VirtualThreat the quieter you become, the more you are able to hear

Sue Talley Huffington Post   If you’ve seen recent headlines about cyber attacks and cyber warfare, you’ve had to consider some troubling questions: How real is the threat? How serious are the consequences? How prepared are we? In a recent speech, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described a dire scenario–a “cyber Pearl Harbor”. He outlined what would happen if …

Fernando Alfonso III Daily Dot   Facebook has worked with the FBI to take down 10 Facebook hackers responsible for stealing $850 million over the last two years. The hackers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. were responsible for “more than 11 million compromised computer systems and over $850 million in …

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 it,” Boris Schucht, the CEO …

Ben Weitzenkorn Space.com   Members of the Anonymous-affiliated Team GhostShell hacking collective have published what they claim is stolen information for 1.6 million accounts linked to government agencies, including the Pentagon, NASA and the Federal Reserve. The hackers appear to have breached the database with a malicious SQL code injection, ZDNet reported, stealing passwords and corresponding email addresses, phone numbers, …

Sara Hicks Yahoo News   Russian hackers are holding a Gold Coast medical centre to ransom after encrypting thousands of patient health records. The hackers are demanding a ransom of $4,000 to decrypt the sensitive information held on a server at the Miami Family Medical Centre. IT security expert Nigel Phair says this latest attack is a “wake-up call” with …

Yasmin Tadjdeh National Defense Magazine   Charleston, S.C. — The military, the government, the private sector and private citizens are underprepared for growing cyberthreats from Chinese hackers, said a top Google executive. “Security needs to be everybody’s concern, and it needs to be much more pervasive not only in the Defense Department or in the U.S. government, but frankly, the private …

DJ Pangburn Death and Taxes   Last week a federal grand jury indicted Barrett Brown, the former self-styled spokesman of Anonymous, on 12 charges relating to the Stratfor hack spearheaded by Jeremy Hammond. One of the charges pertains to Brown sharing a link related to the Stratfor hack. It seems that when Anonymous hacked the “global intelligence” firm, they posted …

Tim G. Villasor GMA News   Hacked PlayStation 3 units have been prevalent and a big concern for Sony Computer Entertainment. Hackers who have tried to crack the machine have met many difficulties in getting through the block that allows users to sign in the PlayStation Network with a “jailbroken” console in the years following the system’s release. Recently,  LV0 keys had reportedly been released online …

Lucian Constantin PCWorld   FreeBSD Hackers have compromised two servers used by the FreeBSD Project to build third-party software packages. Anyone who has installed such packages since September 19 should completely reinstall their machines, the project’s security team warned.     Intrusions on two machines within the FreeBSD.org cluster were detected on November 11, the FreeBSD security team said on Saturday. …

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 your undies, it’s smile because …