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Late last week it was learned that some 40 million charge cards were obtained using physical processing systems located in Target retail locations nationwide. Though no details of the how the hack attack was executed have been released by Target, the FBI or other agencies investigating the breach, it is likely that the processing machines themselves were compromised. Target claims that the hack was sophisticated, but on the technical side, once hackers found a way into the credit card processing machines, probably via remote entry from servers somewhere in Eastern Europe or Russia, the theft of credit card data itself...

Nude pictures of former French first lady Carla Bruni were used to break in to the computer systems of dozens of diplomats. The shocking security breach was first discovered at the G20 summit in Paris in February 2011 and may be ongoing. "To see naked pictures of Carla Bruni click here" said a message sent to those attending, who included finance ministers and central bank representatives. Once accessed, it infected the computers of senior officials as well as forwarding the offensive email on to others. "Almost everybody who received the email took the bait," said a government source in Paris,...

Installing smart-home automation systems can be pricey, which is why designer Roger Yiu is giving consumers a back door to controlling your home on your mobile — the Smart Power Strip app. The Smart Power Strip lets you power on and off any device you can plug into a conventional wall outlet. You can also set timers and read your electricity usage in real-time, all from your smartphone.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Ben in Westchester County in New York. I'm glad you called, sir. Thank you for your patience. Hello. CALLER: Rush, I've been calling you since I was a young man. Now I'm a senior citizen. RUSH: (laughing) CALLER: Honestly, it's a great pleasure to be able to speak to you finally. RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. CALLER: I have a couple things, couple of comments I'd like to make about Obamacare. RUSH: Yeah. CALLER: One, I think that it should be broadcast that nobody in America that's got so much as a Social Security...

Yesterday, the House Homeland Security Committee published a video on their Youtube page highlighting a portion of the committee questioning Roberta Stempfley, acting assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Cyber-security and Communications, who confirmed at least 16 attacks on the Affordable Care Act’s portal Healthcare.gov website in 2013. Roberta Stempfley highlighted one successful attack that is designed to deny access to the website called a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. A DDoS attack is designed to make a network unavailable to intended users, generally through a concerted effort to disrupt service such as repeatedly accessing...

Activist hackers linked to the collective known as Anonymous have secretly accessed U.S. government computers in multiple agencies and stolen sensitive information in a campaign that began almost a year ago, the FBI warned this week. The hackers exploited a flaw in Adobe Systems Inc's software to launch a rash of electronic break-ins that began last December, then left "back doors" to return to many of the machines as recently as last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a memo seen by Reuters. The memo, distributed on Thursday, described the attacks as "a widespread problem that should be...

ALBUQUERQUE, NM, November 14, 2013 (Operation Rescue) - The campaign website for a pro-life group supporting the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance in Albuquerque, New Mexico has been hacked and e-mail meant to go to the pro-life PAC ABQ Voters For Late Term Abortion Ban has instead been redirected to the abortion-supporting group Respect ABQ Women, which is opposing the Ordinance. The Pain Capable ordinance, which goes to a vote on November 19, is the first of its kind to be proposed at the municipal level and would ban abortions after 20 weeks within the Albuquerque city limits, where...

HealthCare.gov is ripe for cyber attacks targeting personal information, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee charged Wednesday. The site is vulnerable bcause the federal agency charged with ensuring the security of government websites played virtually no part in its development, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said. Apart from two e-mails and a phone call, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not participate in the Centers’ for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) development of the enrollment portal for the landmark health law, McCaul said. “DHS had effectively no input into the security of HealthCare.gov, despite it being arguably the most...

The Obamacare website has more than annoying bugs. A cybersecurity expert has found a way to hack into users' accounts. Until the Department of Health fixed the security hole last week, anyone could easily reset your Healthcare.gov password without your knowledge and potentially hijack your account. The glitch was discovered last week by Ben Simo, a software tester in Arizona. Simo found that gaining access to people's accounts was frighteningly simple:

Syrian Electronic Army, the hacker group of Syria that supports the Assad regime has undertaken responsibility for hacking the link of Obama’s campaign on Monday. The group said that it redirected the shortened service links of Twitter and Facebook accounts of the President to one among the propaganda videos of the group. This admission from the Syrian group arrives just a day before Obama hosts a discussion about cyber security with top notch CEOs who belong to various sectors such as Information Technology, defenseand energy. Syrian Hackers Claim Twitter And Facebook Accounts Of Obama

CryptoLocker: A particularly pernicious virus   By Susan Bradley on October 24, 2013 in Top Story Online attackers are using encryption to lock up our files and demand a ransom — and AV software probably won’t protect you. Here are ways to defend yourself from CryptoLocker — pass this information along to friends, family, and business associates. Forgive me if I sound a bit like those bogus virus warnings proclaiming, “You have the worst virus ever!!” But there’s a new threat to our data that we need to take seriously. It’s already hit many consumers and small businesses. Called...

