Weekly Infosec News Brief: 21 Dec 2015 - 03 Jan 2016

This week's news brief is two weeks' worth due to the holiday. Also, be sure to check out our Annual Infosec News Brief for the top stories and trends from 2015.

Out-of-Cycle Flash Update Issued to Fix Zero-Day Vulnerability

Adobe released an unscheduled Flash update in December due to a vulnerability (CVE-2015-8651) that was being actively exploited; the update fixes eighteen other flaws as well. The update appears to be the one originally planned for release the second Tuesday in January. Updating Flash as soon as possible is a must. The best solution may be to disable Flash entirely, but there are still enough sites and applications that require it to make that problematic. An alternative solution is to leave Flash (and other plugins, like Java) installed on an alternative browser and use that browser only for sites that require the plugins. An even better solution may be to enable "click to play." All major browsers have some form of setting that allows users to enable Flash selectively for specific sites, specific sessions, or both.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/12/flash-player-patch-fixes-0-day-18-other-flaws/


US Voter Info Database Left Exposed Online

An independent security researcher discovered in December a database of US voter information exposed on the Internet with no authentication requirements. The database includes data on 193 million or so voters, including names, addresses, dates of birth, party affiliation, and voting history going back to 2000. This finding follows on the same researcher's discovery of wide-open customer and member databases for several commercial entities exposed online with little or no security. Do you know how your organization's databases are secured?
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/reams-of-us-voter-info-appear-to-be-just-sitting-online/
http://www.cnet.com/news/massive-trove-of-voters-election-data-discovered-on-web/


Google Testing Password-Free Authentication

Google is currently testing a system that would allow login to their web applications with just the user's email address and smartphone. When a user with this feature gives their email at the login screen, a smartphone app opens asking the user to approve the login. Simply clicking yes on the smartphone app completes the login process. The feature is being tested on an invitation-only basis. No information has been released about when the feature may be available to other users.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/22/google-begins-testing-password-free-logins/#.xmlzsrl:K2IY

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