This 25-GPU cluster can cycle through 350 billion guesses per second and brute force any eight-character Windows password containing upper- and lower-case letters, digits, and symbols in under 6 hours. That is a total of 958 combinations in less than six hours. The GPU cluster is Linux based and features 25 AMD Radeon graphics cards…
Category: Computers & Programming
Spate of hotel breakins in Texas attributed to recent Brocious hotel keycard hack
In July 2012 at a Black Hat conference, Cody Brocious demonstrated how he could hack the keycard system used in hotels by spoofing the “portable programmer” device meant to be used for designating master keys and opening Onity brand locks whose batteries had died. With his $50 homemade device, he could insert the plug of…
For the third straight year, Feds swarm counterfeit websites taking 132 sites offline on Cyber Monday
For the third straight year, Feds have swarmed and seized websites selling counterfeit merchandise on Cyber Monday. The bust involved a coordinated and concerted effort between the United States, Belgium, Denmark, France, Romania, the United Kingdom. Federal law enforcement officials made undercover purchases on the suspected websites, purchasing items such as sports jerseys, DVD players,…
Cisco VP to employee who leaked embarrassing confidential memo to blog: “Finding you is now my hobby”
Network world ran an article last month in which they claimed that California State University was ousting Cisco and replacing their campus’ network equipment with thousands of Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitches. The cost of the project is $22 million. With Cisco products the costs would have been $122 million – $100 million more expensive. Cisco followed up…
Israel building out its elite “cyber warrior” combat group – Aman’s Intelligence Corps Unit 8200
The Jewish state is currently searching for young cyber-warriors to staff its Intelligence Corps Unit 8200 group, an elite cyber-warrior combat group led by Major General Ben Israel, in what it deems a high-priority operation. The move is in response to Iran’s new cyber command group which was formed more than a year ago. Most…
As Guy Fawkes day begins, sites stop dropping like flies – multiple NBC sites hacked
As November 5 dawned in European countries, those celebrating Guy Fawkes day (ahem, Anonymous) began dropping webistes like flies. Multiple NBC websites were hacked including the NBC mobile landing page, Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Fallon’s page, Jay Leno pages, and NBC Sports Rotoworld. Pages were replaced with various incarnations including a nice red on black…
Thieves take advantage of bank software bug to steal $1 million from cash advance machines without overdrawing accounts
Citigroup software includes a mechanism intended to prevent the same “cash advance kiosk” withdrawal from being posted twice to an account. If near identical, near simultaneous transactions are submitted, the system is programmed to ignore all but one of the transactions. Thieves in California and Nevada discovered the flaw and took advantage of it.
FBI announces Next Generation Cyber Initiative to track down and destroy cyber attack(er)s
The FBI has announced that they have put in place an initiative to uncover and investigate web-based intrusion attacks using a crew of specially trained computer scientists who are able to extract hackers’ digital signatures from the mountains of malicious code they have released on the world. The Next Generation Cyber Initiative’s key aim is…
Baffling Barnes and Noble credit card breach – hacked POS devices discovered in stores across United States [UPDATE]
It’s strange enough that Barnes and Noble did not notify customers about the data breach that leaked the customers’ credit card numbers; but the hack itself appears to be an insider job or a coordinated remote or wireless attack against Barnes and Noble credit card pin devices in stores across the United States. 63 stores…
NSA’s top secret spy center in Utah, world’s largest and most technologically advanced, is less than one year from completion
Photo by Unknown via Wired Magazine The heavily fortified, 925,000 square foot Utah Data Center (UDC), also known as the Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, is being constructed on the grounds of Camp Williams in Bluffdale, Utah at a cost of $2 billion, by the National Security Agency (NSA). According to the NSA,…








