail.google.com, google.com, login.yahoo.com, login.skype.com, addons.mozilla.org, global.trustee and login.live.com. "These fraudulent SSL certificates could be used by an attacker to masquerade as a trusted website," the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned. One of the online identities was tested on an Iranian computer server but the others appeared not to have been used, according to Comodo, which said that it revoked the credentials within hours. Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google have updated their Web browsing software to prevent being duped into trusting bogus websites using the credentials. "These certificates may be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks against all Web browser users including users of Internet Explorer," Microsoft said in a security advisory. Whoever was behind the attempt appeared to be out to monitor or intercept email messages or Skype calls. "This was likely to be a state-driven attack," Comodo said. "The circumstantial evidence suggests that the attack originated in Iran."
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues
Google accuses China of blocking GmailBeijing (AFP) March 21, 2011 Google accused the Chinese government on Monday of interfering with its Gmail service, after weeks of online disruptions that have coincided with calls for protests emulating those in the Middle East. "There is no technical issue on our side - we have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail," Google said in a statement to ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
