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Saudi hacker dies of asthma attack A Saudi hacker known just as "Cyber Terrorist" died in Riyadh after suffering an apparent acute asthma attack caused by the dust storm that hit the Saudi capital last week, UAE’s al- Bayan newspaper reported on Saturday. The 28-year-old hacker was known for penetrating the most well protected sites including Microsoft, Kaspersky, Milworm, besides the server of another hacker known as the king of hackers Kevin Mitnick. In addition to numerous Jewish sites, banks and major companies, he was also able to hack into the site of the Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures...

Six members of the suspected computer hacking groups affiliated with Anonymous were charged—including the suspected ring leader, who directed the entire operation from a Manhattan apartment complex—after it was revealed one of the group's most high profile members has been working with federal authorities for months. Hector Monsegur, a 28-year-old American believed to use the name "Sabu" on the internet, was arrested by federal agents last year and has been cooperating with law enforcement ever since, officials said. He pleaded guilty last August, a plea unsealed in federal court in Lower Manhattan today. At least four of the five other...

Anonymous hackers threaten "crusade" against Israeli websites10 Feb 2012 The world-wide internet hacker network ‘Anonymous’ has released a video threatening a cyber war against Israel.. urging hackers from across the Arab and Muslim world to target the websites of the Jewish state.http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/11308/anonymous_hackers_threaten_crusade_against_israeli_websites

Saudis laud credit card hacking scheme Ynetnews - Jan 4 - 2012 Scheme widely reported in Saudi-Arabia as web surfers welcome damage caused to Israelis. ‘Jews are the most despicable, Hitler was right,’ one talkbacker says Roi Kais Published: 01.03.12, 19:56 / Israel News [...] “If I were a hacker I would wish for 800000 credit cards to be leaked, not just 400000,” one ... The responses were mostly hostile towards Jews and Israel. ...http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4170888,00.htmlSaudis Claim Credit For Hack Of Israelis’ Credit Cards Tuesday, January 3, 2012 Adam Dickter Assistant Managing Editor A group of Saudi hackers calling themselves Group...

Anonymous, which has been responsible for cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, News Corp, and others, has vowed to destroy Facebook on November 5th (which should ring a bell). Citing privacy concerns and the difficulty involved in deleting a Facebook account, Anonymous hopes to "kill Facebook." The full text of the announcement, made on YouTube and reported by Village Voice, is below: Operation Facebook DATE: November 5, 2011 Attention citizens of the world, We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows: Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a...

While Sabu and Topiary are firmly on the inside, the likes of The Jester and LulzSec Exposed are most certainly notInside Sabu Apparent founder and leader of LulzSec, he is a long-time hacktivist associated with senior Anonymous members. Decides who can join the group and who should be targeted. Attempts by rivals to uncover details about his real-life identity suggest he is a 30-year-old IT consultant skilled in the Python programming language who has lived in New York. The timing of some his tweets – tweeting "goodnight all" at 0700 BST, or 0200 New York time – implies he is...

Probe Seeks N.Korean Hand in Bank Server Breakdown The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office has discovered suspicious Internet protocol addresses of Chinese origin on a laptop owned by an employee of IBM Korea, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation's network maintenance subcontractor, it said Tuesday. Prosecutors are probing a massive breakdown in the bank's computer system last week. The laptop is believed to have been the main source of the breakdown on April 12. The NACF is also known as Nonghyup. Prosecutors said they found that of hundreds of domestic and foreign IP addresses connected to the laptop, on which pre-set...

Volunteers download attack tool, organizers recruit hacker botnets, say researchers Computerworld - The retaliatory attacks by pro-WikiLeaks activists are growing in strength as hackers add botnets and thousands of people download an open-source attack tool, security researchers said today. In recent days, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have been launched against several sites, including those belonging to Amazon, MasterCard, PayPal and the Swiss payment transaction firm PostFinance, after each terminated WikiLeaks accounts or pulled the plug on services. As of Thursday, WikiLeaks had posted the full text of more than 1,200 leaked U.S. State Department cables from its trove of over...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to prosecute Julian Assange for espionage. The founder of WikiLeaks "intentionally harmed the U.S. government," says Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. By releasing 250,000 State Department cables, he also violated the 1917 Espionage Act by transmitting "information which the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation," Feinstein, D-Calif., charged in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Tuesday. To John Perry Barlow, co-founder of San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation, "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of...

