Tag Archive: Hacking
Sony Hacking Scandal Grows To Include Personal & Financial Data And Movies
Filed under: Cyber Crime, Entertainment, Hacking, Hacktivism, Privacy, Shame, Technology — 2 Comments
Sony Struggles To Fight #GOP Hackers Who Claim Stolen Data Includes Stars' IDs, Budget And Contract Figures
" The Guardians of Peace group, which says it is responsible for Monday's attack, releases list of files it says it has found.
The situation at Sony Pictures Entertainment is more dire than the studio has allowed to be known, as the fifth day of hackers taking down the studio's computer system continues though a threat to release private information has not materialized, TheWrap has learned.
The studio has taken as much of its functions offline as possible, and managed to get payroll out as well as sustain DVD sales for titles like "Spider-Man" on the all-important Black Friday. One insider said company email is expected to be back on Monday. "
Tags: Budget Info, GOP, Guardians of Peace, Hacking, Personal Data, Sony Hacked, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Stars IDs, Threatened Data Dump
"Regin" , A Massive State-Run Hacking Tool Uncovered … But Who's Is It ?
Filed under: Civil Discord, Civil Disobedience, Conspiracy, Constitution, Corruption, Cyber Warfare, Hacking, Law Enforcement Thuggery, Liberty, Police State, Privacy, Statism, Surveillance — 2 Comments
Researchers Uncover Government Spy Tool Used To Hack Telecoms And Belgian Cryptographer
" It was the spring of 2011 when the European Commission discovered it had been hacked. The intrusion into the EU's legislative body was sophisticated and widespread and used a zero-day exploit to get in. Once the attackers established a stronghold on the network, they were in for the long haul. They scouted the network architecture for additional victims and covered their tracks well. Eventually, they infected numerous systems belonging to the European Commission and the European Council before being discovered.
Two years later another big target was hacked. This time it was Belgacom, the partly state-owned Belgian telecom. In this case, too, the attack was sophisticated and complex. According to published news reports and documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the attackers targeted system administrators working for Belgacom and used their credentials to gain access to routers controlling the telecom's cellular network. Belgacom publicly acknowledged the hack, but has never provided details about the breach.
Then five months after that announcement, news of another high-profile breach emerged—this one another sophisticated hack targeting prominent Belgian cryptographer Jean-Jacques Quisquater. "
" Now it appears that security researchers have found the massive digital spy tool used in all three attacks. Dubbed "Regin" by Microsoft, more than a hundred victims have been found to date, but there are likely many others still unknown. That's because the espionage tool—a malicious platform capable of taking over entire networks and infrastructures—has been around since at least 2008, possibly even earlier, and is built to remain stealth on a system for years.
The threat has been known since at least 2011, around the time the EU was hacked and some of the attack files made their way to Microsoft, who added detection for the component to its security software. Researchers with Kaspersky Lab only began tracking the threat in 2012, collecting bits and pieces of the massive threat. Symantec began investigating it in 2013 after some of its customers were infected. Putting together information from each, it's clear the platform is highly complex and modulated and can be customized with a wide range of capabilities depending on the target and the attackers' needs. Researchers have found 50 payloads so far for stealing files and other data, but have evidence that still more exist.
" It's a threat that everyone has detected for some time, but no one has exposed [until now]," says Eric Chien, technical director of Symantec's Security Technology and Response division.
The researchers have no doubt that Regin is a nation-state tool and are calling it the most sophisticated espionage machine uncovered to date—more complex even than the massive Flame platform, uncovered by Kaspersky and Symantec in 2012 and crafted by the same team who created Stuxnet. "
The whole story may be read at Wired
Tags: Belgacom, Cyber Warfare, Edward Snowden, Espionage Tool, European Commission, Flame Platform, GCHQ, Hacking, Jean-Jacques Quisquater, Kaspersky, Malware, Nation-State Tool, NSA, Regin, Spyware, Stuxnet, Symantec
Anonymous Seizes KKK Twitter Feeds
Filed under: Barbarism, Cyber Warfare, Hacking, Hacktivism, Social Media, Video — Leave a comment
Anonymous Seizes Ku Klux Klan Twitter Account Over Ferguson Threats
" Two Twitter accounts belonging to American racial segregation org Ku Klux Klan, @KuKluxKlanUSA and @YourKKKCentral, have been seized by Anonymous as part of the hacker-activist entity's new campaign, #OpKKK.
At 6:31pm PST Anonymous said it has knocked the website belonging to "Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" — the group responsible for the Ferguson threats — offline.
TANGO DOWN – http://t.co/5GYg8JrUiC#OpKKK#HoodsOff
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) November 17, 2014
ZDNet has also received an unconfirmed statement that Anonymous has compromised KKK member email accounts, and a phone harassment campaign is being conducted on KKK members. The message is in full at the end of this article. "
ZDNet has more
Tags: #OpKKK, @KuKluxKlanUSA, @YourKKKCentral, Anonymous, Cyber Warfare, Ferguson, Hacking, Hacktivism, KKK Twitter Feed
76 Million Households Affected By Morgan-Chase Hacking
Filed under: Cyber Crime, Fail, Hacking, Privacy, Security — Leave a comment
JPMorgan Says Data Breach Affected 76 Million Households
" JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank, said a previously disclosed data breach affected 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.
