Free Republic

LONDON - A well-organized group of hackers has engaged in an "industrial scale" attack designed to cull commercially and economically valuable data from vital computer networks across Britain, the government warned Thursday. In one of its most high-profile warnings about sophisticated electronic attacks, the normally secretive National Infrastructure Security Coordination Center said hackers believed to be from Asia have targeted parts of the country's "critical national infrastructure." The attacks have been going on for several months and have involved the communications, energy, finance, health, government and transport sectors, the NISCC said. Most of the attacks have been against central government...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (June 10) - E-mails claiming pop star Michael Jackson, on trial on sex abuse charges, has tried to kill himself are being spread by hackers as a means to break into computers, a British antivirus firm said on Friday. The hackers have sent e-mails with the subject "Re: Suicidal attempt" and the message text: "Last night, while in his Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson has made a suicidal attempt", said security software specialists at Sophos. Jackson is awaiting a California court verdict on charges of child molestation. The e-mail asks recipients to click on a link that takes them...

Spoofing flaw resurfaces in Mozilla browsersBy Joris Evers, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: June 6, 2005, 1:52 PM PT Forward inEMAILFormat forPRINT Web browsersSecurity threats A 7-year-old flaw that could let an attacker place malicious content on trusted Web sites has resurfaced in the most recent Firefox browser, Secunia has warned.The flaw, which also affects some other Mozilla Foundation programs, lies in the way the software handles frames, which are a way of showing Web content in separate parts of the browser window. The applications don't check whether the frames displayed in a single window all originate from the same...

Ezboard Inc. Victim Of Vicious Internet Attack By D.L. McCracken Jun 1, 2005, 11:30 Ezboard systems touted as the "largest online community network site on the planet", was virtually brought to its knees Tuesday as the result of "a very precise and malicious internet attack resulting in the loss of a significant amount of current and historical board postings and interrupted services across all systems", according to Ezboards' CEO, Robert Labatt's message to Ezboard members. Tuesday's attack caused denial of service errors throughout the system and affected millions of users across approximately 9,000 message boards. The attack resulted in massive...

CHICAGO, June 1 (UPI) -- A computer enthusiast downloads the latest saucy Paris Hilton ad, from the Carl's Jr. chain, from the Internet and sends it to his office colleagues. Later that evening, his company finds 67 of its 92 computers have been invaded and are being controlled remotely by hackers, who have sent out a million e-mails touting Viagra, the male potency supplement. "They did not realize that the 30 second clip had a virus attached to it," said Gregory Evans, chief executive officer of LIGATT Security, an IT consulting company in Los Angeles, referring to a client. By...

Simple question. Has EZBoard been hacked? Certainly, there is a major outage under way over there. There was a rumor of malicious code and hacking. I reckon a few of you also use EZBoard. I welcome your observations.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Angered by the growing number of Internet scams, online "vigilantes" have started to take justice into their own hands by hacking into suspected fraud sites and defacing them. These hackers have targeted fake websites set up to resemble the sites of banks or financial institutions in recent weeks, and have inserted new pages or messages. Some say "Warning - This was a Scam Site," or "This Bank Was Fraudulent and Is Now Removed." The efforts by the self-proclaimed "hero hackers" come amid a surge in online schemes known as "phishing" in which victims are lured to fake...

In an attempt to pre-empt computer hackers, Microsoft is developing "virtual" PCs to scour the web for previously unseen attack code. At the software giant's Cybersecurity and Systems Management lab, based in Washington State, US, researchers are building a squad of the virtual PCs - created in software rather than hardware - to explore the darker corners of the world wide web. To any website they visit, the machines appear to be a normal home computer. But the PCs are seeking out code designed to attack a computer and will sound an alarm if any code is executed in contravention...

"The website of a Catholic civil rights group was hacked over the weekend, apparently by Islamic extremists. William Donohue, president of the New York City-based Catholic League, said the breach began yesterday, one day after his comments about the controversial new Hollywood film on the Crusades, "The Kingdom of Heaven," were published in the New York Post. "

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 - The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach of a Cisco Systems network in which an intruder seized programming instructions for many of the computers that control the flow of the Internet. Now federal officials and computer security investigators have acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was only part of a more extensive operation - involving a single intruder or a small band, apparently based in Europe - in which thousands of computer systems were similarly penetrated. Investigators in the United States and Europe say they have spent almost a year pursuing the case involving...