The website of MasterCard, the international credit card, has been hacked and partially paralysed by hackers, in apparent revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks. A group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous appear to have orchestrated a DDOS ("distributed denial of service") attack on the site, bringing its service at www.mastercard.com to a halt for many users. "Operation: Payback" is the latest salvo in the increasingly febrile technological war over WikiLeaks. MasterCard announced on Monday that it would no longer process donations to the whistleblowing site, claiming it was engaged in illegal activity.

In this seventh article in a series focusing on the need for improved information assurance and cyber situational awareness in the electric power industry, we continue a survey of government and industry consensus about the need for increased security of SCADA systems in the power industry. Cyberterror Impact, Defense Under Scrutiny The DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report for Aug. 4, 2004 included the following item summarizing work by Jon Swartz of USA TODAY: A coordinated cyberattack against the U.S. could topple parts of the Internet, silence communications and commerce, and paralyze federal agencies and businesses, government officials and security...

A piece of highly sophisticated malicious software that has infected an unknown number of power plants, pipelines and factories over the past year is the first program designed to cause serious damage in the physical world, security experts are warning. The Stuxnet computer worm spreads through previously unknown holes in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and then looks for a type of software made by Siemens and used to control industrial components, including valves and brakes. “It is not speculation that this is the first directed cyber weapon”, or one aimed at a specific real-world process, said Joe Weiss, a US...

A sophisticated worm designed to steal industrial secrets and disrupt operations has infected at least 14 plants, according to Siemens. Called Stuxnet, the worm was discovered in July when researchers at VirusBlokAda found it on computers in Iran. It is one of the most sophisticated and unusual pieces of malicious software ever created—the worm leveraged a previously unknown Windows vulnerability (now patched) that allowed it to spread from computer to computer, typically via USB sticks. The worm, designed to attack Siemens industrial control systems, has not spread widely. However, it has affected a number of Siemens plants, according to company...

Google's woes in China are a warning shot in the new Cold War of our time -- the fight for dominance of cyberspace. It's a conflict the United States can't afford to lose. Start by realizing that Google's decision to leave China was about far more than censorship. For the past year, Chinese government hackers have been trying push their way into Google's operating system. In recent attacks, they may have abused Google to access computers of some 200 US companies. That is, hacking Google gives China access not just to personal data about Chinese dissidents but any number of...

STD Carriers Disease Control and Prevention Services said they are looking for a cyber terrorist known as Mike Bascaino in the Poughkeepsie area. Basciano is believed to have accessed the computer systems of the International Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Carrier Registry over 100 times for the purpose of engaging in unauthorized disruptive activities to inflict harm on a group of individuals by means of harassment and defamation of character with a reckless disregard for the STD Carriers Early Warning Alert System for Venereal Disease Control. The offense took place on a Genital Herpes report created by a registered member in...

South Korean internet users, bothered by Japanese internet bashing of Korean gold medal figure skating star Yu-Na Kim, may be behind a massive denial of service (DoS) attack that has disabled one of Japan’s most popular message boards known as 2channel, Japanese and Korean media outlets reported on March 2nd (JST). On February 28th, the Japanese-language version of a South Korean news site, Joins.com, reported that a Korea internet site was trying to gather internet users for a joint attack aimed at taking down the parts of the 2channel (2ch.net) message boards known to be filled with ultra-nationalist Japanese rhetoric...

http://www.un.org "Welcome to the United Nations: It's Your World" # Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33849 UN joins forces with computer giants to tackle Internet terrorism 22 February 2010 – The United Nations and computer giants, including Microsoft and Google, are joining forces to identify ways to combat terrorists’ use of the Internet to recruit members, organize criminal acts and raise money. The UN Working Group on Countering the Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes is holding talks with CISCO, Symantec and others in the United States city of Seattle to examine the technical issues involved in...

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...

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...