Archive for September 8, 2017

The Fallout From The Pwning Of Equifax Begins

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 8, 2017 by itnerd

With yesterday’s hack of credit monitoring service Equifax being recognized is the biggest leak of personal data in the history of mankind comes a lot of fallout. Let me list what’s happened in the last few hours:

  • Yesterday I noted that Equifax had set up a site to help consumers who were affected by this hack. But according to CNN. if you accept Equifax’s help, you forfeit the right to sue the company. On top of that, you won’t get help right away, and the company won’t help to fix your credit. So what kind of help is this precisely?
  • Yesterday I noted that the company had known about the hack for some time before disclosing it to the public which was a #EpicFail. That #EpicFail is now greater since it has been disclosed that execs at Equifax sold stock before the pwnage was public. I guess that was a good decision on their part as Equifax stock is down by almost 18% as I type this. But it’s highlights that those execs are out for themselves and don’t care about the millions of people who’s info is out in the wild. Not that I am shocked by that or anything. It also makes the YouTube Video that Equifax CEO Rick Smith posted last night seem hollow and insincere.
  • For those who want some payback for this pwnage, this might be one avenue to get it. Bloomberg is reporting that there’s a class action lawsuit that is being filed with the potential of damages to the tune of $70 billion being awarded across the US. The lawyers who are running this are known for big class action lawsuits, thus this will likely get a lot of traction.

Finally, what is the real impact of this hack? Here’s what you need to know. In short, someone exploited a flaw in the Equifax website to walk in and swipe data. What data was swiped? Seeing as providing full names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and, in some cases, driver license numbers is required to get everything from a loan or a mortgage to a cell phone, it’s a safe bet that all this sort of info was swiped. Thus making it too easy for an evil doer to commit identity fraud. Not to mention what a hostile government could do with it. This is a bloody big deal and Equifax needs to be severely punished for not securing this data properly as this is one hack that will take years to get past…. If we get past it at all.

In short, you should be really pissed.

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LinkedIn launches Audience Network To Expand The Reach Of Sponsored Content

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 8, 2017 by itnerd

LinkedIn has announced LinkedIn Audience Network, a native advertising network that allows marketers to reach their targeted audiences beyond the LinkedIn platform. By placing Sponsored Content on high-quality, third-party publishers across mobile and desktop, marketers can now reach their professional audience beyond the LinkedIn newsfeed and increase their ROI and marketing footprint.

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Advertisers are always striving to get their content in front of the right audiences that will have the biggest impact on their business. With LinkedIn Audience Network, marketers can deliver on their budgets more easily, extend the reach of their campaigns and get their content in front of the right people, beyond the LinkedIn network.

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The LinkedIn Audience Network launches after an extensive beta program with more than 6,000 LinkedIn advertisers. On average, participants saw a three to 13 per cent increase in unique impressions served, and up to an 80 per cent increase in unique clicks.

The full blog post with more information can be found here.

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Essential Phone Now Available In-store In Canada Exclusively From Telus

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 8, 2017 by itnerd

Starting today, September 8, Essential Phone is officially available in-store at Telus. Essential Phone retails starting at $290 on a two-year Premium Plus plan or $1,050 outright and is available for purchase at TELUS retail locations across Canada and online at telus.com/essential.

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Essential Phone comes with top-of-the-line specs including 128GB of memory, an edge-to-edge full display and a dual camera system with two 12MP cameras and no ‘camera bump.’ The titanium body means Essential Phone is strong and resilient, and can withstand a drop onto solid concrete.

Also coming soon to Telus is the Essential 360 Camera. The world’s smallest 4K 360 camera simply clicks onto the phone’s magnetic connector to point, shoot and share with ease. Essential 360 Camera will retail for $270.

For complete details on Essential Phone at Telus visit telus.com/essential. For more information on Essential Phone visit essential.com.

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#Fail: 17 Year Old Bug In Windows Stops Identification Of Malware By AV Software

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 8, 2017 by itnerd

If this isn’t a #fail, I am not sure what qualifies. Bleeping Computer is reporting that Omri Misgav who is Security Researcher at enSilo discovered a bug in every version of Windows that has been released in the last 17 years that if properly exploited by malware creators, will stop security software from detecting said malware:

The bug affects PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine, one of the low-level mechanisms some security solutions use to identify when code has been loaded into the kernel or user space.

The problem is that an attacker can exploit this bug in a way that PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine returns an invalid module name, allowing an attacker to disguise malware as a legitimate operation.

What’s worse is this response from Microsoft:

“We [also] contacted MSRC [Microsoft Security Response Center] about this issue at the beginning of this year,” Misgav told Bleeping. “They did not deem it as a security issue.”

Well, that’s not cool. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that now that this is public, their tune may change. Though, knowing Microsoft, it may not change because something that doesn’t allow third party anti virus software to detect malware is a feature to them. Hopefully that’s not the case, but it wouldn’t shock me if it was.

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