Free Republic

US national security leaders and top cyber warriors from around the world are gathering here to plot defenses against criminals and spies that increasingly plague the Internet. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House Cyber Security Coordinator Howard Schmidt will take part in this week's RSA conference along with computer defense companies and technology icons such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Craigslist creator Craig Newmark. "We have before us more data moving into the cloud and more sophisticated cyber criminals," said Qualys chief executive Philippe Courtot, who is among the keynote speakers at the premier event that kicks...

US analysts believe they have identified the Chinese author of the critical programming code used in the alleged statesponsored hacking attacks on Google and other western companies, making it far harder for the Chinese government to deny involvement. Their discovery came after another team of investigators tracked the launch of the spyware to computers inside two educational institutions in China, one of them with close ties to the military. A freelance security consultant in his 30s wrote the part of the program that used a previously unknown security hole in the Internet Explorer web browser to break into computers and...

Security researchers say attackers have gotten into Google’s (GOOG) PageRank system to boost their own sites in search results, to reach more victims. And by similar means, attackers have infected major online ad systems. Alwil Software, maker of Avast anti-virus products, says it has uncovered a network that serves hundreds of fake links through hijacked Web sites to cheat Google search algorithms. “By positioning themselves among the top search results, these organized gangs are successfully pushing products such as fake anti-virus software

SAN FRANCISCO – Deep inside millions of computers is a digital Fort Knox, a special chip with the locks to highly guarded secrets, including classified government reports and confidential business plans. Now a former U.S. Army computer-security specialist has devised a way to break those locks.The attack can force heavily secured computers to spill documents that likely were presumed to be safe. This discovery shows one way that spies and other richly financed attackers can acquire military and trade secrets, and comes as worries about state-sponsored computer espionage intensify, underscored by recent hacking attacks on Google Inc.The new attack discovered...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, February 5, 2010 Resident of India Pleads Guilty in International Online Brokerage “Hack, Pump and Dump” Scheme WASHINGTON - A resident of India pleaded guilty today to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft charges arising from an international fraud scheme to "hack" into online brokerage accounts in the United States and use those accounts to manipulate stock prices, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Deborah K.R. Gilg of the District of Nebraska. Jaisankar Marimuthu, 35, a native of Chennai, India, pleaded guilty...

The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity. Under an agreement that is being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google -- and its users -- from future attack. Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity,...

In the last few months, major Russian newspapers, that have been critical of the government, have been attacked by hackers. Currently, Novaya Gazeta, highly respected for its investigative reporting, has had its web site shut down by hackers for a week (via a powerful DDOS attack). Novaya Gazeta publishes three issues a week, and its reporting is picked up globally via its web site. Novaya Gazeta's reporting has certainly upset some people, as four of their reporters have been murdered in the past nine years. Last November, hackers broke into the web site of mass audience (circulation of a million)...

Less than two years after the U.S. Air Force officially dumped its planned Cyber Command, it's scaled-back replacement, the 24th Air Force, recently officially opened for business. Over the past five years, the air force has been trying to establish a new Cyber War operation and use it to gain overall control for all Department of Defense Cyber War activities. The other services were not keen on this. That resistance, plus internal problems (losing track of nuclear weapons, cost overruns on new aircraft, inability to perform on the battlefield) led to the Cyber Command operation being scaled back to being...

CHANGSHA, China — With a few quick keystrokes, a computer hacker who goes by the code name Majia calls up a screen displaying his latest victims. “Here’s a list of the people who’ve been infected with my Trojan horse,” he says, working from a dingy apartment on the outskirts of this city in central China. “They don’t even know what’s happened.” As he explains it, an online “trapdoor” he created just over a week ago has already lured 2,000 people from China and overseas — people who clicked on something they should not have, inadvertently spreading a virus that allows...

SNIPPET: SEOUL, Jan 27, 2010 (AFP) - South Korea's spy agency said Wednesday it had issued an alert against cyberattacks aimed at stealing data from government networks. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) did not say whether North Korea was responsible. Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based group specialising in the North, said the latest attack was led by Pyongyang, which runs elite hacker units. The NIS said its alert was heightened "from normal to concern" on Monday after a massive inflow of overseas hacking attacks. The attacks were aimed at stealing data from government and other state networks, it...

