Posts tagged Hackers at Switched

Posts with tag hackers

17-Year-Old Admits He Went on 3-Year Computer Crime Spree

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 19th 2008 at 5:45PM

In the online world, there are various levels of hackers. Lowest are the script kiddies, would-be miscreants who lack the skills to be a proper threat. Then there are the white hatters who infiltrate corporate and government networks largely just to see if they can -- often alerting the necessary authorities about the flaws. Worst are the skilled black hat hackers -- Dshocker was one of those, and arguably one of the most notable on the Web. Unfortunately (for him), he wasn't the most elusive, and he was sent to a juvenile detention facility for 11 months after being convicted of numerous crimes.

Dshocker is an unnamed 17-year-old kid from Massachusetts whose skills with computers got him into trouble. He not only led personal attacks against other online hackers, but was the leader of a large botnet and used his skills to make a number of bogus 911 calls. He was able to call emergency services and make it appear as if he was at one location, when in fact he was at another. He'd report that a violent crime was taking place, resulting in armed police storming the supposed origin of the call -- a dangerous situation for all involved.

Dshocker could have faced 10 years in prison had he been tried as an adult, but he managed to get away with less than a year in detention. We hope it's enough. [From: The Register]

Popular 'WPA' Wi-Fi Security System Cracked by Expert

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 7th 2008 at 7:56AM

WPA cracked in 15 minutes or less, or your next router's free

They always knew it could be done; that a hacker with enough time and processing power could watch your WPA-protected wireless network and, eventually, decrypt your precious datas. In under 15 minutes, though? "Inconceivable!" those hypothetical security experts would say -- but they're about to get a lesson from Wi-Fi wizard Erik Tews. He'll be giving a presentation next week at the PacSec Conference in Tokyo, describing the "mathematical breakthrough" that, he says, enables him to crack WPA-TKIP -- which, until now, has been considered one of the most secure ways to keep your Wi-Fi network private -- in 12 to 15 minutes.

There are some limitations, as the data sent from a connected device to the compromised Wi-Fi router is apparently still safe, but anything headed the other way is wide open, and could even be supplanted by bogus bits sent from a Cheetos-munching hacker slouching in a rusty Ford Taurus in the parking lot.

Don't believe us? Tews was the guy able to crack WEP in under a minute last year, ironically advising people to switch to WPA ASAP at the time. We can only assume WPA2 is next.

Obama and McCain Campaigns Infiltrated by Foreign Hackers

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Nov 6th 2008 at 5:40PM

Newsweek revealed yesterday that computers at both the Obama and McCain campaigns were hacked by a "foreign entity" during the campaign. Though the intrusions -- which started last summer and continued through September and October -- were detected by the campaigns, they were initially thought to be a simple virus or phishing attack. The day following the hacks, the FBI and Secret Service approached the Obama campaign and told them, "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand."

The end result was that the systems were compromised and large numbers of files were downloaded by the attacker or attackers. The FBI and the White House believe that the stolen information was related to policy positions and may be used to gain leverage over a future administration in negotiations. Agents assured the campaign that the attack did not originated with their political opponents. According to the report in Newsweek, the Obama team has speculated that the attack originated from China or Russia. To combat the intrustion, a security firm was hired to quickly plug up the holes in the campaign's computers.

The extent of the information obtained is not known, but judging from Bush's Chief of Staff Josh Bolton's comment to Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe ("You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it"), the FBI will be working tirelessly to find and out the culprits. [From: Newsweek]

World Bank Attacked By Hackers

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 13th 2008 at 5:20PM

Somehow, the World Bank has kept secret for the last 14 months that 18 of its servers were the target of a successful intrusion by an unidentified hacker or group or hackers.

Fox News uncovered the attacks after obtaining internal memos concerned with the incident. World Bank spokesman Carl Hanlon confirmed the authenticity of the memos to USA Today, but assured the paper that, "at no point was any sensitive information accessed." Many experts have reacted with skepticism to this assurance, however.

Sophisticated cyber attacks often leave little evidence that they ever happened, and often hide software on the target system to harvest data or continue to grant undetected access to the attacker.

Companies and government offices are continuously improving upon their cyber-security apparatus, but it always seems that the hackers are one step ahead. [From: USA Today]

Top 10 Unsolved Hacks

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 5th 2008 at 11:31AM

We've spent a decent amount of time covering hacks and hackers. But for all our talk about great (as in skilled) hackers there is one glaring mistake they've all made -- they got caught. The really skilled ones get away scot-free, sometimes with out even being identified by their handles.

PC Magazine has compiled a list of the ten most mysterious cyber-crimes, ones where the perpetrator got away and left investigators baffled. The list includes acts of protest and consumer heroism, such as Beale Screamer's FreeMe software that stripped DRM protection from DVDs; as well as disturbing attacks that compromised national security, like the 2000 theft of source code for military satellites by an intruder known only as Leaf. This year's intrusion at Hannaford Brothers and Sweetbay that compromised the credit card numbers of 4.2 million customers even made the list.

