Ferrum Technology Services Blog

With spring arriving, “winter is coming” as the new season of the critically-acclaimed television series Game of Thrones returns to millions of viewers worldwide. Ironically, there’s also a type of malware gaining traction in the online community that matches its bark with its bite, aptly dubbed Dyre Wolf. This threat has the potential to cost businesses as much as $1.5 million per hack, and takes advantage of the ever-common spear phishing tactic.

Normally, you can trust the software that comes preinstalled on a new computer. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with the shopping-search app Superfish, which came installed on every Lenovo device sold between September and December 2014. If you’ve got the Superfish app on your computer, then you need to remove it before it does some superbad damages. Here’s how you do it.

This past August, we reported on a new vulnerability with USB firmware called BadUSB. This vulnerability was discovered by Karsten Nohl of SR Labs. The BadUSB vulnerability was presented at the Black Hat security conference as a theoretical risk, but now, the code has leaked and this risk has become a reality. Oops.

Working with technology can get pretty complicated and technical at times. We're here to help. We've got plenty of technology tips to share with the world, and we're going to unleash them on you once a week. For more helpful tech tips, search our previous blog articles. This week's tip will help you spot a nasty APT hack on your company's network.

For users of Unix-based operating systems, there's a new threat on the loose. The vulnerability, promptly called the Bash bug, or "shellshock," is targeting systems equipped with Linux and Mac OS X. The bug allows remote users to execute arbitrary code within the operating system.

Your office is likely full-to-bursting with devices utilizing USB technology. It's been a popular way to connect external devices to PCs since the 1.1 version was released in 1998. However, it may be the technology's popularity that will cause its downfall as hackers develop ways to use the device to their advantage.

When it comes to hackers, they are shrouded in darkness and treachery. They lurk in the shadows, waiting for us to make a mistake and to steal our life savings, or other equally nefarious things. But there are a few assumptions that they make concerning their prey, and they wish to hide these from us at all costs.

Two weeks ago, the National Communications Administration managed to weaken a set of malware designed to steal banking and personal credentials from unsuspecting users. They warned the world that GameOver Zeus and Cryptolocker ransomware would be back with a vengeance, and that immediate action could prevent a whole lot of pain later.

Look out, users of Windows; the Greek god of thunder is angry, and he's sent the Zeus family of malware out into the world. The one in question, GameOver Zeus, is particularly nasty. Thankfully, the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Justice managed to find a way to disrupt it, but that doesn't mean that GameOver Zeus is out of the game - in two weeks, the threat will return with a vengeance.