Customer names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses were taken, the New York-based bank said today in a regulatory filing. Hackers also obtained internal data identifying customers by category, such as whether they are clients of the private-bank, mortgage, auto or credit-card divisions, said a person briefed on the matter.
The breach affected anyone who visited the company's websites, including Chase.com, or used its mobile app, said the person, who requested anonymity because that information wasn't publicly disclosed. Some of those affected by the incursion are former clients of JPMorgan, which currently has 65 million customers and reaches half of all U.S. households, the person said. "
Tags: 76 Million Homes, Data Breach, Hacking, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase
FBI: Hackers Value Your Medical Records More Than CC Numbers
Filed under: Corruption, Crime, Cyber Crime, Fail, Hacking, Healthcare, Nanny State, Privacy, Security, Shame, Statism — Leave a comment
Your Medical Record Is Worth More To Hackers Than Your Credit Card
" Your medical information is worth 10 times more than your credit card number on the black market.
Last month, the FBI warned healthcare providers to guard against cyber attacks after one of the largest U.S. hospital operators, Community Health Systems Inc, said Chinese hackers had broken into its computer network and stolen the personal information of 4.5 million patients.
Security experts say cyber criminals are increasingly targeting the $3 trillion U.S. healthcare industry, which has many companies still reliant on aging computer systems that do not use the latest security features.
" As attackers discover new methods to make money, the healthcare industry is becoming a much riper target because of the ability to sell large batches of personal data for profit," said Dave Kennedy, an expert on healthcare security and CEO of TrustedSEC LLC. "Hospitals have low security, so it's relatively easy for these hackers to get a large amount of personal data for medical fraud." "
Thanks Obama , the government has played right into the hands of the cyber-thieves on this issue . By all means let's centralize all of our personal data where it is easy to access both by the State and the crooks . Nice job .
Yahoo News reports
Tags: Chinese hackers, Credit Card Data, FBI, Hacking, Insurance Companies Targeted, Medical Info Worth More, Medical Records, Obamacare
Check Your Online Security With "Have I Been Pwned?"
Filed under: Cyber Crime, Hacking, Internet Freedom, Privacy, Security — Leave a comment
How To Find Out If You've Been Hacked In Under A Minute
" If it feels like the Internet is plagued by seemingly constant cybersecurity breaches, sometimes the best thing you can do is find out if your usernames and passwords are already owned by an enterprising criminal.
The search engine Have I been pwned? (HIBP) is one of your best free and easy bets to find out if your sensitive information is floating out in cyberspace for all to see. There are other worthwhile options but HIBP's new real-time monitoring tool separates it from the pack.
HIBP, which has provided easy access to stolen user credentials from newsworthy security breaches since last year, just introduced a major new feature that gives it access to about 175 million vulnerable accounts—a number that will keep growing rapidly—and alerts your within a minute to possible problems.
Now, with the new feature, scores of smaller breaches are documented and made easy for anyone to search."
Tags: Cyber Security, Dump Monitor, Hacking, Have I Been Pwned?, HIBP, Pastebin, Security, Troy Hunt
New Apple iOS 8 Will Allegedly Block Police & Hackers From Phone , Tablet Access
Filed under: Civil Liberties, Law Enforcement Thuggery, Liberty, Police State, Privacy, Security, Surveillance, Technology, Video — Leave a comment
Apple Will No Longer Unlock Most iPhones, iPads For Police, Even With Search Warrants
" Apple said Wednesday night that it is making it impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police — even when they have a search warrant — taking a hard new line as tech companies attempt to blunt allegations that they have too readily participated in government efforts to collect user information.
The move, announced with the publication of a new privacy policy tied to the release of Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 8, amounts to an engineering solution to a legal quandary: Rather than comply with binding court orders, Apple has reworked its latest encryption in a way that prevents the company — or anyone but the device's owner — from gaining access to the vast troves of user data typically stored on smartphones or tablet computers.
The key is the encryption that Apple mobile devices automatically put in place when a user selects a passcode, making it difficult for anyone who lacks that passcode to access the information within, including photos, e-mails and recordings. Apple once maintained the ability to unlock some content on devices for legally binding police requests but will no longer do so for iOS 8, it said in the new privacy policy.
" Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data," Apple said on its Web site. "So it's not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8." "
Tags: Apple, Blocks Police Access, Encryption, Hacking, iOS 8, NSA, Privacy policy, Security
Millions Of Gmail Accounts Hacked Again
Filed under: Cyber Crime, Privacy, Security, Social Media, Technology — 1 Comment
Millions Of Gmail Accounts Hacked, Was Yours One Of Them?
" Time to change your password again. A database containing nearly 5 million Gmail user accounts and passwords was leaked on Bitcoin Security, a popular Russian website devoted to the cryptocurrency.
