Vulnerabilities & Exploits

Video games have reached a point where it's rare for one to not feature an online component, since connectivity enhances the experience. Unfortunately, it also opens up the user and the platform to a number of risks. What can a gamer do?

Looking back at the biggest security stories and issues of 2014, how they affected users and various industries, and what we can learn from them.

A collaboration between Trend Micro and Facebook found attacks that actively attempt to exploit an existing vulnerability. The attack targets Facebook users via a link in a particular page that leads to a malicious site.

A look into the threat landscape during the third quarter of 2014 reveals the loopholes and vulnerabilities in often overlooked targets such as routers and PoS systems that were used as attack vectors.

Microsoft has released an out-of-band security bulletin (MS14-068) that addresses a vulnerability in various versions of Windows, stating that the vulnerability is already being used in “limited, targeted attacks”.

Microsoft released 16 security updates during its Patch Tuesday release for November 2014, including one for the Windows OLE Automation Array Remote Code Execution Vulnerability that affects almost all Windows versions.

A new Shellshock attack targeting SMTP servers has been discovered. Attackers used email to deliver the exploit, which downloads and executes an IRC Bot.

Zero-day exploits aren't the only exploits used in the targeted attack landscape. In the first half of 2014, we also found out that attackers still heavily target older vulnerabilities.

We typically expect to see at least three to four zero-day vulnerabilities a year. October 2014 is proving to be an exception to the rule as three zero-day vulnerabilities have already been exploited within the month.