IT Security Newsletter

IT Security Newsletter - 10/5/2021

Written by Cadre | Tue, Oct 5, 2021

Facebook: Outage caused by faulty routing configuration changes

Facebook says that yesterday's worldwide outage was caused by faulty configuration changes made to its backbone routers that brought all its services to a halt. "Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication," said Santosh Janardhan, VP for Engineering and Infrastructure at Facebook. READ MORE...

Windows 11 Available: What Security Pros Should Know

Microsoft today announced the official release of Windows 11 for compatible machines around the world, starting Oct. 5. But those who want to upgrade will need to ensure their computers meet a long list of security and system requirements. This is important to note because the long list of requirements, while a plus for security, might mean a lot of people don't have the required hardware for the new OS and will need to wait until their next PC to upgrade. READ MORE...

Text Message Giant Reveals Five-Year Breach

A major telecoms service provider has revealed it was the victim of a five-year breach impacting hundreds of customers. Syniverse routes text messages for hundreds of global telco customers - allowing it to boast of reaching "more people and devices than anyone on Earth." However, in a filing with the SEC last week ahead of the firm going public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), it admitted discovering a major incident back in May. READ MORE...

Police raid in Ukraine results in arrests of 2 alleged ransomware hackers

Europol coordinated with the FBI, French national police and Ukrainian National Police to arrest two members of an active ransomware group, the police agency Europol said Monday. The statement did not name the group the suspects allegedly worked for, said the scammers pulled off attacks against "very large industrial groups in Europe and North America from April 2020 onwards." READ MORE...

Google Patches Over 50 Serious Vulnerabilities in Android

Google on Monday announced the availability of new security patches for Android, aimed at addressing more than 50 vulnerabilities in the mobile operating system. The most severe of the security flaws described in the October 2021 Security Bulletin is an issue in the Android System component that could be exploited to achieve remote code execution. Only 10 vulnerabilities were resolved with the 2021-10-01 security patch level, the first part of this month's update. READ MORE...

Misconfigured Apache Airflow servers leak thousands of credentials

While investigating a misconfiguration flaw in Apache Airflow, researchers discovered many exposed instances over the web leaking sensitive information, including credentials, from well-known tech companies. Apache Airflow is a popular open-source workflow management platform for organizing and managing tasks. This week, researchers from security firm Intezer have disclosed details on how they identified misconfiguration errors across Apache Airflow servers run by major tech companies. READ MORE...

How one coding error turned AirTags into perfect malware distributors

One of the more frightening facts about mobile IT in 2021 is that simplicity and convenience are far too tempting in small devices (think AppleWatch, AirTags, even rings that track health conditions, smart headphones, etc.). Compared with their laptop and desktop ancestors, they make it far more difficult to check that URLs are proper, that SPAM/malware texts/emails don't get opened and that emlpoyees follow the minimal cybersecurity precautions IT asks. READ MORE...

  • ...in 1921, The World Series is broadcast on radio for the first time.
  • ...in 1947, US President Harry S Truman delivers the first televised White House address.
  • ...in 1962, the first James Bond film, "Dr. No", starring Sean Connery is released in theaters.
  • ...in 1969, "Monty Python's Flying Circus" debuts on BBC One.