Check out the rest at the read link. [From: PC Magazine]

Click Here for the World's Most Famous Hackers

Hackers Targeting Stock Traders to Inflate Share Prices

by Dan Reilly, posted Sep 12th 2008 at 3:06PM

Yes, that's right. We have yet another scam to warn you about. This time, hackers are using online stock brokerages to make themselves rich in a fairly simple swindle.

Just like the pump and dump investment email scam we showed you, hackers are falsely inflating stock prices by illegally accessing multiple trading accounts, buying hundreds of thousands of shares of a stock they already own, wait for the price to go up, and then sell for a big payoff. Sounds easy enough, right? That's because it is.

An Indian man was recently sentenced to two years in prison for defrauding investors with this scheme and two others have been indicted. They targeted accounts at TD Ameritrade, Fidelity and E*Trade, and drove up costs on several different stocks. Apparently, this is a growing crime trend, so keep an eye on your account, if you have one. [Source: Wired]

Doctors Create 'Cloaking' Device to Protect Pacemakers from Hackers

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Aug 21st 2008 at 5:01PM

We're not sure if this is a sign of how low people will go or how paranoid our society has become, but scientists have developed a "cloaking" device for wireless pacemakers.

Wireless pacemakers are becoming increasingly prevalent, because they're less intrusive to monitor and can be adjusted remotely by doctors from a computer. What makes them useful, however, also makes them vulnerable to malicious hackers who could hijack the devices and put a patient's life at risk by shutting the pacemaker down or administering electric shocks. Sadly, that isn't a plot from a bad science fiction film -- hackers have already figured out how to wirelessly control pacemakers.

The device is designed to reject instructions that come from anyone other than the doctor, and it is worn like a wristwatch, making it easily concealable. Some doctors worry that the cloaking device may interfere with paramedics and physicians trying to administer emergency care, especially since the device could be hidden on a person.

One would hope that protecting pacemakers from hackers would be an unnecessary precaution to take, but the level of paranoia is understandable knowing that some people have sunk low enough to embed potentially seizure-inducing animated graphics on a Web site for epileptics. [From: Daily Mail]

Celebrity Bait-and-Switch Twitter Post Leads to Hacker Takeover

by Tim Stevens, posted Aug 12th 2008 at 7:15AM

Thought Twitter was just innocent (and frequently inane) updates about what your friends and associates? Think again. Enterprising online criminals have apparently started to zero in on the service as a way to distribute their bogus wares.

In this case, an apparently Brazilian Twitterer posted a link to a video purporting to be of a celebrity caught in a private moment. Naturally there was no video, only malicious software to take over your computer.

Clicking on the link prompted you to install what was supposed to be a version of Adobe's Flash, said to be required before you could view the video. The app was actually a fake, turning your machine into a zombie and letting those hackers take it over, use it as part of a distributed denial of service attack. That's a rather less enticing prospect than what was promised, so aren't you glad you don't install whatever websites tell you to? [Source: BBC News]

Russian Gang Hijacking PCs on a Massive Scale

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Aug 6th 2008 at 6:27PM

A new report in the New York Times says that Russian cyber-gangs are turning the tools of system administrators against them. The gang spreads an application called Coreflood by hijacking administrative accounts, then infecting the rest of the network through this trusted source. The malicious program turns the infected PCs into a vast network of computers working in unison to steal data and send spam called a botnet.

Coreflood is unique because it captures information displayed on screen, not just entered, so the criminals can check bank balances of victims without having to login to the account. Coreflood is also

Because the gang has infected almost 400,000 PCs through normally trusted sources -- essentially by getting the password and login information of network adminstrators (yes, the IT folks) -- law enforcement officials in the US and Russia are particularly concerned with the attack. They're reluctant to share too many details, though, as the investigation is still ongoing. [Source: NY Times]

Mobile Phones Next Big Target for Hackers

The Google Bomb is Dead....Long Live Google Bomb 2.0

by Tim Stevens, posted Jul 28th 2008 at 11:26AM

Though it may sounds like some sort of cyber-terrorist action, a Google bomb is pretty harmless -- it's more like a game than any sort of digital explosion. It's a concerted effort by a number of people online to convince Google that a certain term should be linked to a certain page, which exploits the search behemoth's own algorithms to their advantage. Just ask Stephen Colbert, who managed to get himself declared "World's greatest living American" -- at least as far as Google was concerned anyway. Now, though, Google is putting an end to the fun, saying it has fixed the problem -- or has it?

In the old days, all you had to do was get a couple-hundred people to link to the same page with the same phrase and, presto, you had a Google bomb (in other words, your page would pop up as the first result when someone searched for that phrase). With Google's tweaks, however, that kind of search result is supposedlu no longer possible, but bloggers (particularly of the political bent) have found a way around the fixes already. These folks are making concerted efforts to link to a set of articles with similar themes and similar titles, which increases the Google relevance of those articles and sends them up to the top of search results.

They're calling it Google Bomb 2.0, so we think Google perhaps has some more work to do. [Source: The Trail]

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