Tag: hacking
5 Mandatory Steps For Protecting Data From Eavesdroppers
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Every day we hear news reports in the mainstream media about social network hacking, malware, malicious account takeovers and protecting data. It doesn’t matter if you are the average Joe Blow or a huge corporation like Burger King, everyone is being targeted these days. Cyber criminals are searching for everything from [...]
Anonymous Hackers Target CEOs in Operation Wall Street
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Anonymous hackers have launched ‘Operation Wall Street’, a new protest started by the loosely organized hactivist collective against the US government, Wall Street and the financial services industry. The operation is a call to all Anonymous “members” and citizens of the world and seeks justice for the “innocent and exploited people being forced into homelessness” [...]
McDonald’s Innocent in McHacking of Burger King Twitter Account
Jason Sickles Yahoo News Don’t blame the Hamburglar. Burger King’s official Twitter account was McHacked about noon EST on Monday and changed to resemble their rival. The pranksters swapped the page’s profile image to include a photo of McDonald’s iconic golden arches and rewrote the account description to claim Burger King, “Just got sold to [...]
Latest Facebook Hacking Attack Investigated By FBI
Times of India WASHINGTON: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is collaborating in the investigation of a “sophisticated Facebook hacking attack” by hackers on Facebook last month, which, according to the social network, has not compromised users’ data. The daily San Francisco Chronicle said Saturday that the FBI is working with Facebook to determine the [...]
Chinese Hackers Target Bloomberg Journalists in Latest Media Attack
Adam Taylor Business Insider In next week’s Businessweek cover story, investigative reporters Dune Lawrence and Michael Riley take a deep dive on Chinese hackers, coming up with some fascinating details. It’s a big story given the recent accusations about Chinese hackers that have come from the New York Times and other news outlets, and Lawrence and Riley [...]
Chinese Hackers Attack NY Times Over Wen Investigation
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Over the past four months, Chinese hackers have penetrated computers belonging to the New York Times and its staff. The hackers appeared to be intent on hunting down and identifying newspaper sources involved in the investigation of a top Chinese leader. China’s Defense Ministry is denying any involvement in [...]
How Cyber Criminals Are Exploiting Our Swipe-n-Go Society
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Curtis Abernathy, a small business owner in Arizona, never expected to be caught up as the victim of an international ring of cyber criminals stealing identities online. But that’s exactly what happened last week when he received a call from Bank of America’s security office. The bank’s security team [...]
Hacked Security Cameras Are Wide Open To Attackers
Kyle Wagner Gizmodo.com Hacked Security Cameras Are Wide Open To Attackers. Apparently security cameras are even less secure than we thought. Eighteen popular brands of cameras have been found to have serious flaws in their own security, leaving at least 58,000 unsecured, open-to-basically-anyone security cams out there. Security firm Rapid7 discovered how the widespread [...]
Experts Say Facebook Hackers May Be Infecting Your Computer
John Brandon Fox News Sadie Ouse, a high school senior, never saw it coming. Recently, Facebook hackers commandeered her Facebook account. Using a common malware tactic, the hacker sent a message to all of her friends with a link to the site homeincomenow3.com, operated by “Zhang Lei” in Beijing, China. A Norton security scan [...]
‘Red October’ Spy Network Goes Dark Hours After Being Exposed
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer The command and control servers behind the ‘Red October’ espionage network started shutting down only hours after the campaign was exposed by Kapersky Lab last week. The Red October malware campaign targeted governments, embassies and scientific organizations around the world. According to researchers at Kapersky Lab, the spy network [...]
Fatal Cyber-Attacks ‘are Possible and Plausible’
James Hayes The Institute of Engineering and Technology 2013 could be the first year in which cyber-attacks lead to human deaths, a Web security expert has warned. Corey Nachreiner, director of security strategy at security management firm WatchGuard Technologies, argues that the accelerated proliferation of both networked devices and online threats over the next [...]
Chinese Hackers To Blame For One Third of Global Cyberattacks
Michelle Florcruz International Business Times Though the story of computer network attacks by Communist spies sounds like a plot line from a Hollywood action film, a new report has found that one-third of cyberattacks actually originate in China. According to Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), a digital technology platform developer, China accounted for 33 percent of [...]