A dangerous storm is brewing over the Pacific, as America and the People's Republic of China enter what may be their tensest decade since President Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972. The latest flash is the running fight over Internet freedom, with Google this month withdrawing from China in protest against government censorship. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is hitting Beijing over the issue, but it may be the least of our worries. On Jan. 11 China tested a new high-boost ballistic missile, the HQ-19, which some experts fear is part of China's ongoing program to find ways to...

While there has been an international arms embargo on China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, this ban did not cover espionage and computer security hardware and software. China has exploited this by importing all the hardware and software they could get access to. Some items were considered illegal for export for national security reasons. But lots of valuable gear is available to sale, although sometimes only to government agencies. The Chinese have been particularly keen to obtain the latest corporate Internet security and user management software. This stuff has been a key component in the Chinese effort to manage...

North Korea was apparently behind a recent hacking attack that netted a secret U.S.-South Korean plan to defend the peninsula should war break out, South Korea's military intelligence agency reported. he suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean military officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet. The USB device contained a summary of OPLAN 5027, a highly sensitive war plan prepared by the U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command in case of an all-out war with the North. The plan calls for the dispatch of...

Hackers have demanded $10 million in ransom after hijacking nearly 8.3 million patient records. The data was stolen from an a government website used to track drug prescriptions in the American state of Virginia. Health officials called in the FBI after receiving a ransom demand which was posted on the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program's website Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1178276/Hackers-demand--10m-ransom-hijacking-millions-medical-records.html#ixzz0aRMtmyP9

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's military said Friday it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea. The suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet, Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said. The USB device contained a summary of plans for military operations by South Korean and U.S. troops in case of war on the Korean peninsula. Won said the stolen documents...

Note: The following text is a quote: SPEAR PHISHING E-MAILS TARGET U.S. LAW FIRMS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS 11/17/09—The FBI assesses with high confidence that hackers are using spear phishing e-mails with malicious payloads to exploit U.S. law firms and public relations firms. During the course of ongoing investigations, the FBI identified noticeable increases in computer exploitation attempts against these entities. The specific intrusion vector used against the firms is a spear phishing or targeted socially engineered e-mail designed to compromise a network by bypassing technological network defenses and exploiting the person at the keyboard. Hackers exploit the ability of...

Note: The following text is a quote: Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASETuesday, November 10, 2009 Alleged International Hacking Ring Caught in $9 Million Fraud Major Credit Card Processor Victimized in Elaborate Theft of Account Numbers Sergei Tsurikov, 25, of Tallinn, Estonia; Viktor Pleshchuk, 28, of St. Petersburg, Russia; Oleg Covelin, 28, of Chisinau, Moldova; and a person known only as "Hacker 3;" have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta, Ga., on charges of hacking into a computer network operated by the Atlanta-based credit card processing company RBS WorldPay, which is part of...

This week's 60 Minutes broadcast should make everyone afraid, very afraid, of the real, looming specter of cyberwarfare attacks. As I recently blogged, government agencies are already going full-bore to come up with guidelines to protect federal networks. So when an Admiral goes on national television to say hackers have the ability to take down our power grid, he's doing it to deliver a warning. I was actually poised to turn off the segment, which I happened upon by accident following Sunday's last-minute Giants loss. Half-expecting the usual security for dummies piece, I was surprised to see an unusually detailed...

Had a virus alert yesterday from AVAST. As usually, it allowed me to abort connection and proceed. Cyber Security popups came up on my sceen and thinking it was AVAST prompting me, I ran a program. Turns out it was a fake site trying to get info and now it's embedded in my system. CAN ANYONE HELP? It's trying to block FR as a malicious website.

November 4, 2009: South Korea has confirmed suspicions that Internet based attacks earlier this year came from "the norks" (North Korea). The South Korean NIS (National Intelligence Service) has completed its investigation of the route the July attacks took, and has traced the origin back to the North Korean Ministry of Post and Telecommunications facilities. While there was no apparent damage from the July attacks (which hit government sites in South Korea and the United States), similar attacks have made away with secret data. For example, the South Korean military recently reported that someone hacked into a classified network, and...