Information Security

The United States federal authorities have boosted charges against a former IBM Corp. software developer in China for allegedly stealing valuable source code from his former employer in the US. Chinese national Xu Jiaqiang, 30, was arrested by the FBI in December last year, when he was charged with just one count of theft of a trade secret. However, Jiaqiang has been charged with six counts: three counts of economic espionage and three counts of theft of a trade secret, as US prosecutors accused him of selling the stolen information to other companies, according to the Justice Department indictment [ PDF ]. The proprietary source code, which Jiaqiang was intended to sell for the benefit of the Chinese government, has been described as  "a product of decades of work." Jiaqiang worked as a software developer for an unnamed American company that developed networking software from November 2010 to May 2014. In May 2014, Jiaqiang resigned the company only to sell the code st...

Microsoft has released  16 security bulletins  on Tuesday resolving a total of 44 security holes in its software, including Windows, Office, Exchange Server, Internet Explorer and Edge. Five bulletins have been rated “critical” that could be used to carry out remote code execution and affected: Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Edge (the new, improved IE), Microsoft Office and Office services; and the remaining 11 are marked important. One of the critical issues, MS16-071 that caused alarm bells to go off for many security experts involves a Use-After-Free bug (CVE-2016-3227), which affects Microsoft Windows Domain Name System (DNS) servers for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2. The vulnerability resides in the way servers handle requests. Attackers could send a specially crafted request to a DNS server and convinced it to run arbitrary code in the context of the Local System Account, Microsoft’s advisory warns. Another critical vulnerability is addressed in MS16-070, which...

Do you own a Smartwatch, Smart TV, Smart fridge, or any Internet-connected smart device? If your answer is yes, then you need to know the latest interest of the cyber criminals in the field of Internet of Things. Ransomware! After targeting hospitals, universities, and businesses, Ransomware has started popping up on Smart TV screens. A new version of the  Frantic Locker  (better known as  FLocker ) Ransomware has now the ability to infect and lock down your Smart TVs until you pay up the ransom. Researchers at Trend Micro have  discovered  the updated version of FLocker that is capable of locking Android smartphones as well as  Smart TVs . Originally launched in May 2015, the FLocker ransomware initially targeted Android smartphones with its developers constantly updating the ransomware and adding support for new Android system changes. Here's what the new version of FLocker does to your Android-powered Smart TVs: FLocker locks the device's screen...