Feds Say Cyber Crime Ring Targeted U.S. Bank Accounts
Andrew Tangel LA Times A cyber crime case brought by U.S. prosecutors in New York may add to the fears of anyone who banks online. The charges against three foreign nationals — a Russian, a Latvian and a Romanian — allege they were involved in creating and distributing a computer virus that infected more than 40,000 [...]
Hacked ‘iPhone Sexting App’: Why Texting Naked Photos is a Bad Idea
Dominique Mosbergen The Huffington Post iPhone Sexting App May Not Be Secure As You Think… There are a few good reasons why sending incriminating pictures, naked or otherwise, over the photo and video app Snapchat may not be such a great idea. Other than concerns about bullying and underage sexting, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Snapchat messages, once thought to be [...]
U.S. Cyber Command Plans To Increase Workforce By 15%
Amber Corrin FCW.com The Air Force plans to increase its Cyber Command workforce by 15 percent in 2014, according to the Defense Department. Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, said he expects to receive orders next year from U.S. Cyber Command’s leadership to hire roughly 1,000 cyber specialists, mostly civilians. They [...]
3 Ways Facebook Hackers Target Your Account
Chris Dougherty Virtual Threat Contributing Writer Facebook accounts are an often overlooked gateway into an individual’s personal life. We, as social networking users, have few reservations about posting our photos, location, plans to travel, private outbursts, and information regarding friends, family and work. We include names, phone numbers, email addresses, GPS coordinates and [...]
Operation “Red October” is Spying on Governments Worldwide
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat.com, Contributing Writer Kaspersky Lab has uncovered a cyber espionage campaign that is targeting diplomatic and government agencies around the world. The campaign has been dubbed “Rocra”, short for “Red October”. As of this writing the malware at the heart of the attack is actively sending data to several command and control (C&C) [...]
M.I.T. Hackers Pay Tribute to Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz
Nicole Perlroth NYTimes Bits Blog Anonymous, the loose collective of hackers, attacked the Web site of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Sunday, in a tribute to Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old technology programmer who killed himself on Friday. Mr. Swartz, a passionate advocate for the freedom of information, helped create Reddit and RSS technology, [...]
Hackers Pay Big Money to Use New Exploit Kit
John Lister InfoPackets The group behind a collection of ‘premium’ hacking tools is apparently charging hackers $10,000 a month for permission to use their exploit kit. The proceeds are helping fund rewards for anyone who shares information with the hackers about previously unknown software vulnerabilities. According to security firm Sophos, the ‘premium’ hacking kit [...]
Al-Qaeda Linked to New York Phone Hacking Scams
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Hackers with ties to Al-Qaeda terrorist cells in Somalia and the Philippines are targeting New York small businesses using international phone hacking scams. The scams are costing the companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in phone charges each month. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that the hacker group has a [...]
Evade Government Surveillance Stay Anonymous Online
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Why stay anonymous online? In today’s society there are people and automated devices that are recording your deepest, most private thoughts and activities. Each day we voluntarily divulge the most intimate details of our lives through social networking accounts, email, banking apps, online games and more. In addition, [...]
Top 6 Cyber Security Predictions for 2013
Chiranjeev Bordoloi VentureBeat If there is any weakness in security, you can guarantee the criminals will try to exploit it. And if a cyber criminal discovers a weakness in one community, it won’t be long before that isolated crime turns into a trend. The commercialization of malware is rapidly becoming a well-organized and highly [...]
FBI Warns Public About Smartphone Malware Attacks
Michelle Lowry KJRH Channel 2 News TULSA – Smartphone malware attacks. The Internet Crime Complaint Center says there is malware attacking operating systems for mobile devices. Just two examples of this malware according to the FBI are Loozfon and FinFisher. Information-stealing malware could come in as a work-from-home opportunity that promises big bucks for [...]
Hacking Medical Records Next Target for Criminals in 2013
Arik Hesseldahl AllThingsD.com The next great target for criminals and digital troublemakers in 2013 is hacking medical records. According to a long report in the Washington Post and based in part on research by the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, despite numerous technology standards written into federal regulations, the many ways that [...]
Facebook Mobile Camera App Allows Hackers To Hijack Accounts
Ingrid Lunden Techcrunch PSA to all Facebook Camera users on iOS: If you haven’t updated your app in the past few days, update it now. The older version of the app, pre-1.1.2 and released before December 21, has a security loophole. When used over WiFi networks, malicious hackers can tap the network and hijack accounts, picking [...]