The text file was published on Tuesday night by user tvskit, according to CNews, the Russian news outlet that first broke the story. The leaker claimed that the majority of the accounts belong to users who speak English, Russian, or Spanish, and that approximately 60 percent are active. The passwords not only give access to Gmail, but a slew of other Google services such as Drive and the mobile payment system Google Wallet. "
Fusion has more
Tags: Bitcoin Security, CNews, Gmail Accounts Hacked, Google Wallet, Hacking, Russian Users, Russian Website, Spanish Users, tvskit
Hackers Used Police Software For Celebrity Picture Theft
Filed under: Cyber Crime, Hacking, Law, Police State, Privacy, Security, Technology — Leave a comment
The Police Tool That Pervs Use To Steal Nude Pics From Apple's iCloud
" As nude celebrity photos spilled onto the web over the weekend, blame for the scandal has rotated from the scumbag hackers who stole the images to a researcher who released a tool used to crack victims' iCloud passwords to Apple, whose security flaws may have made that cracking exploit possible in the first place. But one step in the hackers' sext-stealing playbook has been ignored—a piece of software designed to let cops and spies siphon data from iPhones, but is instead being used by pervy criminals themselves.
On the web forum Anon-IB, one of the most popular anonymous image boards for posting stolen nude selfies, hackers openly discuss using a piece of software called EPPB or Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker to download their victims' data from iCloud backups. That software is sold by Moscow-based forensics firm Elcomsoft and intended for government agency customers. In combination with iCloud credentials obtained with iBrute, the password-cracking software for iCloud released on Github over the weekend, EPPB lets anyone impersonate a victim's iPhone and download its full backup rather than the more limited data accessible on iCloud.com. And as of Tuesday, it was still being used to steal revealing photos and post them on Anon-IB's forum."
Tags: Alexey Troshichev, Anon-IB, Apple, Celebrity Nudes, Elcomsoft, Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker, EPPB, Github, Hacking, iBrute, iCloud, Iphone, Police Software, Stolen Pictures
600 Million iPhone Users At Risk Of Data Theft Via Hidden Backdoors
Filed under: Cyber Crime, Fail, Hacking, Privacy, Security, Surveillance, Technology — Leave a comment
Undocumented iOS Features Left Hidden Backdoors Open In 600 Million Apple Devices
" A well known iPhone hacker and forensic scientist has unearthed a range of undocumented and hidden functions in Apple iOS mobile operating system that make it possible for a hacker to completely bypass the backup encryption on iOS devices and can steal large amounts of users' personal data without entering passwords or personal identification numbers.
Data forensics expert named Jonathan Zdziarski has posted the slides (PDF) titled "Identifying Backdoors, Attack Points, and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices" showing his findings, from his talk at the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference held in New York on Friday.
Jonathan Zdziarski, better identified as the hacker "NerveGas" in the iPhone development community, worked as dev-team member on many of the early iOS jailbreaks and is also the author of five iOS-related O'Reilly books including "Hacking and Securing iOS Applications."
The results of his overall research on the iOS devices indicate a backdoor into iOS device' operating system, although it is not at all that much widely open as a number of reports have suggested.
You can protect your iOS device settings, Messages, Camera Roll, documents, saved games, email account passwords, Wi-Fi passwords, and passwords that you enter into websites using iTunes Backup feature. iTunes also allows users to protect their backup data with an encryption."
Tags: "NerveGas", Bypass The Backup Encryption, Data Theft, Hacking, Hacking and Securing iOS Applications, Hidden Backdoors, HOPE X, iOS Devices, iPhone Vulnerabilities, Jonathan Zdziarski, On Planet Earth, Security Threats
Study Reveals Military Satellite's Glaring Security Weaknesses
Filed under: Corruption, Cyber Warfare, Hacking, Military, National Security, Preparedness, Technology — 1 Comment
Crucial Military Satellite Systems Are Vulnerable To Hacking
" A range of crucial satellite systems manufactured by some of the world's biggest government contractors contain severe vulnerabilities that could be exploited to disrupt military operations and flight-safety communications, researchers have warned.
Security consultancy IOActive says it has uncovered various vulnerabilities in software and ground-based satellite systems manufactured by British suppliers Cobham and Inmarsat. US firms Harris Corporation, Hughes and Iridium were also said to have produced vulnerable kit, alongside Thuraya, a UAE provider, and Japan Radio Company.
The US Computer Emergency Response Team based in Carnegie Mellon University, which is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, warned about a handful of the vulnerabilities in January.
But on Wednesday information on more alleged weaknesses was released, amid growing concern the contractors are ignoring the threats. The latest report from IOActive suggested there were some easily hackable systems, many of which were designed for keeping aircraft, ships and army personnel safe."
The Guardian has more
Tags: Acars, Carnegie Mellon University, Cobham, Hacking, Harris Corporation, Hughes, Inmarsat, IOActive, Iridium, Military Communications, Military Satellites, Ruben Santamarta, Ship Security Alert System, Thuraya, US Computer Emergency Response Team, Vulnerable