1. Huge attack on WordPress sites could spawn never-before-seen super botnet
Security analysts have detected an ongoing attack that uses a huge number of computers from across the Internet to commandeer servers that run the WordPress blogging application.
The unknown people behind the highly distributed attack are using more than 90,000 IP addresses to brute-force crack administrative credentials of vulnerable WordPress systems, researchers from at least three Web hosting services reported. At least one company warned that the attackers may be in the process of building a "botnet" of infected computers that's vastly stronger and more destructive than those available today. That's because the servers have bandwidth connections that are typically tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times faster than botnets made of infected machines in homes and small businesses.
"These larger machines can cause much more damage in DDoS [distributed denial-of-service] attacks because the servers have large network connections and are capable of generating significant amounts of traffic," Matthew Prince, CEO of content delivery network CloudFlare, wrote in a blog post describing the attacks.
2. Bing Tops Google in Malware-Ridden Search Results
Security analysts have detected an ongoing attack that uses a huge number of computers from across the Internet to commandeer servers that run the WordPress blogging application.
The unknown people behind the highly distributed attack are using more than 90,000 IP addresses to brute-force crack administrative credentials of vulnerable WordPress systems, researchers from at least three Web hosting services reported. At least one company warned that the attackers may be in the process of building a "botnet" of infected computers that's vastly stronger and more destructive than those available today. That's because the servers have bandwidth connections that are typically tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times faster than botnets made of infected machines in homes and small businesses.
"These larger machines can cause much more damage in DDoS [distributed denial-of-service] attacks because the servers have large network connections and are capable of generating significant amounts of traffic," Matthew Prince, CEO of content delivery network CloudFlare, wrote in a blog post describing the attacks.
Bing may be engaged in a "Scroogled" marketing campaign, but an 18-month study by an antivirus security firm shows that Microsoft's search engine may need to play some defense, thanks to results showing more malware-infected links popping up in its search results than for Google. The study by AV Test showed that despite the best efforts of the world's leading search engines to provide safe links in their results, those searches can still lead users to sites containing malware.
3. Chromebook Pixel LTE arriving today
The first customers will start getting the Chromebook Pixel LTE today, several weeks after the Wi-Fi-only version was available. [Read more] ...
4. How to Monitor, Benchmark, Use a Calendar, and Play Games in the Linux Terminal
The Linux terminal is a friendly, colorful place full of fast, lightweight and useful applications like dstat, Calcurse, Petris, and Siege.
5. Mining Bitcoins takes power, but is it an “environmental disaster?”
Bitcoin mining takes a lot of computing power—so naturally someone created a piece of malware to mine on other people's computers.
Kaspersky Lab
Mark Gimein is something of a Bitcoin skeptic, but in addition to his concerns about Bitcoin not being a "real currency," he's now charging that it has created a "a real-world environmental disaster."
Writing in Bloomberg News, Gimein notes that mining Bitcoins—performing computationally expensive calculations needed to define new Bitcoins—uses power. A lot of power. (Read our 2011 Bitcoin primer for more details.) He writes:
About 982 megawatt hours a day, to be exact. That’s enough to power roughly 31,000 US homes, or about half a Large Hadron Collider. If the dreams of Bitcoin proponents are realized, and the currency is adopted for widespread commerce, the power demands of bitcoin mines would rise dramatically.
If that makes you think of the vast efforts devoted to the mining of precious metals in the centuries of gold- and silver-based economies, it should. One of the strangest aspects of the Bitcoin frenzy is that the Bitcoin economy replicates some of the most archaic features of the gold standard. Real-world mining of precious metals for currency was a resource-hungry and value-destroying process. Bitcoin mining is too.
Gimein draws on the stats provided by Bitcoin-focused site Blockchain.info. The numbers fluctuate a bit with each day of calculations being tracked. According to Blockchain's stats this weekend, the last 24 hours of worldwide mining activity burned through 928.24 megawatt hours of power while miners calculated 59,502.6 gigahashes per second. Total power bill: $139,236.07.
6. Turnbull Hits Out Over ’25Mbps Is Enough’ Statement
Tony Abbott said something rather silly at the launch of the Coalition’s broadband policy, and now it’s coming back to bite the party in its behind. Now Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is here to “clarify” the record. More »
7. Facebook Home Released On Google Play
Facebook Home for Android just went live. In addition to using it on the newly available HTC First, you’ll be able to get it on “select” Android phones including the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II.
Update: It looks like it’s not available in Australia yet. We’ll let you know as soon as that changes.
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