Free Republic

The wave of distributed denial of service attacks that hit U.S. banks in October was next to nothing compared to what could happen if cybercriminals actually carry through with their plans for next year. According to a report released today by McAfee Labs, an impending attack on U.S. financial institutions—dubbed Project Blitzkrieg—isn’t only a possibility, it’s a “credible threat.” “McAfee Labs believes that Project Blitzkrieg is a credible threat to the financial industry and appears to be moving forward as planned,” the report reads. “Although Project Blitzkrieg hasn’t yet infected thousands of victims and we cannot directly confirm any cases...

SNIPPET: "Social media is no longer simply a fun way to share updates on the harmless idiosyncrasies of our lives. It can undermine national security, and there ought to be a more robust discussion between the Bay Area technology world and Washington on what to do about it. Cyber-terrorism, especially the potential for electronic tampering with U.S. industrial or military installations, is a paramount national security threat that Washington is working to forestall. We're all working to protect our accounts from hackers. But the cyber-threat getting far less public attention involves the social media networks we use every day and the...

Wife's bank card was denied use yesterday. Bank said their on line service was not working. I suggested Iran was mounting a cyber attack due to the war footings around Israel. Wife said I was paranoid. I did find a September article (FreeBeacon.com/iran-cyber-attacks-step-up) about Iran cyber attacking banks. Officials tried to blame The Video LOL but the article said it was Iran being upset about sanctions. Article said attacks were ongoing. Any Freepers know of a good website that reports current cyber attacks?

The U.S. is at war, a cyber war. And businesses and government are at risk, said Eric Rosenbach, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy in an interview with CNBC. "I read my intel brief every morning at 5:30 a.m. and it's never a very good news story at all," Rosenbach said. "There are a lot more attacks, and I hate to admit it but I fear that there will be some type of spectacular attack against the United States or one of our allies before there is comprehensive legislation and real appreciation to take this seriously." Just one...

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials are increasingly convinced that Iran was the origin of a serious wave of network attacks that crippled computers across the Saudi oil industry and breached financial institutions in the United States, episodes that contributed to a warning last week from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta that the United States was at risk of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.” (snip) Among American officials, suspicion has focused on the “cybercorps” that Iran’s military created in 2011 — partly in response to American and Israeli cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz — though there is no hard...

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned Thursday that the United States was facing the possibility of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor” and was increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could dismantle the nation’s power grid, transportation system, financial networks and government... ...Defense officials insisted that Mr. Panetta’s words were not hyperbole, and that he was responding to a recent wave of cyberattacks on large American financial institutions. He also cited an attack in August on the state oil company Saudi Aramco, which infected and made useless more than 30,000 computers. But Pentagon officials acknowledged that Mr. Panetta was also pushing for...

SNIPPET: "New York City is the center of a public uproar as Internet blogger Pamela Gellar rises with an “anti-jihad” ad campaign." SNIPPET: "Gellar and her group are protesting the Jihad, which in definition is the religious duty of Muslims. According to the Dictionary of Islam, jihad is defined as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad . . . enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.” The literal meaning of jihad, according to the British Broadcasting Network, “is struggle or effort, and it means much more than...

Bill Gertz has the grim news in the Washington Free Beacon: Hackers linked to China's government broke into one of the U.S. government's most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident. One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing's most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks. Disclosure of the cyber attack also comes amid heightened tensions in Asia, as the Pentagon moved...

Hackers linked to China’s government broke into one of the U.S. government’s most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident.

Hackers linked to China’s government broke into one of the U.S. government’s most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident.

@mrubin1971Two news stories from recent weeks, if true, should raise a red flag in the United States that Iran is preparing to use Hezbollah to strike at U.S. interests in Latin America, if not in the United States itself.First, this story from the Lebanese news portal Naharnet and sourced in part to Israeli radio. The Naharnet story was taken down shortly after it appeared: Hezbollah is using a training base established by Iran in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras, the Israeli radio reported on Thursday [September 6]. “The area is cordoned off and there are around 30 members...

