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The rise of cyber attacks - and the call for global collaboration on solutions that reduce the threat - has led the United States Secret Service to become the sixth government agency to join Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program (TSCP). The move reflects a growing awareness of the need for a united effort and common solutions to defend against the advanced persistent threat of cyber attacks against nations and commercial organizations alike. High-profile attacks, such as GhostNet and the U.S. electrical grid infiltration, create the imperative for government agencies and private industry to work together on viable and robust solutions that...

“MI5 hiring Asian teenagers to fight cyber terror” London, September 21, 2009 First Published: 00:09 IST(21/9/2009) Last Updated: 02:44 IST(21/9/2009) SNIPPET: “MI5 head Jonathan Evans has told his staff that the recruits were essential to combat cyber terrorism which has been traced to China, Russia and Pakistan — the hackers have also intercepted messages from terrorists in Belmarsh maximum security prison, the newspaper said. In a report to Lord West, the Security Minister, Evans has revealed that during the summer over 1,000 hits were made on computers in Whitehall. Other targets have been air traffic control, power stations and the...

North Korea celebrated America’s Fourth of July by launching a wide-ranging cyber assault on websites in South Korea and the U.S., including that of the Treasury Department and Secret Service. The attack is not only a significant escalation by the DPRK, but a demonstration of how the U.S. remains vulnerable to a covert operation by a rogue state or terrorists that can be as devastating as a WMD attack. The North Korean offensive began after Lab 110, a group of top hackers working for the military, were given instructions in May to “destroy” the communication infrastructure of South Korea. One...

PCs Used in Korean DDoS Attacks May Self Destruct There are signs that the concerted cyber attacks targeting U.S. and Korean government and commercial Web sites this past week are beginning to wane. Yet, even if the assaults were to be completely blocked tomorrow, the attackers could still have one last, inglorious weapon in their arsenal: New evidence suggests that the malicious code responsible for spreading this attack includes instructions to overwrite the infected PC's hard drive. Update: This is already happening. Please be sure to read the updates at the end of this post. Original post: According to Joe...

Are the latest cyber-attacks directed against South Korea and the United States — presumably from North Korea — a major threat, or not? The Wall Street Journal touted them as “among the broadest and longest-lasting assaults perpetrated on government and commercial Web sites in both countries.” The New York Times was more dismissive:

A few days ago, I read this article "Spies 'infiltrate US power grid' ", and I thought, "Wow, that's hardly a surprise," but I blew it off. I disregarded it-not because Michael Jackson's funeral was on TV, or because I was preparing/partying/recovering from 3 days of straight BBQ party for the Fourth of July. No, I blew it off because we all suspected this kind of thing was always happening, always possible, and it's like the threat of nuclear war: awful, not something one wants to think about, and we kind of already know the consequences. Today, multiple papers are...

Do we retaliate for cyber attacks with cyber attacks? If not - WHY NOT?

WASHINGTON (AP) - A widespread computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of the Treasury Department, the Secret Service and other U.S. agencies, and South Korean government sites also came under assault.

N. Korea suspected to be behind cyber attack: source SEOUL, July (Yonhap) -- North Korea appears to have orchestrated the recent cyber attack that disrupted dozens of South Korean Web sites, including that of the presidential office, parliamentary sources said Wednesday, citing informal reports by the top spy agency. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) suspects North Korea or its sympathizers may have been behind the Internet attack against major South Korean Web sites of government agencies, banks and Internet portals, which was first detected Tuesday evening, according to the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The spy agency briefed...

WASHINGTON - A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime, The Associated Press has learned. The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, according to officials inside and outside the government. Some of the sites were still experiencing problems Tuesday evening.

An action by the US government is causing a flurry of not so complimentary comments across the internet. A group of 17 Uighur detainees who are on the road to release are being given laptops to train them for life outside Guantanamo. Army Lt. Col. Miguel Mendez oversees detainee classes, as well as the multilingual library and, now, the new virtual computer lab. “We’re getting them computer classes to prepare for their return.” Nury Turkel is a Uighur rights activist in Washington, D.C. He felt the computer training would “give hope to the men that their freedom is nearing” after...

""Wikileaks" explained in an earlier email that it was making public the information on Coleman's donors, including their credit card numbers, because of the "Coleman campaign's effort to impugn the election processes in the State of Minnesota." As a result of Wikileak's mass email of a spread sheet containing credit card information for thousands of Coleman donors, the Coleman campaign sent an email to its supporters today suggesting that they cancel their credit cards."

The chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission says homosexual activists have launched a criminal attack on his ministry. Recently, Dr. Ted Baehr says he learned about the distribution of a number of emails and blog posts that were supposedly from him or his organization. However, the emails were links to pornography, including homosexual content.

I am trying to take a look at http://www.blogtext.org/naturalborncitizen/ tonight. It is not coming up. As you may recall, FreeRepublic.com was hit by a denial of service attack on, was it Election Day? Also, after FR began publicizing the one-page article, Investigating Obama: Career Path Toward a Neo-Marxist Presidency, the site that stored the printable versions was attacked. Does anyone know what is going on with Donofrio's blog and its Web services, now?

I’m leaving blow-by-blow coverage of election results to the approximately one million sites that will be looking at them in detail all through the night, but in the true spirit of election day, here’s a really nasty trick to consider. As an article by Scott Berinato in this month’s Wired magazine describes, distributed denial-of-service attacks can shut down the web servers of companies and organizations within minutes, even if they’ve taken measures to protect themselves. How do they work? Hackers penetrate inadequately protected computers (yours?) and install software (a “bot”) that hides in the background until it’s triggered by a...

With uncharacteristic speed, Congress passed, and President Bush signed, the now infamous “bail out bill” on October 3rd. Following urgent, yet unsuccessful, pleas to the American people to back the bill, it flew through House and Senate before many Americans had time to distinguish who was at fault, Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. It was a national economic crisis – created by banks making bad loans, inflated values and enormous bonuses for CEOs. Or was that the full story? It was only days before the economic crises went from a national issue to a “global” one.

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

We hear on the internet underground that hackers and/or script-kiddies have declared an internet war against Fox News and columnist Bill O'Reilly and plan a cyber-assault for later today. Reportedly, parts of O'Reilly's site have already been compromised. This is serious business, no doubt. To get to the bottom of the issue, we spoke to an insider, a frequent poster on a certain well known online support group for young-adult agoraphobics where these things are planned and executed. He prefers to remain anonymous. (We starred-out the names of internet sites because, apparently, they don't like to be noticed.) G4: What...

NASHVILLE - State Rep. Mike Kernell said today that he was aware of Internet rumors about his son being the subject of speculation that he accessed the personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Asked whether he or his son, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, had been contacted by authorities investigating the break-in of Palin's account, he responded: "Me, no." As far as his 20-year-old son, David, he said: "I can't say. That doesn't mean he has or hasn't (been contacted by investigators)." Kernell, D-Memphis, cited the father-son relationship. He said he had talked to his son...

Chicago news conference: Obama author Andy Martin says Barack Obama has declared war on the First Amendment and unleashed his "Obamabots" on the opposition "Factually Correct, Not Politically Correct" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ATTENTION DAYBOOK/ASSIGNMENT EDITORS ANNOUNCEMENT OF CHICAGO NEWS CONFERENCE Obama opposition leader Andy Martin says "Obamabots" have launched an unprecedented "cyberwar" against anyone who stands up against or speaks out against Barack Obama Obama author Andy Martin is under attack from Obama's cyberwar minions (CHICAGO)(September 18, 2008) Legendary Chicago Internet columnist, public interest lawyer and Obama opposition leader Andy Martin will hold a Chicago news conference today to charge...

<p>Chicago radio station WGN-AM is again coming under attack from the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for offering airtime to a controversial author. It is the second time in recent weeks the station has been the target of an "Obama Action Wire" alert to supporters of the Illinois Democrat.</p>

By going public last week about hack attacks by China on computers in his congressional office, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) put the spotlight on a growing trend of cyber attacks on U.S. and foreign government officials. U.S. defense officials confirmed that Chinese military hackers had broken into computers at the Pentagon used for email within the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel complained directly to Chinese President Hu Jintao about Chinese attacks on German government computers, and European and Asian governments from France and Britain to Japan and South Korea have identified widespread Chinese hacking. U.S....

At Univ of Arizona, "The Dark Web project aims to scour Web sites, forums and chat rooms to find the Internet's most prolific and influential jihadists and learn how they reel in adherents. Lab director Hsinchun Chen hopes Dark Web will crimp what he calls "al-Qaida University on the Web," the mass of Web sites where potential terrorists learn their trade, from making explosives to planning attacks. Experts said they are not aware of any comparable effort, though some said the project may have only limited applications." more at [href]"Yahoo"[url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071111/ap_on_hi_te/dark_web;_ylt=Ag9H_IrfHRhz5S5Q_a_Hro9U.3QA[/url][/href]

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials. The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army. One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there...

