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Security experts are cautioning computer users that they could be targeted by a malicious SOPA “ransomware” virus that rekindles the witch-hunt targeting information sharing introduced last year by congressional lawmakers. Hackers have brought the failed Stop Online Piracy Act back to center stage, this time by distributing a virus that demands the owners of infected computers pay a $200 fine for sharing copyrighted files, lest they want their hard drives destroyed.

The House Intelligence committee isn't going so far as to say the Chinese government is trying to turn us into a nation of Manchurian Candidates by using Chinese-made smartphones. What it is saying, after a yearlong investigation, is that two Chinese telecommunications equipment makers, Huawei Technologies and ZTE, may, under the direction of the Chinese government, make the equipment they sell purposely vulnerable to cyber-security leaks. "We simply cannot trust such vital systems to companies with known ties to the Chinese state, a country that is the largest perpetrator of cyber espionage against the U.S.," said committee chairman Mike Rogers...

SNIPPET: "New York City is the center of a public uproar as Internet blogger Pamela Gellar rises with an “anti-jihad” ad campaign." SNIPPET: "Gellar and her group are protesting the Jihad, which in definition is the religious duty of Muslims. According to the Dictionary of Islam, jihad is defined as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad . . . enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.” The literal meaning of jihad, according to the British Broadcasting Network, “is struggle or effort, and it means much more than...

Bill Gertz has the grim news in the Washington Free Beacon: Hackers linked to China's government broke into one of the U.S. government's most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident. One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing's most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks. Disclosure of the cyber attack also comes amid heightened tensions in Asia, as the Pentagon moved...

Iranian hackers have repeatedly attacked Bank of America Corp (BA.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N) over the past year, as part of a broad cyber campaign targeting the United States, according to people familiar with the situation. The attacks, which began in late 2011 and escalated this year, have primarily been "denial of service" campaigns that disrupted the banks' websites and corporate networks by overwhelming them with incoming web traffic, said the sources. Whether the hackers have been able to inflict more serious damage on computer networks or steal critical data is not yet known. The...

Al-Jazeera has become the second news agency in a little more than a month to be targeted by pro-Syrian government hackers. The Qatar-based satellite TV station revealed in a tweet this morning that its short messaging service had been compromised and used to send false news reports, including a report that Qatar's prime minister had been assassinated:

PricewaterhouseCoopers told Whispers Wednesday that it has no evidence an anonymous group hacked its computer systems and stole GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns.

An anonymous individual or group claims to have obtained "all available" tax returns associated with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The alleged hackers claim to have accessed them via computers in the Franklin, Tenn., office of professional services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. An anonymous posting on a file sharing website claims PwC was hacked; the same site has been used to boast of other high-profile corporate hacks. How'd they pull it off, allegedly? The posting states: "[Romney's tax returns] were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of...

WASHINGTON — A hacker group has claimed to have obtained personal data from 12 million Apple iPhone and iPad users by breaching an FBI computer, raising concerns about government tracking, but the FBI said it never had the data. The group called AntiSec, linked to the hacking collective known as Anonymous, posted one million Apple user identifiers on Monday purported to be part of a larger group of 12 million obtained from an FBI laptop. The FBI initially had no comment on the reports, but later in the day issued a statement which cast doubt on the purported data breach,...

President Obama is an Apple user through and through. He answers Reddit questions from a MacBook, got an early iPad from Steve Jobs himself, and Rush Limbaugh even thinks Obama hacked Siri just to mess with him. But just because you’re the leader of the Free World doesn’t mean you’re not susceptible to AntiSec hacks too. The UDID for President Obama’s iPad may or may not have been among the more than 1 million UDIDs the AntiSec leaked this morning from the FBI’s databases.

On Friday, I wrote about how Gizmodo's Twitter account was hacked. It turns out that this was Apple's fault. Let's take a step back. Over the weekend, it quickly became clear that the bigger story was how the whole thing started. First, former Gizmodo employee Mat Honan's iCloud account was hacked. The hacker then remotely wiped his iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air, got into his Gmail account, his Twitter account, and finally Gizmodo's Twitter account. When this came to light, I updated my article with a link to Honan's blog: Emptyage. Once Honan regained access to his iCloud account, he...

