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Hackers targeting computer security firms

SAN FRANCISCO - Hackers believed to be based in Romania have been launching attacks on software security firms specialising in computer defence. Romanian HackersBlog website on Friday was claiming three victims: Finland-based F-Secure, Kaspersky Labs in Russia, and a Romanian security software seller Bit Defender.

Hackers are using an SQL attack that injects malicious code through weakness in a data level of a software application, according to F-Secure. Such attacks can be used to steal information.

“A Romanian group has been doing SQL injection attacks on several security vendors’ websites and ... they hit us,” F-Secure said in a blog posting this week at the firm’s website.

“Fortunately we utilize defence-in-depth strategies so the attack was only partly successful.”

Hackers were only able to access statistics about malicious software that the company routinely makes public. The cyber intruders could read the data but couldn’t alter it, according to F-Secure.

“So while the attack is something we must learn from and points at things we need to improve, it’s not the end of the world,” F-Secure said.

Kaspersky Lab said in an online post that it detected and fended off an attack on the official website for its US office.

“Despite their attempts, the hackers were unable to gain access to restricted information stored on the website,” Kaspersky said.

Kaspersky said it has a team investigating the attack and bolstering its defenses.

BitDefender’s website in Portugal was breached by hackers but the company reports no signs of data being stolen.

“It appears the attack was not intended to steal information, but simply to show vulnerability,” BitDefender said in its company blog. “We corrected the vulnerability.”