Großangriffchen auf den Cyber-Dschihad Von Yassin Musharbash Am 19. Juli rief "jveritas" im Internet dazu auf, von ihm identifizierte Pro-Terror-Websites auszuschalten. Seine Idee war simpel: Die Hostingfirmen mit massenhaften Beschwerde-Mails dazuzubringen, die Seiten zu sperren. Und sie funktionierte auch - ein bisschen. Seit einem Monat herrscht im dschihadistischen Internet ein kleines Erdbeben. Ein knappes Dutzend prominenter Websites (so weit ich zählen kann) ist ihm bereits zum Opfer gefallen. Das Qaida-nahe Diskussionsforum "Das Paradies": bis auf weiteres geschlossen. Die Bekennerschreibenabwurfseite "Welt-Nachrichten-Netzwerk": eine Cyber-Ruine. Das Terroristen-Blog der englischsprachigen "Globalen Islamischen Medienfront": nicht mehr existent. Abgeschaltetes Blog von Terrorsympathisanten: Unter neuer Adresse schon...

Dear Patriots Many of us are not fighting the islamic terrorists on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere but for sure we can fight them on the internet. We should seek the shut down of any known terrorist website and forum to deliver a shocking and devastating psychological blow to the islamic terrorists and more importantly to destroy a major tool if not the major tool of their communications. As regular folks we have less legal challenges facing us to force a terrorist website shut down than if a government law enforcement agency tries to do it, so this...

Three men who used the internet to incite Muslims to wage murderous holy war against non-believers were jailed yesterday. They included Younes Tsouli, 23, who hosted a jihadi chat site, which attracted a message from a purported group of 45 doctors who wanted to use car bombs and grenade rockets to launch attacks in the US. Tsouli, who also ran a site which regularly featured beheadings, was imprisoned for 10 years. Tariq Al-Daour, who was also involved in a £1.8 million fraud, was jailed for six and a half years. The third man, Waseem Mughal, was given a seven-and-a-half-year sentence...

At first it would be no more than a nuisance. No burning skyscrapers, no underground explosions, just a million electronic irritations up and down the land. Thousands of government web pages suddenly vanish to be replaced with the Internet's version of the Testcard - that dreaded screen '404 - Not Found' or, more amusingly, some pastiche or parody. Then the Labour website starts to promise a wholesale renationalisation of the railways. The popular response this generates turns to amusement then bemusement as everything from Jaguar to BT is, the sites claim, to be taken back into state hands. When conservatives.org.uk...

London - US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said in an interview published on Friday that cyber attacks, such as the one unleashed on Estonia this week, will "become more of an issue" in the future. Estonia had urged its allies in the European Union and Nato to take firm action against the cyber attacks that have hit the Baltic state amid a bitter row with Russia over a Soviet war memorial. "We need to prepare ourselves because this is likely only to become more of an issue in the future," Negroponte told the Financial Times and other European...

Ahmadinejad Vows News Soon on Atomic Work -Full Story- Iran's president promised on Sunday Iranians would soon hear more news about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, which the West believes is a covert effort to build atomic bombs despite Tehran's denials."The Iranian nation will soon hear fresh news about our country's nuclear transition," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.He did not give details about any announcements or when the news would be released but Ahmadinejad is due to hold a news conference on Tuesday. Iran Warns Bush Not to Talk Unwisely Over Britons'...

Cyber terror threat is growing, says Reid By George Jones, Political Editor Last Updated: 4:07am BST 26/04/2007 Terrorists could attempt to cause economic chaos or plane crashes in an electronic attack on the UK's computer networks John Reid, the Home Secretary, said yesterday. Cyber terrorism could target air traffic control systems Mr Reid's warning of the "devastating consequences" of cyber terrorism came as he said the reshaping of the Home Office would enable him to "wake up and think about the security of the nation first and foremost every morning". The Home Office is to be split on May 9,...

Many of us know the Internet is overrun with scams and crooks. We only have to look at the spam that slips through our spam filters to get a taste. Less known is the fact that some of these Internet crooks are doing it to support Islamic terrorism. An example of this was recently revealed at a computer security conference, as two researchers described how they had worked their way into the Internet criminal underground, to find out how it operated, and came up against a group of hackers that also maintained several Islamic radical websites, and that used some...

