cyberattack

Website-infecting SQL injection attacks hit 450,000 a day

Cybercriminals are spreading invisible infections far and wide across the Internet by hammering hundreds of thousands of websites each day with so-called SQL injection attacks. The trend started last summer and has continued to accelerate. IBM Internet Security Systems says it identified 50% more infected Web pages in the last three months of 2008 than it did in all of 2007. (USA Today) ›
CyberTHREATS

Pentagon Official Warns of Risk of Cyber Attacks

The head of the Pentagon's Strategic Command warned Congress today that the United States is vulnerable to cyberattacks "across the spectrum" and that more needs to be done to defend against the potential of online strikes, which could "potentially threaten not only our military networks, but also our critical national networks." But Air Force Gen. Kevin Ch ›
CyberTHREATS

Foreign Web Attacks Change Security Paradigm

Traditional security systems may be ineffective and become obsolete in warding off Web attacks launched by countries, according to Val Smith, founder of Attack Research. New attack trends include blog spam and SQL injections from Russia and China, Smith said during his talk at the Source Boston Security Showcase on Friday. "Client-side attacks are where the ›
CyberSECURITY

Former FBI chief: NSA can't run cybersecurity alone

Louis Freeh, who served as FBI director from 1993 to 2001, told audiences at the FOSE 2009 conference here that when the director of the Homeland Security Department's National Cyber Security Center resigned last week, he tapped into a strong historical resistance in the United States to centralized power, particularly in intelligence and military units. In ›
CyberCRIME

Alleged Palin e-mail hacker picks up three new charges

The University of Tennessee student who allegedly hacked the e-mail account of then-Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been served with three new charges. David Kernell was arraigned Monday morning on a new four-count indictment as a federal grand jury added charges of destroying evidence and identity theft to his case. The son of longti ›
CyberSECURITY

U.S.'s cybersecurity director has resigned.

Rod Beckstrom, an author and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has resigned the position of National Director of Cybersecurity. Mr. Beckstrom’s position, which reported to the head of DHS, involved wrestling the all of the different Federal agencies into forming a coherent cybersecurity policy. His role appeared to have been crippled from the start. Accordin ›
CyberSECURITY

Spotify hacked: top recent hacker stories

Known also as Kido or Downadup, the Conficker virus infected around 15 million computers worldwide in mid-January of this year. The virus takes advantage of a vulnerability in the Windows operating system to burrow deep into the computer's files, folders and System Registry, which stores settings and options for Windows. This provides hackers, and cybercrimi ›
CyberCRIME

Hacker attack forces CEO to dump stock

A security breach at Heartland Payment Systems Inc. appears to have led to a forced stock sale by the company’s chief executive officer and his wife. Last week, the company revealed that Robert O. Carr and his wife, Jill, had to sell a total of 692,412 shares of Heartland stock they owned that was pledged as collateral for a personal loan they sought to help fund the in ›
CyberSECURITY

Homeland Security information security improves

Six years after the Homeland Security Department started operations, integrating the information technology systems of its 22 formerly separate agencies remains a primary, ongoing information security project for DHS’ senior leadership. The integration and consolidation of DHS’ existing IT systems and architecture have proven difficult for many of the s ›
CyberTHREATS

Next Generation 'War-Dialing' Tool On Tap

War-dialing is back, and it's not limited to finding modems anymore. Renowned researcher HD Moore is putting the final touches on his latest project -- a telephone auditing tool that also finds PBXes, dial tones, voicemail, faxes, and other phone line connections for security assessment, research, or inventory. This is not your father's war-dialer: The so-c ›
CyberTHREATS

Mahalo: Our hacker employee is no threat to your privacy

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis sent an e-mail Thursday to his followers (also posted on his blog, and worth a read) disclosing that his company mistakenly hired a man convicted of computer crimes but who hasn't yet served his sentence. To retell Calacanis' story with a critical slant, his employee was caught (unusual for hackers) after launching a botnet attack ›
CyberSECURITY

'Tigger' Trojan Keeps Security Researchers Hopping

It's malware that actually removes other malware from its victims' PCs. And so far, nobody is exactly sure how it's being distributed. Security experts this week are buzzing about a new Trojan called Tigger.A, also known as Syzor. The data-stealing malware has quietly claimed about 250,000 victims since it was first spotted by security intelligence company ›
CyberCRIME

Hacker gets 4 years in prison over malware install

A Los Angeles computer security consultant has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for using malicious software that turned thousands of computers into "zombies" so he could steal private information. [SF Gate] ›