The Army Corps of Engineers has admitted that an unauthorized Chinese user has hacked the National Inventory of Dams (NID) database in January 2013 and that the attack was not discovered until sometime in April. There are about 8,100 major dams in the U.S., and the NID database has information about all of them, including…
Category: Computers & Programming
Largest DDoS attack in history clogs Internet and emphasizes the need to correct Open DNS resolvers [UPDATE]
A 300 Gigabit per second denial of service attack has been crowned the biggest DDoS operation to date. For over a week, European spam-blocking service Spamhaus has been subjected to a brutal Denial of Service attack that has been so large, it has threatened to slow down the entire Internet infrastructure.
Long live the X Window display server! Except on Ubuntu Linux where it is being tossed out and replaced…
After three decades of life, Unix’s X Window display server is showing its age and Ubuntu Linux creators have decided enough is enough. In order to power the Unity user interface in Ubuntu on tablets and phones, Canonical says that the 1980’s-era X Windows display server has to go and in its place we will…
Gotcha! U.S. accuses three people of Gozi Trojan bank raid spree – now seeking extradition
Described as one of the most financially destructive computer viruses in history, the Gozi Trojan was coded to “redesign” bank web pages allowing the hackers to obtain private information such as login credentials and three-factor authentication data. Over the years it has infected Microsoft Windows computers in the US, UK, Germany, Poland, France, Finland, Italy,…
United States invites hackers – code for your country
The White House announced today that it will kick off a “National Day of Civic Hacking” on June 1 and 2 (2013) and is inviting those with tech know-how to use their coding skills to improve communities across the country. Participating government agencies will give hackers access to public data along with coding challenges that…
Users beware – yet another way to secretly save SnapChat pictures without the other user knowing it
Besides using another device to capture the SnapChat image and other “hacks” already discovered that makes SnapChat not quite so “snappy”, yet another hack has been discovered which lets users secretly capture screen shots of SnapChat’s “private” pictures without notifying the sender. SnapChat is the self-claimed “sext-friendly” application that lets users share sexy or naked…
Red October espionage platform begins shutting down after exposure on Monday
The Operation Red October espionage campaign was exposed on Monday (1/14/13) by Russian anti-virus software maker Kaspersky Lab. The Red October network was found to target hundreds of diplomatic, governmental, and scientific organizations in at least 39 countries, including the Russian Federation (the most frequent target), Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Belgium, India, Afghanistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and…
Java vulnerability said to be “massively exploited” and already present in most exploit kits
A previously unknown and currently unpatched vulnerability in the latest version of Java is being “massively exploited” according to researchers. Code that exploits the vulnerability has been added to Blackhole, Cool, Nuclear Pack, and Redkit exploit kits. The attack code is reportedly “highly obfuscated” meaning it’s likely getting past security checks. According to researchers, the…
Hollywood hacker sentenced to 10 years in prison for hacking personal accounts of celebrity stars
Signalling the conclusion of “Operation Hackerazzi”, a federal judge today sentenced Christopher Chaney, 35, of Jacksonville, Florida to 10 years in prison. Chaney had plead guilty to several counts including wiretapping and unauthorized access to a computer. Chaney allegedly accessed the personal email accounts of more than 50 people in the Hollywood entertainment industry between…
Expert unveils 25-GPU cluster that can crack any eight-char Windows password in less than 6 hours
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…








