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If, like many others, you think nothing of borrowing a friend or colleague’s charging cable, or plugging into a spare one in the office, or even asking for one from a hotel reception desk, then here’s something that might give you pause. How do you fancy an iPhone charging cable that looks like an Apple original and acts like one as well, but which will tap into a connected device and steal all its secrets, and which has its own radio transmitter to send all that stolen data over the air to a waiting attacker.

TAMPA, Fla. - Prosecutors announced the arrest of a Tampa teenager believed to be the mastermind behind the hacking of prominent Twitter accounts. Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested in Tampa on July 31 and faces 30 felony charges for scamming people across America, perpetuating the “Bit-Con” hack of prominent Twitter accounts including Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Elon Musk on July 15. He will be charged as an adult, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice conducted a nationwide investigation, locating and apprehending the teen in Hillsborough County.

The Department of Justice announced Tuesday it has charged two Chinese hackers with trying to steal U.S. COVID-19 research as well as other sensitive information from businesses and government agencies. The 11-count indictment against Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 31, alleges the Chinese nationals hacked into the computer systems of hundreds of companies, government organizations as well as individual dissidents and clergy. They also allegedly broke into the accounts of democratic and human rights activists in the United States, Hong Kong and mainland China. The Justice Department alleges their decade-long con was not only for personal financial gain but...

First Cypriot National Extradited from the Republic of Cyprus to the United States Under Extradition Treaty A Lebanese national wanted in Florida who is alleged to have conspired to engage in, and actually engaged, in the laundering of drug proceeds through the use of the black market peso exchange in support of Hezbollah’s global criminal-support network and a Cypriot national who is wanted in the Northern District of Georgia and the District of Arizona for cyber intrusion and extortion, were both extradited yesterday from the Republic of Cyprus to the United States.“These successful extraditions demonstrate the commitment of the...

A Twitter insider was responsible for a wave of high profile account takeovers on Wednesday, according to leaked screenshots obtained by Motherboard and two sources who took over accounts. On Wednesday, a spike of high profile accounts including those of Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Uber, and Apple tweeted cryptocurrency scams in an apparent hack. "We used a rep that literally done all the work for us," one of the sources told Motherboard. The second source added they paid the Twitter insider. Motherboard granted the sources anonymity to speak candidly about a security incident. A Twitter spokesperson...

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote Wednesday that his computer had been hacked and that someone was "using it to download child pornography." “Someone compromised my IP address and is using it to download child pornography,” Krugman said in a tweet to his 4.6 million followers. “I might just be a random target. But this could be an attempt to Qanon me," he added. "It’s an ugly world out there.” Krugman, 66, later tweeted that his employer was "on the case" and indicated he would be deleting his original post, stating that the Times told him the incident "may...

If you’re a law enforcement official who has more allegiance to ideology than to the law or to the country, where does that get you? For former FBI analyst Mark Tolson, the answer is jail — however briefly. Tolson is best-known — if he’s known at all — as the man who broke into a pro-Trump operative’s email account in October 2018, took screen-shots of some of the messages, then sent images to a reporter and offered the reporter the password, according to Politico. The unnamed member of the media turned down the opportunity. Tolson, 60, said he did it...

Full Title: Former Operator of Illegal Booter Services Sentenced for Conspiracy to Commit Computer Damage and Abuse Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, November 15, 2019 An Orland Park, Illinois, resident was sentenced yesterday to 13 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release on one count of conspiracy to cause damage to internet-connected computers for his role in owning, administering and supporting illegal booter services that launched millions of illegal denial of service, or DDoS, attacks against victim computer systems in the United States and elsewhere. Chief U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle...

MILWAUKEE – A Milwaukee couple says their smart home was hacked after their camera began talking to them, and their thermostat reached upwards of 90 degrees. The Westmoreland family installed a Nest camera, doorbell, and thermostat in their home in 2018. They had no problems until they heard a voice talking through a camera in their kitchen.

Researchers say suspected nation-state hackers infected Apple iPhones with spyware over two years in what security experts on Friday called an alarming security failure for a company whose calling card is privacy. A mere visit to one of a small number of tainted websites could infect an iPhone with an implant capable of sending the smartphone owner's text messages, email, photos and real-time location data to the cyberspies behind the operation. "This is definitely the most serious iPhone hacking incident that's ever been brought to public attention, both because of the indiscriminate targeting and the amount of data compromised by...

