Tag: infrastructure
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 [...]
‘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 [...]
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 [...]
Hacked Phones Could Be Listening To Everything You Say
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Most people believe their phone conversations are private. Well, they may not be as private as you think if your office or home is filled with hacked phones. Researchers at Columbia University have discovered a flaw in telephones that allows a hacker to turn a phone’s microphone into [...]
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 [...]
Android Malware Steals Bank Data From Your Phone
Lucian Constantin PC World Several malicious Android apps designed to steal mobile transaction authentication numbers (mTANs) sent by banks to their customers over SMS (Short Message Service) were found on Google Play by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab. The Android malware apps were created by a gang that uses a variant of the [...]
Criminals Targeting Holiday Shoppers With Dexter Malware
Chris Dougherty Virtual Threat Contributing Writer As the Christmas season and holiday shopping hits full swing, cyber criminals are using sophisticated attacks to steal your money and credit card data. The latest scheme infects cash register machines with a malicious piece of software called Dexter malware. Seculert, an Israeli security firm, has identified a [...]
United States Officials Warned of ‘Cyber 9/11′ Cyber Attack
Cynthia Hodges The Examiner Former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), John “Mike” McConnell said that United States officials have already been warned about a huge potential cyber attack that could have a tremendous negative impact on the country. In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, McConnell said the warnings should [...]
European Smart Power Grid Targeted By Cyber Attack
Arthur Neslen EurActiv.com A German power utility specialising in renewable energy was hit by a serious cyber attack two weeks ago that lasted five days, knocking its internet communications systems offline, in the first confirmed digital assault against a European grid operator. “It was a DOS (‘Denial Of Service’) attack with a botnet behind [...]
Silent Attackers Are Hacking Smart TVs
Darlene Storm Computerworld Hacking Smart TVs? Can you imagine your “smart” TV being targeted by a zero-day exploit, becoming part of a botnet, or being used to conduct espionage? How about if the TV manufacturer, an attacker, or even the CIA were to hijack the video camera in the TV? Suddenly, as you watch TV in [...]
Benefits of Training and Awareness for Disaster Recovery Planning
Oscar Atkinson VirtualThreat Guest Writer Data centers are vital components for many of today’s companies, especially when it comes to disaster recovery planning. Within these data centers, companies can deploy sensitive equipment, such as servers and large-scale storage devices. These facilities also offer data backup features that can be beneficial during the recovery process [...]
Five Week Financial Cyber Attack Against Largest US Banks Continues
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer For five weeks now some of the largest banks in the United States, including HSBC, Capitol One and BB&T, have been under a sustained cyber attack from unidentified hackers. The attackers are using denial of service (DOS) attacks to cripple access to the banks’ websites. In a phone interview [...]
Hacked Iranian Nuclear Plants Play Heavy Metal Music by AC/DC
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Hacked Iranian Nuclear Plants Play Heavy Metal Music by AC/DC. It seems the Iranian government has been busy retaliating after a barrage of recent cyber attacks targeting the computers within the country’s nuclear program. First there was Stuxnet, a malicious piece of malware that targeted the actual control systems [...]
6 Real Hacker Attacks Straight Out of the Movies
Danny Vittore Cracked.com Hacker attacks: Hollywood thinks that computers run on black magic and hackers are wizards. In movies, computers can blow up houses, shut down highways, release plagues and make Matthew Lillard appealing to women. However, our collective groaning about how laughably unrealistic these movies are may have been premature, because sometimes the real [...]
Iran Cyberattacks Target Persian Gulf Gas and Oil Companies
CBS News Iran Cyberattacks Target Persian Gulf . A former U.S. government official says American authorities firmly believe that Iranian hackers, likely supported by the Tehran government, were responsible for recent cyberattacks against oil and gas companies in the Persian Gulf and that they appeared to be in retaliation for the latest round of U.S. [...]
U.S. Bank Website Hackers Used Advanced Botnets, Diverse Tools
Joseph Menn Reuters (Reuters) – The Iranian hackers behind the cyber attacks on major U.S. banks have repeatedly disrupted online banking by using sophisticated and diverse tools that point to a carefully coordinated campaign, according to security researchers. The hackers, believed to be activists in the Middle East, were highly knowledgeable about the [...]
Chinese Hack White House Military Network Holding Nuclear Codes
Chris Dougherty VirtualThreat Contributing Writer Sources within the White House and U.S. military partially confirmed that Chinese attackers hacked the White House Military network. The White House Military Office (WHMO), is in charge of the network that holds the commands for the President’s nuclear “Football”. A White House national security official stated the security breach [...]
Sophisticated Hackers Target Adobe Code Signing Infrastructure
Ryan Naraine ZDNet Sophisticated Hackers Target Adobe Code Signing Infrastructure. The eyebrow-raising hack effectively gave the attackers the ability to create malware masquerading as legitimate Adobe software and signals a raising of the stakes in the world of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Adobe today warned that an internal server with access to its digital certificate [...]
Chinese Hackers To Blame For Energy Industry Intrusion
KrebsOnSecurity Chinese Hackers To Blame For Energy Industry Intrusion. A company whose software and services are used to remotely administer and monitor large sections of the energy industry began warning customers last week that it is investigating a sophisticated hacker attack spanning its operations in the United States, Canada and Spain. Experts say [...]
Anonymous Hacker Group Attacks GoDaddy.com
Chris Dougherty Virtual Threat Contributing Writer A member of the Anonymous hacker group claimed responsibility for an attack on sites hosted by GoDaddy.com early Monday morning. The hacking group claimed that the service provider was targeted because of their support for internet censorship. GoDaddy is responsible for website hosting and DNS services for millions [...]
