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WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department is recovering from large-scale computer break-ins worldwide over the past several weeks that appeared to target its headquarters and offices dealing with China and North Korea, The Associated Press has learned. Investigators believe hackers stole sensitive U.S. information and passwords and implanted backdoors in unclassified government computers to allow them to return at will, said U.S. officials familiar with the hacking. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the widespread intrusions and the resulting investigation. The break-ins and the State Department's emergency response severely limited Internet access at many...

<p>Hackers have penetrated internet banking facilities and gained access to the accounts of clients of three major banks, the Cape Times reported on Tuesday.</p> <p>Its website said hackers had in the past three months gained access to the online accounts of clients from First National Bank, Standard and Absa banks.</p>

Excerpt - A security researcher with expertise in rootkits has created a working prototype of new technology that is capable of creating malware that remains "100 percent undetectable," even on Windows Vista x64 systems. Joanna Rutkowska, a stealth malware researcher at Singapore-based IT security firm COSEINC, says the new Blue Pill concept uses AMD's SVM/Pacifica virtualization technology to create an ultra-thin hypervisor that takes complete control of the underlying operating system. Rutkowska plans to discuss the idea and demonstrate a working prototype for Windows Vista x64 at the end at the SyScan Conference in Singapore on July 21 and at...

Hackers are trying to lure people to a malicious Web site using cell phone text messages, a security company has warned. The blended attack uses social engineering techniques in its attempt to trick people to the site, security vendor Websense said in an advisory. An SMS text message is sent to the targets' cell phones, thanking them for subscribing to a fictitious dating service. The message states that they will be automatically charged a fee of $2.00 per day via their phone bill, unless their subscription is cancelled online. The same message has also been sent multiple times to the...

Hackers on Sunday broke into a part of Microsoft's French Web site, replacing the front page with online graffiti. The intruders were able to access the server that was running "http://experts.microsoft.fr/," Microsoft confirmed Monday. The attack was claimed by Turkish hackers using the handle "TiTHacK," according to Zone-H, a security Web site that keeps an archive with screenshots of defaced Web sites. The attackers were likely able to penetrate the server running the Web site due to faulty configuration, Microsoft said in a statement Monday. "Microsoft took the appropriate action to resolve the issue and stop any additional criminal activity,"...

The Web site of Sweden's national police was shut down after a hacker attack that investigators on Friday said could be a retaliation for a crackdown on a popular file-sharing site called The Pirate Bay. Meanwhile, the government faced allegations that police had acted under pressure from U.S. authorities when they targeted the file-sharing site in raids earlier this week. The police Web site was closed late Thursday after a so-called denial of service attack, in which hackers overload a single network by directing massive traffic to the site, police spokesman Lars Lindahl said. He did not rule out that...

The stars are out on the playing field already -- even though the World Cup soccer matches haven't quite started. These are the midfielders and strikers of e-mail spam -- malicious messengers, and hooligan hackers -- who are hitting headers aimed at the nearly 1 billion people around the globe who will be desperate in the coming weeks for news and tidbits about their favorite players, whether it's Francesco Totti in Italy or Tomasz Kuszczak in Poland, sources tell UPI's The Web. Nearly 12 times more viewers are expected to follow the World Cup on the Internet and TV than...

Hacker Indicted In January of last year, the hacker group collectively known as the "Internet Liberation Front" gained illegal access to the ProtestWarrior server, stealing thousands of credit card numbers in order to commit massive credit card fraud. The following month, ProtestWarrior discovered the identity of the perpetrators: Jeremy Hammond and a ring of hackers recruited through his criminal front at hackthissite.org. ProtestWarrior performed a forensic analysis of the intrusion and contacted the FBI, which immediately launched an investigation. With the collected evidence, the FBI was able to execute a search warrant on Jeremy's residence on March 16, 2005. PDF...

KMBC's Jere Gish reported that is is called Caller I.D. spoofing, and it is readily available online at Web site such as SpoofCard.com and TeleSpoof.com. The Web sites allow people to chose any number they want to pop up in someone's Caller I.D. Computer hackers have been able to do this with special equipment for years. But only recently have Web sites popped up to offer it to anyone. Just log in, sign up, pay with your credit card and you're ready to go. All of this is legal. Gish reported that it is often used by debt collectors. A...

CHICAGO, May 1 (UPI) -- Computer-security professionals at the weekend were working on what is being described as a just-emerging IT problem -- the kind which, if the pros are correct, potentially could imperil all e-commerce across the globe. Hackers have apparently compromised the computer server of a Russian bank and set up a fake subsite to "phish" for credit-card information and other personal financial details, experts tell UPI's Networking. This is a new kind of phishing scam, as computer criminals usually set up sites that simply look and feel similar to the site they are attacking. But in this...