Obamacare websites have "no safeguards" to protect Americans who enroll in the health insurance exchanges from hackers who will "empty your bank account," according to internet security pioneer John McAfee. McAfee said he could create a fake Obamacare exchange website for "a couple hundred dollars" and expect a big return on the scam. "I'll ask you your social security, your date of birth, [so] an hour later I can empty your bank account," he told Fox News' Gretchen Carlson. "And this is going to happen, it's going to happen soon. Nothing in the Obamacare system safeguards against this," he said....

The website and personal credit card information of former Gov. Sarah Palin were cyber-attacked today by Wikileaks supporters, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate tells ABC News in an email. Hackers in London apparently affiliated with “Operation Payback” – a group of supporters of Julian Assange and Wikileaks – have tried to shut down SarahPac and have disrupted Sarah and Todd Palin’s personal credit card accounts. “No wonder others are keeping silent about Assange's antics,” Palin emailed. “This is what happens when you exercise the First Amendment and speak against his sick, un-American espionage efforts.” Palin has criticized Wikileaks founder...

Oh, it’s seriously bad. Somebody made a grave error, not in designing the program but in simply implementing the web aspect of it. For example, anybody can put up a web page and claim to be a broker for this system. There is no central place where I can go and say, OK, here are all the legitimate brokers, the examiners for all of the states, and pick and choose one. Instead, any hacker can put a website up, make it look extremely competitive, and because of the nature of the system — this is health care, after all —...

Adobe announced Thursday that it was the victim of a hack and that personal data for 2.9 million users were stolen. The software company, known for Photoshop and other programs, said cyber attackers were able to access user information, including account IDs, encrypted passwords as well as credit and debit card numbers. The hackers were able to erase data of some Adobe users. The hackers also illegally accessed source codes for numerous Adobe products. That's like stealing the secret formula for Coca-Cola. The company did not specify which users of its various software programs were hit. "We deeply regret that...

Hackers claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous launched a widespread cyber attack on Israeli citizens, government institutions, and corporations on Wednesday, according to Internet chatter and postings from the self-described hackers. The attack is purportedly being carried out by a nebulous group of hackers who claim affiliation with both Anonymous and the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), which supports embattled President Bashar al Assad. Timed to occur on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the hackers took aim at Israeli banks and government websites over what they claimed are the Jewish state’s multiple crimes. The hackers alternately blamed Israel for...

Anonymous launched #Op SyrianStorm two weeks ago. It is an intensive anti-war phone and email campaign targeting U.S. politicians and media outlets. It started two weeks ago, and is still ongoing. Visibly, participants of the operation are calling senators and congressmen, emailing the president and posting anti-war information on large media outlets' Facebook pages. It is what is going on behind the scenes that make this campaign unlike the many other anti-war crusades. Anonymous is manipulating the search results of major internet outlets to show users information relevant to opposing the war, rather than what they see as propaganda supporting...

Pro-Assad computer hackers today broke into the Marine Corps recruiting website, redirecting visitors to a screed that called President Barack Obama "a traitor who wants to put your lives in danger to rescue al- Qaida insurgents." A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed that the site, marines.com, was tampered with and redirected temporarily, but no information was put at risk.

The Washington Post’s Web site was disrupted Thursday morning by a hacker group sympathetic to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that apparently launched a coordinated wave of attacks on American news outlets. A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army briefly infiltrated The Post’s Web site and redirected readers of some stories to the SEA’s site. The organization supports Assad, who has led a long, bloody campaign to crush a rebellion in Syria. The intrusion lasted for about 30 minutes and affected a number of foreign-news stories. “We’ve taken defensive measures, and at this time there are no other issues affecting...

"When people don't see stuff on Google, they think no one can find it. That's not true." That's according to John Matherly, creator of Shodan, the scariest search engine on the Internet. Unlike Google, which crawls the Web looking for websites, Shodan navigates the Internet's back channels. It's a kind of "dark" Google, looking for the servers, webcams, printers, routers and all the other stuff that is connected to and makes up the Internet. (Shodan's site was slow to load Monday following the publication of this story.) Shodan runs 24/7 and collects information on about 500 million connected devices and...