Jim Walter is manager of the McAfee Threat Intelligence Service (MTIS) for the Office of the CTO. He focuses on new threat research as well as the cataloging and maintenance of vulnerabilities and associated countermeasures. Walter has been with McAfee for more than 14 years and works extensively with the internal sales and support teams to provide knowledge and guidance around vulnerability and malware threats. He leads a global team of threats analysts, and directs the content generated by this team: Security Advisories, countermeasure/detector feeds, Global Threat Intelligence apps, and more. Walter is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences, and cohost of AudioParasitics – The Official Podcast of McAfee Labs.
This past April (4/19 to 4/21) I had the great pleasure and experience of joining the Red Team at 9th NCCDC competition. It was actually my 2nd year on the Red Team and 4th year to attend in total (I judged in 2010 and 2011). McAfee is actually a perpetual Read more…
Tags: anti-virus, critical infrastructure, Cybercrime, Data Protection, global threat intelligence, internet security, labs, malware, McAfee, McAfee Labs, NCCDC, Network Security, Red Team, Risk and Compliance, security
This post was updated on January 27. See end of file for update. There has been a great explosion of chatter in the last day around Anonymous’ “Operation Last Resort” (a.k.a. #OpLastResort). The entities behind the various “official” communications around this operation have a sense of humor that we must point out (especially because if Read more…
Tags: Anonymous, Barrett Brown, Data Protection, Last Resort, malware, McAfee Labs, Network Security, OpLastResort, social networking, Swartz, twitter, USSC
Late last week, reports began to surface that the Israeli police (along with other regional law enforcement) were targeted by a malware attack. The entry vector was described as a phishing campaign sent from Benny Gantz (head of the Israeli Defense Forces). Initially, details and indicators around the malware were beyond sparse. Aside from the FROM: address, Read more…
Tags: antivirus, Cyber Security Mom, Endpoint Protection, global threat intelligence, internet security, Israel, labs, malware, McAfee Labs, Network Security, phishing, security, spam, ValidEdge, web protection, XtremeRAT
News broke today of a large data breach against Yahoo Voices, resulting in more than 400,000 username/password combinations being posted in clear text. The compromise involved a basic SQL-injection attack against an exposed Yahoo server (dbb1.ac.bf1.yahoo.com). Similar to other recent events, the account data was reportedly stored in an unencrypted state. We see this type of attack Read more…
Tags: Database, sql attacks, SQL Injection, Yahoo!
See March 15 and 16 updates at the end of this blog. —————————————————- The March Security Bulletin release from Microsoft was relatively light in volume. Out of the six bulletins released, only one was rated as Critical. And for good reason. MS12-020 includes CVE-2012-0002. This flaw is specific to the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) present on Read more…
Tags: Cyber Security Mom, Cybercrime, data breach, Data Protection, Endpoint Protection, enterprise, global threat intelligence, labs, malware, McAfee Labs, Microsoft Security Bulletin, MS12-020, Network Security, Risk and Compliance
In late 2011, the FBI released documents and data focusing on “Operation Ghost Click.” This malicious operation, leveraging a variety of DNSChanger-type malware, was defined by the FBI as an “international cyber ring that infected millions of computers.” Associated malware samples and events can be traced back several years, and multiple platforms were targeted. To this day many remain Read more…
Tags: Cybercrime, Endpoint Protection, enterprise, global threat intelligence, malware, McAfee, Risk and Compliance
In early April, I wrote about the famed “LizaMoon” SQL-injection attacks. I said it then, and I’ll say it again now: SQL-injection (SQLi) attacks are a constant. Some of these attacks are more visible than others. Some adversaries find intelligent ways to hide their tracks so as not to splatter evidence of their misdeeds all over various search Read more…
Tags: Cybercrime, Data Protection, database security, enterprise, lizamoon, malware, mass sql injection, Network Security, sql attacks, SQL Injection, urchin.js
Where does one start? I’m not sure if I would consider this a research blog post. In the sea of comments and chatter today, it just feels right to say something. It feels right to “Think Different.” Like many others, I was raised an Apple faithful. Later I came to embrace and believe in not just the products but Read more…
Tags: Apple, Family Safety, mac, Mac OS X, McAfee Identity Protection, Steve Jobs
“Cookiejacking,” anyone? In the last few days, a new vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer has made its way through the media. Disclosed at the Hack on the Box conference by the independent researcher Rosario Valotta, this flaw takes advantage of a property of HTML5 to steal the cookies from its victim. This kind of attack, Read more…
With much fanfare and much to the chagrin of ne’er-do-wells far and wide, the Zeus Toolkit source code has been released to the public. This is notable because normally it would cost quite a bit to purchase the kit and associated services (in excess of of US$10,000). With a release of this sort, the most Read more…
Tags: counter identity theft, Cybercrime, global threat intelligence, malware, McAfee, McAfee Labs, Network Security, Risk and Compliance
Posts by Jim Walter