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On Sunday, Kristian Erik Hermansen disclosed a zero-day vulnerability in FireEye's core product, which if exploited, results in unauthorized file disclosure. As proof, he also posted a brief example of how to trigger the vulnerability and a copy of the /etc/passwd file. What's more, he claims to have three other vulnerabilities, and says they're for sale.

A new critical vulnerability was discovered in the widely used OpenSSH software, hackers exploiting this flaw can run brute-force attacks against server performing thousands of authentication requests remotely. The vulnerability affects the latest version of OpenSSH (Version 6.9), the MITRE coded the flaw as CVE-2015-5600. OpenSSH is a software used to encrypt data traffic from clients to server, avoiding eavesdropping, and other attacks. It also provides several authentication methods and secure tunneling capabilities. Generally, the OpenSSH software allows 3 to 6 Password login attempts before closing a connection, but the flaw discovered by the experts allows hacker to bypass this limitation and run brute-force attacks. This is the case of OpenSSH servers having keyboard-interactive authentication enabled, which can be exploited to carry out the brute force attack on OpenSSH protocol. Unfortunately, the keyboard-interactive authentication is enabled by default on many systems. The vulnerability has been discovered by a researcher using the pseudonymous KingCope which explained that many systems are affected by the flaw including FreeBSD. In order to exploit the bug, an attacker can execute the following command: ssh -lusername -oKbdInteractiveDevices=`perl -e 'print "pam," x 10000'` targethost The above command allows up to 10000 password entries within two minutes limited by the login grace time setting. “The crucial part is that if the attacker requests 10000 keyboard-interactive devices openssh will gracefully execute the request and will be inside a loop to accept passwords until the specified devices are exceeded.” continues the expert. Two minutes of ‘grace period’ and thousands of login attempts are enough to successfully run a brute-force attack by using a common dictionary. The next release of the OpenSSH software, OpenSSH 7.0, will fix the problem including a patch. The new release is expected to be released in a few weeks. In the meantime, below a few suggestion to mitigate the risks Limit access to SSH by using a firewall. Disable password authentication for the root account. Use intrusion detection systems (IDS) to mitigate brute force attacks. Use strong passwords. Use a cryptographic key pair that is at least 2,048 Bits in length. Reduce the grace period to 20 or 30 seconds. Use applications to controls and limit failed login attempts.

Investigators say fraudsters purchased codes to unlock SIM cards from phone company employees.

After nearly a year of investigation, French police have busted a ring of mobile phone hackers, whose members included employees of cellular phone companies. The ring had been operating for five years, selling about 30,000 stolen cell phone codes a month, and netting at least $675,000 a month, according to French authorities. Investigators said that fraudsters purchased codes to unlock SIM cards for about $4 each from phone company employees who had access to company databases. The codes were sold online for about $40. Why were the codes worth so much?

Security researchers recently stumbled upon a malicious website that housed a cache of stolen FTP credentials.

The malicious domain, discovered last week by researchers at network security and management firm Blue Coat, housed a set of sensitive files, two of which contained a total nearly 100,000 login and password combinations for a mixed batch of domains.

Another file contained 1,905 login and password combinations for the Servage.net domain, a provider that hosts more than 185,000 websites. And, a fourth file contained 197 credentials for a set of sites on the Russian narod.ru domain and several other Russian, Polish and Ukrainian web hosts.

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