Criminal Hackers

LulzSec hackers--just having a laugh?

At first glance it appeared that the Web site of the LulzSec hacker group had been seized by the feds. But it turned out to be just another prank, the latest in a series of "lulz" that hackers do when they are not taunting Sony, FBI partners, and others.

Despite the official looking Justice and Homeland Security department symbols and notice saying "this domain name has been seized by ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) - Homeland Security Investigations," the page was a hoax. A search of Whois showed that the domain "www.lulzsecurity.org" … Read more

Attacks on Sony, others show it's open hacking season

There seems to be a groundswell of hacking activity recently. From the Epsilon breach that touched dozens of major U.S. companies and their millions of customers, and RSA replacing its customers' SecurID tokens after attacks on several defense contractors to Sony sites getting pummeled by hackers on a regular basis--all within the last few months.

What's going on?

"I truly don't think there's a higher instance of hacking right now. I think there's been a wave of media coverage," said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer of BT and one of the most … Read more

Hackers taunt Sony with more data leaks, hacks

The LulzSec hacker group today released what it describes as 54MB of source code from the Sony Computer Entertainment Developer Network as well as internal network maps of Sony BMG, while Sony Pictures Russia and Sony Music Brazil also were attacked.

"Konichiwa from LulzSec, Sony bastards!" the group wrote in a post on the Pirate Bay peer-to-peer sharing site. The message continues:

"We\'ve recently bought a copy of this great new game called \"Hackers vs Sony\", but we\'re unable to play it online due to PSN being obliterated. So we decided to play … Read more

Adobe issues fix for Flash hole being used in attacks

Adobe has released an emergency fix for a bug in Flash Player that is being used to try to trick Gmail users into clicking on a malicious link in an e-mail message in order to forward e-mail messages to an attacker's account, an Adobe spokeswoman said today.

"The user receives an email and is tricked into clicking on a malicious link. When the user is logged on to a Gmail session and visits the site, this new (attacker's) forwarding address has been added to the user's account," because Gmail enables you to forward e-mails automatically … Read more

China linked to new breaches tied to RSA

Recent attacks on three U.S. defense contractors could be tied to cyberespionage campaigns waged from China, several security experts told CNET.

The incidents at Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, and Northrop Grumman appear to stem from a breach at RSA in March in which data was stolen related to RSA's SecurID two-factor authentication devices--widely used by U.S. government agencies, contractors, and banks to secure remote access to sensitive networks.

Lockheed confirmed to The New York Times on Friday that hackers had used data stolen in the RSA breach and other methods to figure out the coded password of … Read more

Exclusive: CEO says hackers tried to extort data, money

Karim Hijazi knew his nightmare was just beginning when he saw that a mysterious e-mail had arrived in his inbox at 3 a.m. on May 26 that included his e-mail password and the subject line "Let us talk."

That would mark the beginning of a weeklong saga of e-mail exchanges and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) discussions in which Hijazi says a group of hackers told him they wouldn't publicly divulge information they had gotten from snooping on his accounts if he revealed sensitive security information acquired by the botnet-tracking firm, Unveillance, that he launched last year. … Read more

Hackers target Sony, Nintendo and FBI partner Web site

Hackers went on a rampage late today, targeting Sony Europe, Nintendo, and the FBI-affiliate InfraGard Atlanta in a series of intrusions and security compromises that appears to have exposed passwords of some Sony and federal government employees.

The moves follow reports of hacks hours earlier that involved Acer Europe, Iran, NATO, and the United Arab Emirates.

Sony, whose business units globally have suffered what amounts to about a dozen different computer intrusions already over the past two months, was again targeted. Someone identified as Lebanese hacker Idahc, who targeted Sony Ericsson last week, appeared to have compromised the e-commerce site … Read more

Report: Data stolen in RSA breach used to target defense contractor

Defense contractor L-3 Communications told employees that attackers used SecurID information stolen from RSA in March to target L-3, according to a report.

"L-3 Communications has been actively targeted with penetration attacks leveraging the compromised information," said an April 6 e-mail from an executive at L-3's Stratus Group to the group's 5,000 workers, which Wired published yesterday after receiving it from an unidentified source. The source reportedly said SecurID is used for access to an unclassified corporate network, but not classified networks.

It is unclear if the attack was successful. "Protecting our network is … Read more

Updated rogue AV installs on Macs without password

A new version of rogue antivirus malware that targets the Macintosh operating system does not need victims to type in their administrator passwords to install and infect the machine, a security company said today.

The latest version of the malware has been overhauled to look like a native Mac OS X application and is using the application name MacGuard, according to an Intego blog post. But particularly concerning is the fact that unlike previous versions, which were dubbed Mac Defender, MacProtector, and MacSecurity, MacGuard installs itself without prompting for the admin password.

"If Safari's 'Open safe files after … Read more