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Chinese military hackers have prepared a detailed plan to disable America’s aircraft battle carrier fleet with a devastating cyber attack, according to a Pentagon report obtained by The Times. The blueprint for such an assault, drawn up by two hackers working for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is part of an aggressive push by Beijing to achieve “electronic dominance” over each of its global rivals by 2050, particularly the US, Britain, Russia and South Korea.

In August 2006, just a few months in advance of the midterm elections, 26 million citizens were logging on to the Internet to get information about the campaigns, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. ) That amounts to 13 percent of all adults in the country using the Internet as a tool to make informed political decisions.... And notably, since the inception of Google bombing seven years ago, political Google bombs have been predominantly a tactic of the Left. While Google bombing isn’t exclusive to Democratic partisans (in 2004 a Republican blogger instigated a...

Lieutenant General Robert Elder, senior Air Force officer for cyberspace issues, recently joked that North Korea “must only have one laptop” to make the more serious point that every potential adversary – except Pyongyang – routinely scans US computer networks. North Korea may be impotent in cyberspace, but its neighbour is not. The Chinese military sent a shiver down the Pentagon’s spine in June by successfully hacking into an unclassified network used by the top policy advisers to Robert Gates, the defence secretary. While the People’s Liberation Army has been probing Pentagon networks hund­reds of times a day for the...

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials. The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army. One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there...

The official website of the United Nations appeared to have been hacked early Sunday, and was displaying a message protesting US and Israeli policies in the Middle East. The section of the site reserved to statements by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon showed a message, repeated several times, that read: "Hacked By kerem125 M0sted and Gsy That is CyberProtest Hey Ysrail and Usa dont kill children and other people Peace for ever No war." The message also appeared on other web pages that usually display quotes and speeches from the secretary general. The address for the UN chief's website is http://www.un.org/News/ossg....

That exploration goes well beyond invading the closed corners of the Internet. DefCon's more than 6,000 attendees hack everything: their cars, to increase horsepower and remove pesky safety and emissions controls; their brains, using biofeedback receptors attached to videogames to relieve anxiety disorders; even the war in Iraq. One Navy engineer gave a presentation detailing the nine months he spent hacking insurgent bombs, jamming their radio frequencies to prevent detonation.

An NBC reporter learned the hard (and embarrassing) way that DefCon 15, a conference of underground hackers who also happen to be security experts, is not the place to go undercover with a hidden camera. George Ou, who blogs for CNET News.com's sister site ZDNet, has written a detailed account of the drama that unfolded Friday at the Las Vegas conference when staff members announced the "spot the undercover reporter" game. Staffers had apparently learned that a Dateline NBC producer hoping to catch someone confessing to a hacking crime was there as a regular attendee after refusing repeatedly to seek...

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. is once again on the defensive against hackers after the launch of a new program that gives average PC users tools to unlock copy-protected digital music and movies. The latest version of the FairUse4M program, which can crack Microsoft's digital rights management system for Windows Media audio and video files, was published online late Friday. In the past year, Microsoft plugged holes exploited by two earlier versions of the program and filed a federal lawsuit against its anonymous authors. Microsoft dropped the lawsuit after failing to identify them. The third version of FairUse4M has a simple...

Back on July the 6th all of my systems that were on Comcast could not connect to most websites. I could connect to google just fine and also some smaller sites. I called around to most people I knew (on Comcast)and found they also had the same problem. So I called Comcast and after waiting on-line for around 30 minutes, I just hung up figuring that they must be inundated with calls. I then proceeded to do some checking on my own, I was able to ping the sites I could not connect to, but unable to do anything else(web/Mail/Telnet)...

At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department networks, Netwarcom officials said. Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said. “They will exploit anything and everything,” the senior official said, referring to the Chinese hackers’...