Iranian nuclear facilities have reportedly been attacked by a “music” virus, turning on lab PCs at night and blasting AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Mikko Hypponen, Chief Researcher at Finnish digital security firm F-secure, publicly released a letter he received from an unnamed Iranian scientist. The researcher, who claimed to work for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said that another virus has struck the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran and a secret underground research facility at Fordo, southwest of Tehran. The letter’s author reported that the virus shut down equipment (made by Germany’s Siemens Corporation) and automated systems at...

A global fraud ring has been targeting high net-worth businesses and individuals has netted the criminals an estimated €60 million (£48 million). According to McAfee and Guardian Analytics which today issued a report on the fraud, "Dissecting Operation High Roller," the attacks, first identified this winter, have hit 60 or more institutions and the total amount stolen may in fact be may be much higher. The two security firms say they have tracked "at least a dozen groups" that are relying on "server-side components and heavy automation" with about 60 servers processing thousands of attempted thefts from commercial accounts and...

Business social network LinkedIn said Wednesday it is investigating reports that more than six million passwords have been stolen and leaked onto the Internet. Graham Cluley, a consultant with U.K. web security company Sophos, said in a blog post that a file containing more than six million encrypted passwords has been posted on the internet and hackers are working together to crack them. "Although the data which has been released so far does not include associated email addresses, it is reasonable to assume that such information may be in the hands of the criminals," he said. While LinkedIn did not...

Iran is recruiting a hacker army to target the U.S. power grid, water systems and other vital infrastructure for cyberattack in a future confrontation with the United States, security specialists will warn Congress Thursday. "Elements of the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] have openly sought to pull hackers into the fold" of a religiously motivated cyberarmy, according to Frank J. Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. Lawmakers from two House Homeland Security subcommittees will hold a joint hearing Thursday about the cyberthreat posed by Iran, as tensions over Tehran's nuclear program continue at a...

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer. Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down. The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org, that will inform them whether they're infected...

The hacking group “Anonymous” appeared to have shut down the Home Office website on Saturday night, in an apparent protest against extraditions of British citizens to the US and so-called “draconian surveillance proposals.” An apparent “denial of service” attack made it impossible to access the Home Office website for at least an hour. Those trying to access the website were instead confronted by a notice that “Due to a high volume of traffic this page is currently unavailable.” The attack appeared to have been partly in protest at extradition proceedings against Gary McKinnon, 46, who is accused of hacking US...

More than 600,000 Macs have been infected with a new version of the Flashback Trojan horse that's being installed on people's computers with the help of Java exploits, security researchers from Russian antivirus vendor Doctor Web said on Wednesday. Flashback is a family of Mac OS malware that appeared in September 2011. Older Flashback versions relied on social engineering tricks to infect computers, but the latest variants are distributed via Java exploits that don't require user interaction. On Tuesday, Apple released a Java update in order to address a critical vulnerability that's being exploited to infect Mac computers with the...

Vatican City, Mar 12, 2012 / 04:55 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The loose-knit group of hackers known as Anonymous have reportedly launched a second attack on the Vatican website, after failing in its initial attempt to bring the site down on March 7.The latest attack on Monday has not yet been confirmed or denied by the Vatican. The vice director of the Holy See's Press Office, Father Ciro Benedettini, said the March 7 attack was not successful, as the hackers failed to post their distinctive logo on the Vatican website.On March 12, the hackers stated on their Italian blog that...

For months, The Real Sabu, as he called himself on Twitter, boasted, cursed and egged on his followers to take part in computer attacks against private companies and government agencies worldwide. “Don’t give in to these people,” he wrote on Monday, ridiculing “cowards” in the federal government. “Fight back. Stay strong.” It turns out that Sabu had become an informant for federal law enforcement authorities. On Tuesday, in what could be one of the biggest breakthroughs in the government crackdown on a loose, large confederation of politically inspired “hacktivists,” he was unmasked and revealed to have helped the authorities catch...