Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headlines.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

Password guessing with Medusa 2.0 - Medusa was created by the fine folks at foofus.net, in fact the much awaited Medusa 2.0 update was released in February of 2010. For a complete change log please visit

Password guessing as an attack vector - Using password guessing as an attack vector. Over the years we've been taught a strong password must be long and complex to be considered secure. Some of us have taken that notion to heart and always ensure our passwords are strong. But some don't give a second thought to the complexity or length of our password.

SSH Tunneling - Poor Techie's VPN (Apr 2)

"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it is the light of the oncoming train" ~ Robert Lowell. Oh yes, another good quote. This post is on SSH tunneling, or as I like to call it 'Poor Man's VPN'. Contrary to the sysadmin's popular belief, SSH tunneling actually can be very valuable use for both techies and home users.
Pastebin.com hiring staff to get rid of activists' dumps (Apr 2)

Pastebin.com has promised to police content on its site more tightly by hiring staff to delete data dumps and other sensitive information more quickly.
Do Insecure Open Source Components Threaten Your Apps? (Apr 3)

Since Apache Maven, the brainchild of Sonatype founder Jason van Zyl, emerged as a top-level Apache Software Foundation project in 2003, the Central Repository has become a primary source of open source components. Jackson says the Central Repository receives four billion requests per year for its 300,000 components.
(Apr 3)

A new variant of the Flashback malware has emerged which is able to install itself on Macs when a user visits an specially crafted website. In an advisory, security specialist F-Secure says that the malware, designated OSX/Flashback.K, exploits a long-known Java SE 6 vulnerability (CVE-2012-0507).
(Apr 4)

Alleged LulzSec member Ryan Cleary was re-arrested last month for breaching his bail conditions by emailing the hacking group's head 'Sabu' over the Christmas period, according to press reports.
Researchers develop quantum encryption method to foil hackers (Apr 5)

Researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of Vigo believe quantum cryptography is the solution to the hacker problem. They are turning their proof-of-concept into a prototype.
Mac hacker attack hits more than 600,000 computers (Apr 6)

More than 600,000 Mac computers were affected by a hacking attack, a sign that the once rarely targeted company is becoming a bigger focus for people intent on spreading malware, a security-research firm said.
(Apr 4)

Comodo, a leading certificate authority and Internet security solutions provider, today released SiteInspector, a free malware scanning and blacklist monitoring for websites. The free service allows website owners to set up recurring, daily checks on any 3 pages of a domain.
Good samaritan hackers politely point out security holes (Apr 3)

Who says hackers can't be nice?One group, MalSec, left a calling card on a security firm's website that decisively struck down its claim of being "the largest and most trusted full-service security and life-safety company in the Cayman Islands." But instead of rendering it useless, gave them pointers on how to fix their holes.
(Apr 5)

A British hacker has been sentenced to 26 months for stealing 200,000 PayPal accounts, 2,701 bank card numbers, as well as 8,110,474 names, dates of birth, and postcodes of U.K. residents.
(Apr 6)

Federal agents have arrested a Texas man believed to be involved in the CabinCr3w hacking group, an Anonymous-like collective that gained infamy for attacking the website of the Texas Department of Public Safety and for its online attacks in support of the Occupy protesters.
Joomla! 2.5.4 closes more security holes (Apr 4)

Two weeks after its last security update, the Joomla! project has published another update to the 2.5.x branch of its open source content management system (CMS) which addresses two vulnerabilities. Version 2.5.4 of Joomla! closes an information disclosure hole that allowed unauthorised access to administrative information and fixes a problem that could have been exploited by an attacker to conduct cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Versions 2.5.0 to 2.5.3 are affected.