The Government Admits The US Power Grid Can Be Taken Out At Any Time Walter Hickey Aug. 1, 2012, 7:00 PM The Government Accountability Office just released a report backing up earlier findings: because a series of recommendations were ignored, the U.S. electric grid remains highly susceptible to cyberattacks. The grid is reliant on a number of IT systems that have known and likely unknown vulnerabilities. The result of a cyberattack on the grid could result in damage to electricity control systems, power outages, and failures in safety equipment on a scale currently unknown. GAO believes that there are still...

Iranian nuclear facilities have reportedly been attacked by a “music” virus, turning on lab PCs at night and blasting AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Mikko Hypponen, Chief Researcher at Finnish digital security firm F-secure, publicly released a letter he received from an unnamed Iranian scientist. The researcher, who claimed to work for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said that another virus has struck the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran and a secret underground research facility at Fordo, southwest of Tehran. The letter’s author reported that the virus shut down equipment (made by Germany’s Siemens Corporation) and automated systems at...

Some two weeks after Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta warned of a potential “cyber-Pearl Harbor” involving a possible attack on the electric grid, Mother Nature took the cue and hit the East Coast with a storm that left millions of us for days without electricity from the grid. Some said silent thanks for that old generator they’d thought to stick in the garage. Though it wasn’t a cyberattack, but Mother Nature gave parts of the grid a good lashing anyway. On my country road south of Annapolis, two transformers were blown down from their perches on telephone poles, and...

Some 60m euro is stolen from bank accounts in a massive cyber raid, after fraudsters raid dozens of banks around the world. Sixty million euro has been stolen from bank accounts in a massive cyber bank raid after fraudsters raided dozens of financial institutions around the world. According to a joint report by software security firm McAfee and Guardian Analytics, more than 60 firms have suffered from what it has called an "insider level of understanding". "The fraudsters' objective in these attacks is to siphon large amounts from high balance accounts, hence the name chosen for this research - Operation...

Leading cyber security firm McAfee has issued a startling breaking news report that indicates the U.S., European and Latin American financial systems are under a massive financial attacks that have digitally siphoned some $2.5 billion from thousands of accounts from various financial institutions. According to McAfee, the attacks are ongoing and international law enforcement agencies are currently working to shut them down: McAfee and Guardian Analytics have uncovered a highly sophisticated, global financial services fraud campaign that has reached the American banking system. As this research study goes to press, we are working actively with international law enforcement organizations to...

...Admissions from “the highest levels” of the U.S. government that it was party to a cyber attack on Iran risks a retaliation that could take many forms, compelling further escalation. ...

An al Qaeda video calling for "electronic jihad" illustrates the urgent need for cybersecurity standards for the most critical networks in the United States, a group of senators said. The video calls for cyberattacks against networks such as the electric grid and compares vulnerabilities in the United States' critical cyber networks to the vulnerabilities in the country's aviation system before 9/11, according to a statement Tuesday from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "This is the clearest evidence we've seen that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups want to attack the cyber systems of our critical infrastructure,"...

The BBC has suffered a sophisticated cyber-attack following a campaign by Iranian authorities against its Persian service, director-general Mark Thompson said on Wednesday. Thompson also reported attempts to jam satellite feeds of the British Broadcasting Corporation services into Iran and to swamp its London phone lines with automated calls. In extracts from a speech he will make later on Wednesday, Thompson stopped short of explicitly accusing Tehran of being behind the cyber-attack, but he described the coincidence of the attacks as "self-evidently suspicious". Last month, Thompson accused Iranian authorities of arresting and threatening the families of BBC journalists to force...

The Jihad Will Be YouTubed by Raffaello Pantucci December 15, 2011 FOREIGN POLICY - The AFPAK Channel SNIPPET: "While clearly the technology to make such videos is something that is universal, it does seem as though it is aspirant jihadists in the West who find it easiest to use. There was no evidence that Gul was being directed by foreign terrorist organizations to produce his material, and his case shows the continued existence of young Westerners producing radical material on their own. It may indeed be the case that the virtual armies have yet to fully emerge as active warriors...