PSP UMD format cracked; game ISOs appear Posted May 5, 2005, 6:36 AM ET by Barb Dybwad Related entries: Gaming, Handhelds Another step forward in the race to crack open the PSP: Paradox has worked out how to get a dump from a UMD disc, and has released the ISO files for several PSP games (Wipeout: Pure US, Ridge Racers Japanese, and Vampire Chronicles: The Chaos Tower Japanese). Also of note, UMD discs use the standard ISO9669 format, so the released ISOs can be burned to regular CDs or DVDs. Know that the games are not yet playable in this...

The Russian police's cybercrime division has warned that Russian hackers are the best in the world. "Everyone knows that Russians are good at maths," said Lieutenant General Boris Miroshnikov of the division known as Department K. "Our software writers are the best in the world, that's why our hackers are the best in the world." Speaking at the e-Crime Congress in London on Tuesday, Miroshnikov said that the casual teenage hackers of the past developed their techniques as they grew older. "It used to be naughty boys (doing this)," he said. "But now they've grown up. They realize if you...

Personal Data of 59,000 People Stolen By Associated Press March 22, 2005, 9:08 AM EST CHICO, Calif. -- Hackers gained personal information of 59,000 people affiliated with a California university -- the latest in a string of high-profile cases of identity theft. California State University, Chico spokesman Joe Wills said nearly all the current, former and prospective students, faculty and staff who were affected have been notified of the theft, which happened about three weeks ago. Hackers gained access to the victims' names and Social Security numbers. "We still have no indication that the information was used for anything other...

Freerepublic's Canadian cousin, Freedominion has been under hack seige for two days now. Noxious emails to all members yesterday were followed up today first by all comments being reworded as a profane reference to Republicans, and now by the following oddball words strewn throughout all posts: 'Limecat', H4X, KHAAAAAAAAN, ROAR and AKJREJOIFJKJEWOIUOIWE

There is a major troll attack at FD, 8 pages of garbage and still running. http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=35933&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Does anyone know if WorldNet Daily is down or not? I've been trying to get onto that site for a couple hours and no dice. Have they been hacked again?

e-mail sent says this as subject:: YOU WILL DIE SHORTLY!

Julia Pearlman, Brand Republic 13:40 31-01-2005 LONDON - An exclusive Channel 4 webchat hosted by Michael Moore, the director, writer and producer of 'Fahrenheit 9/11', was almost sabotaged in a planned attack by an American right-wing organisation trying to prevent Moore speaking to fans about his film. The webchat, the only one Moore has agreed to do in the last year, was launched to celebrate the UK TV premiere of the documentary film, a controversial expose of the Bush administration, on Channel 4 but was held up for an hour while IT technicians battled to get the chat back online....

By Justin Blum, Washington Post Staff Writer Fri, Mar 11, 2005 Hundreds of times a day, hackers try to slip past cyber-security into the computer network of Constellation Energy Group Inc., a Baltimore power company with customers around the country. "We have no discernable way of knowing who is trying to hit our system," said John R. Collins, chief risk officer for Constellation, which operates Baltimore Gas and Electric. "We just know it's being hit." Hackers have caused no serious damage to systems that feed the nation's power grid, but their untiring efforts have heightened concerns that electric companies have...

If money is the root of all evil, then hackers are evil incarnate. According to a security intelligence firm, more than half the cyber-attacks conducted in 2004 were carried out by criminals interested in only one thing: money. iDefense, a Reston, Va.-based supplier of security intelligence to both corporations and government agencies, delved into its private database of more than 100,000 malicious code attacks to publish analytical findings publicly for the first time, said Ken Dunham, the company's director of research. Using that database, iDefense tallied a record 27,260 attacks in 2004. Over 15,000 of those, or some 55 percent,...