For the second time, the forum section of the Save Our State organization website has been hacked. The hackers have changed the SOS website's controls to NOT allow any Save Our State posters, members, or visitors to access the site's information. Co-incidentally this site's hacking occured today May 1st, the very day when the illegal immigrant forces are rallying in the US. This hacking has happened previously under similar suspicious circumstances. The other hacking occured in the past when the Save Our State national organization had organized their national rally day to publicly protest the continuing un-enforcement of illegal alien...

BLOGS DOWN: HACK ATTACK By Michelle Malkin · April 28, 2006 11:51 AM Many Hosting Matters-hosted blogs are down--including Instapundit, Power Line, and tons of others large and small. Hosting Matters' own website is also down. Blogger Chuck Simmins e-mails: Denial of service attack on Hosting Matters. Most, if not all, their hosted sites are down. Attack is originating internationally. Haven't been able to confirm. But stay tuned.

Group of ultra-orthodox hackers erases Israeli porn sites, replacing them with photo of the Lubavitch Rabbi Do you like visiting porn sites? The "ultra-orthodox sex commando" will do whatever it takes to stop you. A group of ultra-orthodox hackers, shocked by the obscenity of some porn sites, has launched an internet campaign in a bid to cause such sites to crash. The hackers, already named at some internet forums the "ultra-orthodox sex commando," or the "ultra-orthodox electronic underground," focus their efforts at this point on Hebrew sites. The first target was the Hebrew porn site www.sexhack.tk – a mid-sized, not...

CHICAGO, March 17 (UPI) -- A botnet -- or robotic network -- sends an instant message to your smart phone. You think it is from a friend and open the IM. But it's not a chatty note at all, as the automated message fraudulently scans the system, looking for your credit-card numbers, bank-account statements and secret passwords. Experts tell United Press International's Wireless World that computer criminals are now using these "botnets" to attack consumers and businesses via text messaging, adding to the threats and problems created by the new, emerging mobile technology.

Claims of Mac OS X being hacked in under 30 minutes are not quite what they seem, according to Dave Schroeder, Senior Systems Engineer at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. A recent ZDNet article told the story of a Swedish man who setup his Mac mini as a server and invited people to try to break into the system and gain root control. Having root control of a computer allows you do install applications, move or delete files. Within hours of the challenge going live, it was over as a hacker gained root control of the Mac mini. However,...

[Editor’s Note: Michelle Malkin is experiencing problems with her weblog after being the target of cyberattacks. While they last, Pajamas Media will host her posts here] The cyberjihad continues. Zone-H, which monitors Internet hackers, reports that “the Moroccan hacker known as Yanis was arrested” in Paris on Tuesday: Yanis is accused of having defaced several French important websites (university of Strasbourg and Toulouse, website of the city of Lyon etc..), but his activity as defacer is far more complex: Zone-h, the independent observatory of cyber-crime, have monitored nearly 3000 notifications of intrusions in the last month related to the Prophet...

Muslim computer-hacker gangs have launched a massive attack on Danish and Western Web sites as part of the mass protests across the Arab world over the publication of cartoons making fun of the Prophet Mohammed. The cyber-crime monitoring group Zone-H.org said in a statement that more than 1,000 Danish, Israeli and European sites were defaced or shut down by Islamic hackers in the last week. And experts fear that's just the beginning of what could be a massive cyber-jihad stretching from the Middle East and Europe to the United States and dominating cyberspace for weeks, costing millions of dollars. "We...

Last Tuesday, during or immediately after my appearance on Fox News Channel to discuss the Mohammed Cartoons, this blog was hit by a large, foreign-based denial of service attack. Last night, my hosting service notified me that it is receiving ongoing threats from individuals vowing to take down this site--and others along with it--which will presumably continue until I take down the cartoons. For now, we are on guard and continuing with business as usual. But you should know there's something much wider and deeper going on: I. Security Pro News reports on the latest Islamist hacker attacks spurred by...

Two decades ago, Brain, the first boot sector virus which infected personal computers via the floppy disk, was detected. While Brain itself was relatively harmless, it marked the genesis of the world of computer viruses. This year marks the 20th year of the existence of viruses after Brain was detected on January 19, 1986. Boot sector viruses, now long extinct along with the floppy disk, held a relatively long reign from 1986 to 1995. Since transmission was via disk from computer to computer, infection would only reach a significant level months or even years after its release. This changed in...

LONDON - A Web site that earned an enterprising British student $1 million suffered a crippling attack by ransom-seeking hackers. Alex Tew, 21, said Wednesday that his Million Dollar Homepage was targeted after he publicized how it had helped him raise money for his university studies. Tew had sold 10,000 small squares of advertising space on the Web site for $100 each, achieving his target in four months. His initiative spawned several copycat sites. But Tew said that on Jan. 7, he received a threat from an organization calling itself "The Dark Group," demanding that he pay them $50,000 within...