Jackson Cosko, who calls himself a “Democratic Political Professional” with cybersecurity expertise, is accused of multiple crimes for allegedly doxxing Republican Senators during the Brett Kavanaugh/Christine Blasey Ford hearings. Jackson Cosko has now been sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the matter. The United States Capitol Police arrested Cosko, saying he allegedly “posted private, identifying information (doxing) about one or more United States Senators to the internet,” a statement said. On October 9, 2018, a judge said Cosko should continue to be held without bond. According to Legistorm, he worked for U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan...

“I can absolutely make a big traffic problem all over the world,” the hacker said. On some cars, the software has the capability of remotely turning off the engines of vehicles that are stopped or are traveling 12 miles per hour or slower, according to the manufacturer of certain GPS tracking devices. By reverse engineering ProTrack and iTrack’s Android apps, L&M said he realized that all customers are given a default password of 123456 when they sign up. ProTrack is made by iTryBrand Technology, a company based in Shenzhen, China. iTrack is made by SEEWORLD, a company based in Guangzhou,...

Reuters reporter Joseph Menn exclusively revealed on Friday that Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke belonged to one of the best-known groups of computer hackers as a teenager. Within minutes, his special report was the most popular story on Reuters.com here and was picked up by other news outlets. But the origin of the story goes back more than two years. Members of the group, which calls itself Cult of the Dead Cow, protected O’Rourke’s secret for decades, reluctant to compromise the former Texas Congressman’s political career. After more than a year of reporting, Menn persuaded O’Rourke to talk on the...

<p>Nest urged owners of its security cameras Tuesday to use enhanced authentication to thwart hackers, after one terrified a family with a hoax nuclear missile attack.</p> <p>A couple living in a California town near San Francisco told local media they experienced "sheer terror" over the weekend when a Nest security camera atop their family's television issued a realistic-sounding warning of missiles heading to the United States from North Korea.</p>

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has today issued an "emergency directive" to all federal agencies ordering IT staff to audit DNS records for their respective website domains, or other agency-managed domains, within next 10 business days. The emergency security alert came in the wake of a series of recent incidents involving DNS hijacking, which security researchers with "moderate confidence" believe originated from Iran. Domain Name System (DNS) is a key function of the Internet that works as an Internet's directory where your device looks up for the server IP addresses after you enter a human-readable web address (e.g.,...

The largest collection of breached data in history has been discovered, comprising more than 770m email addresses and passwords posted to a popular hacking forum in mid-December. The 87GB data dump was discovered by the security researcher Troy Hunt, who runs the Have I Been Pwned breach-notification service. Hunt, who called the upload Collection #1, said it was probably “made up of many different individual data breaches from literally thousands of different sources”, rather than representing a single hack of a very large service. But the work to piece together previous breaches has resulted in a huge collection. “In total,...

https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/09/hackers-report-cites-staggering-vulnerabilities-us-voting-systems/151637/ Hackers Report Cites ‘Staggering’ Vulnerabilities in U.S. Voting Systems By JOSEPH MARKS SEPTEMBER 27, 2018 04:19 PM ET The report from DEF CON’s Voting Village found one bug that alone could flip the Electoral College. Another has gone unfixed for 11 years.The number and severity of hackable vulnerabilities in voting machines across the U.S. is “staggering,” according to a Thursday report from computer security researchers at the DEF CON cybersecurity convention, which took place in August in Las Vegas. Among other vulnerabilities, the report cites a voting tabulator that can be remotely hacked and is in use in 23 states. “Because the...

"REVEALED: Chinese Govt. Killed and Imprisoned 18-20 CIA Spies After Penetrating Hillary Clinton’s Private Server" Hillary’s carelessness and criminal actions may have led to the deaths of 20 CIA operatives in China. The Chinese government killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA operatives in China from 2010 to 2012. At the same time a Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington, D.C., area hacked Hillary Clinton’s private server throughout her term as secretary of state. The Chinese government was obtaining Hillary Clinton’s emails in real time.

it turns out that while most hackers might not be able to get into Apple’s servers, a sixteen-year-old Australian with a passion for Apple managed to do it, stealing some 90GB of secure files and accessing customer accounts in the process. The best part is that he stored it all in a folder called “hacky hack hack.”

The Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday convicted an Israeli hacker, who had terrorized institutions in the United States and airlines from his home in the southern city of Ashkelon, of thousands of counts of extortion and making false statements. The hacker was on trial on trial for making hoax bomb threats against Jewish community centers in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel for several months. ...