Weekly Infosec News Brief: Oct 26 - Nov 1

Google Gives Symantec an Ultimatum on Certificate Security Procedures

Last Thursday, Google laid out several conditions to Symantec for the transparency and security of their certificate authority. The ultimatum comes after Google's discovery in September that Symantec had issued several invalid test certificates for Google domains. Google stated that if their conditions were not met, Google may begin showing warnings in the Chrome browser, and/or in search results, for sites using Symantec-issued certificates. Symantec purchased Verisign, until this year the largest issuer of security certificates, in 2010, and continues to be one of the most widely-used and trusted issuers of such certificates for validating websites and software, as well as enabling encryption. These types of certificates are the foundation of many security functions, so if they are not being issued in a trust-worthy fashion it negatively affects the reliability of many controls.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2998970/encryption/google-threatens-action-against-symantec-issued-certificates-following-botched-investigation.html


 CompTIA Study Highlights Bad Security Habits of US Employees

A study conducted over the past several months by CompTIA shows that 45 percent of US employees receive no security training at work. The study also showed the 17 percent of employees were willing to plug a random USB stick they had found outside into their work computer. Other common bad habits noted included the use of "open" Wi-Fi for sensitive work, widespread re-use of passwords for multiple sites, and unauthorized downloading and processing of work data on personal devices and internet services.
http://www.scmagazine.com/study-highlights-poor-employee-security-habits/article/449783/


Advertising Library for Android Found to be Stealing Text Messages

The Taomike SDK, a popular software development kit of integrating advertisements into Android apps, A recent version of the SDK contained a function to copy all incoming SMS messages to a server under the control of Taomike. The function was found in nearly 18,000 apps, all of which were available in non-Google app stores in East Asia. This finding further highlights the importance of enforcing the use of the authorized Google app store alone for Android devices to minimize their exposure to malware.
http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/41430/cyber-crime/apps-sms-stealing-library.html

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