<p>I don't think this has happened before.</p> <p>It's pretty earthshaking.</p> <p>1 February 2007 - Google's American news service news.google.com appeared to go down this afternoon presenting visitors to the site with nothing more than a 502 error.</p> <p>A 502 error normally means that the server has been temporarily overloaded, but as Google run a cluster of computers this would seem that a number of their datacentres have gone offline leaving the ones left running overloaded with the extra traffic.</p>

The federal governments Commerce Department admitted Friday that heavy attacks on its computers by hackers working through Chinease servers have forced the bureau responsible for granting export licenses to lock down Internet access for more than a month. Hundreds of computers must be replaced to cleanse the agency of malicious code including rootkits and spyware.

Anti-Israeli Cyberterrorist Attacks Planned for Tomorrow By Evan Kohlmann Participants on key Arabic-language Al-Qaida chat forums on the Internet have announced their intent to launch collective cyberterrorist attacks tomorrow, August 10, aimed at interrupting or denying service to other pro-Israeli websites--namely the "Internet Haganah" cyberterror watchdog site run by Aaron Weisburd. When I asked him what he thought of the purported threat, Aaron expressed strong skepticism that these efforts would produce any noticeable disruption in access to his site. He replied, "They have a reasonable chance of slowing down the responsiveness of one domain of the ten associated with the...

***scroll for updates...1230pm EDT Looks like the problem may be resolved, though several blogs still down...Glenn Reynolds confirms the attack originated in Saudi Arabia, as I suspected...Mary Katherine Ham of downed blog hughhewitt.com is guest-blogging over at Wizbang...Hugh's back up...looks like most are back up...update on Aaron's CC below...513pm EDT update several blogs reporting they are down again...*** Many Hosting Matters-hosted blogs are down--including Instapundit, Power Line, Hugh Hewitt, and tons of others large and small. Hosting Matters' own website is also down. Blogger Chuck Simmins e-mails: Denial of service attack on Hosting Matters. Most, if not all, their hosted...

Al-Qaeda is using hacking techniques as part of its war against the US, the head of a security company which works for the US military has claimed. Paul Innella, chief executive of Tetrad Digital Integrity, told last week's WebSec Conference that a laptop recovered from a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan revealed that the group has been researching hacking techniques. Innella claimed that the laptop contained information on how to map computer networks and exploit software vulnerabilities. He also said the laptop had software capable of modelling the impact of an attack on a US dam and calculating the damage...

It’s been two years since I first locked horns with a cyber jihadi by the name of Terrorist 007. I was working as the assistant director for the Northeast Intelligence Network (NEIN) and a writer for World Net Daily when I ran into Terrorist 007, or Irhabi 007, on the old Ansar forum, an Arabic language message board frequently used by Al Qaeda sympathizers. Irhabi 007 was bragging about his hacking abilities, in an attempt to weasel his way into the “in crowd” of vetted jihadis. Over the next few months, I watched as Terrorist 007 began to establish himself...

Muslim computer-hacker gangs have launched a massive attack on Danish and Western Web sites as part of the mass protests across the Arab world over the publication of cartoons making fun of the Prophet Mohammed. The cyber-crime monitoring group Zone-H.org said in a statement that more than 1,000 Danish, Israeli and European sites were defaced or shut down by Islamic hackers in the last week. And experts fear that's just the beginning of what could be a massive cyber-jihad stretching from the Middle East and Europe to the United States and dominating cyberspace for weeks, costing millions of dollars. "We...

Has cartoon rage in Denmark over the cartoons of Muhammad printed by the newspaper Jyllands Posten now taken the form of hacker attacks against that paper's website? "Denmark subject to islamic cyber-attacks," from the Dansk-Svensk blogspot, with thanks to Steen: from www.politiken.dk the 29 of jan. a German version will appear later today: New hacker attack paralyzes Jyllands-Posten The web version of Jyllands-Posten is off-line. Hackers pulled off another large attack on the website of the paper. The web version of the paper Jyllands-Posten, www.jp.dk, has again been knocked to the ground. The web paper is under attack by hackers....

September 4, 2005: Islamic terrorists are making progress in developing cyberwar weapons. More web sites dedicated to online terrorism are showing up (and often getting shut down quickly by intelligence agency, or vigilante hackers).) Some Islamic hacker organizations have even surfaced, like the "Jaish al-Hacker al-Islami," (the Islamic Hacker's Army). One aspect of all this that the Islamic hackers will not boast about, is the role of crime in the recent increase of terrorist hackers. Hacking has increasingly become a game for organized criminal gangs. That’s because there are so many businesses are on the web, and network software is...