Many of us know the Internet is overrun with scams and crooks. We only have to look at the spam that slips through our spam filters to get a taste. Less known is the fact that some of these Internet crooks are doing it to support Islamic terrorism. An example of this was recently revealed at a computer security conference, as two researchers described how they had worked their way into the Internet criminal underground, to find out how it operated, and came up against a group of hackers that also maintained several Islamic radical websites, and that used some...

NORFOLK, Va. -- At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department networks, Netwarcom officials said. Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said. “They will exploit anything and everything,” the senior official said, referring to...

Tuesday marked the fourth anniversary of "Safer Internet Day," a 40-country effort to raise awareness about computer and Internet security. But the day probably didn't feel too safe for the dozens of unheralded technologists responsible for defending the World Wide Web against one of the most concerted attacks against the Internet's core since a similar assault in 2002. Details about the sources, size and methods used in the attack are still trickling in, but like the celebration of Safer Internet Day, it's not clear that anyone using the Web at the time even took notice. That's largely a good thing,...

Hackers score points for defacing websites with political propaganda There are groups of hackers that deface websites for fun or politics. My company’s website was recently hacked and it’s site replaced with a site with links to anti-Bush, anti US sentiments and propaganda. The attacker was self identified as nEt^DeViL. A website zone-h.org is the home for an underground league of hackers that get "points" for hacking websites (extra points for political hacks). If you have been hacked, a link on their page showing a little magnifying glass at the end of your row will show you a screenshot of...

Cases of online investment account hacking are on the rise. All it takes is a few keystrokes to wipe out an online investment account, and victims often have little or no recourse. Now the government agency that oversees brokerages is warning investors to protect themselves. Just imagine saving your whole life for retirement only to have it vanish. Online investment accounts are the new target of choice for some criminals who wipe out entire accounts sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars with just a few clicks. Bob Sullivan from msnbc.com says the perps are getting smarter, "Criminals have upped the...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The companies behind an encryption system for high-definition DVDs are looking into a hacker's claim that he has cracked the code protecting the new discs from piracy, a spokesman for one of the companies said on Thursday. A hacker known as Muslix64 posted on the Internet details of how he unlocked the encryption, known as the Advanced Access Content System, which prevents high-definition discs from illegal copying by restricting which devices can play them. The AACS system was developed by companies including Walt Disney Co., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. to protect...

LOS ANGELES - MySpace devotee Kary Rogers was expecting to see a gut-busting video when a friend from the popular online hangout messaged him a link. First, though, he was directed to a page where he was supposed to re-enter his password. Rogers realized that someone was trying to steal his information, and he didn't take the bait. At best, he would be spammed with junk e-mails; worse, the Web thief might steal his real-life identity. "I immediately went back and changed my password," said Rogers, 29, a network analyst for Mississippi State University in Starkville, Miss. MySpace bills itself...

Microsoft updates Vista in latest piracy crackdown 'Frankenbuild' update detects tampering of Vista code that would let users work around the OS' built-in activation system Microsoft on Thursday released an update to Windows Vista that will shut down unauthorized versions of the OS that allow users to skip the product's activation system. The move comes as pirated copies of Vista are already making the rounds, mere weeks after the product was released to business customers. The update, which Microsoft has dubbed "frankenbuild," detects tampering of Windows Vista code that would allow users of the OS to work around the product's...

Providence, RI -- Hackers attacked the computer network at the Naval War College in Newport, taking down the school's network for more than two weeks, including some e-mail services and the college's Web site. The Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command in Norfolk, Va., detected the intrusion around Nov. 16 and took the system offline, spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Doug Gabos said. He said the unclassified network was used by students.

Wall Street was braced for a terrorist strike on financial websites last night. Sources at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security believe Al Qaeda will try to hack into sites used for online stock trading on the New York markets. Intelligence agencies have picked up 'chatter' on intercepted phone and radio links used by Al Qaeda operatives calling for disruption to start today. Online stock trading is a multi-billion-dollar-a-day market used by investors all over the world, including those in Britain. Last night, a financial expert warned traders to be extremely cautious today. They should double check all buying and...