A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS). Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG. The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games. Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected.

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(Source: BBC)

The days of hackers sending out viruses for kicks and the creation of general mayhem are giving way to a world of sophisticated, targeted attacks that can reap big rewards for criminals and degrade consumer trust in companies. Organizations that one might think would be the most secure have recently been compromised. Is your company ready to guard against the prying eyes of hackers?

“A recent computer security breach that left 40 million credit cards vulnerable to fraud shows how online criminals are scoring big by thinking small. Cybercriminals are increasingly crafting more focused attacks with a potential for profit as they target one or two companies at a time, rather than blasting out Internet virus attacks across the globe, according to security experts.

The payoffs can be enormous. MasterCard International Inc. said on Friday that an outsider gained access to as many as 40 million credit and debit cards from CardSystems Solutions Inc., a payment processor (see “Security breach may have exposed 40M credit cards”). A MasterCard spokeswoman said yesterday that the attacker had placed a malicious computer script on CardSystems computers…”

(Information excerpted from Andy Sullivan’s ComputerWorld story.)

A massive attack on the World Wide Web has been underway affecting thousands of popular websites. Simply visiting an affected page can cause users to become infected with a Trojan horse that can allow hackers to obtain passwords and other critical information from remote systems.SearchSecurity.com has reported on the issue: “A widespread Internet attack has hit thousands of Web sites in the past week, planting malware on vulnerable machines that may be designed to steal credit card and other information then marketed to organized identity theft markets, according to government officials and information security experts.” Read the full SearchSecurity.com story.

Builder.com has also identified the source of the attack in an e-mail security brief: “An attack launched this week by crackers was nipped in the bud on Friday, when Internet engineers managed to shut down a Russian server that had been the source of malicious code for the attack. However, compromised Web sites are still attempting to infect Web surfers’ PCs by referring them to the server in Russia, but that computer can no longer be reached.” Visit Builder.com for the most recent information.

Bytware urges all system administrators and managers to ensure that scanning engines and DAT files are up-to-date.

For more information about iSeries virus protection, visit the main StandGuard Anti-Virus page