LAS VEGAS -- Attention hackers: Uncle Sam wants you. As scam artists, organized-crime rings and other miscreants find a home on the Internet, top federal officials are trolling hacker conferences to scout talent and talk up the glories of a career on the front lines of the information wars. "If you want to work on cutting-edge problems, if you want to be part of the truly great issues of our time ... we invite you to work with us," Assistant Secretary of Defense Linton Wells told hackers at a recent conference in Las Vegas. Wells and other "feds" didn't exactly...

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Attention hackers: Uncle Sam wants you. As scam artists, organized-crime rings and other miscreants find a home on the Internet, top federal officials are trolling hacker conferences to scout talent and talk up the glories of a career on the front lines of the information wars. "If you want to work on cutting-edge problems, if you want to be part of the truly great issues of our time ... we invite you to work with us," Assistant Secretary of Defense Linton Wells told hackers at a recent conference in Las Vegas. Wells and other "feds" didn't...

Last year a German teenager named Sven Jaschan released the Sasser worm, one of the costliest acts of sabotage in the history of the Internet. It crippled computers around the world, closing businesses, halting trains and grounding airplanes. Which of these punishments does he deserve? A) A 21-month suspended sentence and 30 hours of community service. B) Two years in prison. C) A five-year ban on using computers. D) Death. E) Something worse. If you answered A, you must be the German judge who gave him that sentence last week. If you answered B or C, you're confusing him with...

Hacker Caught In January 2005, Jeremy Hammond and the hacker group collectively known as the "Internet Liberation Front" gained illegal access to the ProtestWarrior server. Thousands of customer credit card numbers were then stolen for the purpose of making millions of dollars in donations to various leftwing organizations. In early February, ProtestWarrior discovered the illegal breach and the identity of the criminals responsible. Using the hacker recruiting ground www.hackthissite.org, Jeremy Hammond put together and led a team of politically motivated "hacktivists" to probe the ProtestWarrior server for months until an exploit was found. When an obscure vulnerability was discovered in...

VERDEN, Germany - The teenager who created last year's Sasser computer worm was convicted Friday of computer sabotage and given a suspended sentence, a court official said. Sven Jaschan, 19, also was found guilty of illegally altering data, said Katharina Krueztfeld, a spokeswoman for the court in the northwestern town of Verden. He was given a suspended sentence of one year and nine months. Prosecutors had been seeking a suspended two-year sentence for the German teen who admitted he created last year's "Sasser" computer worm, court officials said. In closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors asked that Sven Jaschan be found guilty...

VERDEN, Germany -- A German teenager reiterated his confession to creating last year's "Sasser" computer worm as he went on trial Tuesday on computer sabotage and related charges, a court official said. The trial of Sven Jaschan, 19, was being held behind closed doors in the northwestern town of Verden because he was a minor at the time of the offense. He entered the courthouse through a side door and did not speak to reporters. After proceedings began, Jaschan "admitted to the alleged offenses in every detail," court spokeswoman Katharina Kruetzfeld said. Because defendants do not enter formal pleas under...

In January 2005, Jeremy Hammond and the hacker group collectively known as the "Internet Liberation Front" gained illegal access to the ProtestWarrior server. Thousands of customer credit card numbers were then stolen for the purpose of making millions of dollars in donations to various leftwing organizations. In early February, ProtestWarrior discovered the illegal breach and the identity of the criminals responsible. Using the hacker recruiting ground www.hackthissite.org, Jeremy Hammond put together and led a team of politically motivated "hacktivists" to probe the ProtestWarrior server for months until an exploit was found. When an obscure vulnerability was discovered in the PW...

A British man appeared in court today over allegations that he hacked into the US military computer system causing damage worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.Gary McKinnon, 39, faces extradition to the US over claims that he accessed 97 government computers over a one-year period. District judge Christopher Pratt granted him bail to reappear for an extradition hearing on July 27.He was ordered to provide £5,000 security, report to his local police station, not to apply for any international travel documents and not to use any computer equipment allowing him to access the internet as bail conditions. "On one instance,...

WASHINGTON - The CIA is conducting a secretive war game, dubbed "Silent Horizon," this week to practice defending against an electronic assault on the same scale as the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks. The three-day exercise, ending Thursday, was meant to test the ability of government and industry to respond to escalating Internet disruptions over many months, according to participants. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the CIA asked them not to disclose details of the sensitive exercise taking place in Charlottesville, Va., about two hours southwest of Washington. The simulated attacks were carried out five years in the future...