Leading USA military contractor QinetiQ hacked and ransacked by Chinese hackers for three years
Wed 08 May, 2013 // BrionyA new report from Bloomberg, the business information provider (www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-01/china-cyberspies-outwit-u-s-stealing-military-secrets.html) outlines how hackers from China stealthily infiltrated the computer systems of QinetiQ North America, a leading espionage and military contractor to the US government, and the US branch of the British defence technology company QinetiQ. A vast range of highly ...
Suspected hacker arrested after “biggest-ever DDoS attack”
Tue 30 Apr, 2013 // BrionyPolice in Spain have arrested a Dutch national on suspicion of launching the largest-ever “Distributed Denial of Service” (DDoS) attack. Sven Olaf Kamphuis, 35, was arrested on April 25th near Barcelona, Spain. At the time, he was in possession of a specially-equipped van set up as a mobile computing and ...
Hackers break into large cloud provider, claim to have credit card details
Fri 26 Apr, 2013 // BrionySome days ago, hackers gained access to computers owned by Linode, a company providing cloud services in the form of virtual Linux servers. The hackers gained access by using a “zero-day vulnerability” (a previously unsuspected security weakness) in Adobe ColdFusion, the software used in running the Linode web server. It ...
Wordpress website attacked by hackers in sophisticated attack
Tue 16 Apr, 2013 // BrionyThe Wordpress website at www.wordpress.com has been targeted by hackers in a sustained and intensive attack, using a botnet (a network of involuntarily enslaved computers) comprising almost one hundred thousand individual computers, or “bots”.The botnet is being used in an attempt to discover administrative passwords set by those Wordpress bloggers ...
Bitcoin mining malware uses Skype to conscript user’s computers
Mon 08 Apr, 2013 // BrionyThe Skype Internet communication system, used for video and audio calls over the Internet, has been unwittingly conscripted by hackers to spread malware to unsuspecting users. This malware takes over the computer’s processing capability, in order to carry out the mathematical calculations that will allow the hackers to accumulate units ...
Saboteurs arrested after damage to undersea Internet cable
Tue 02 Apr, 2013 // BrionyAt the end of March, three divers were arrested after they had partially cut through a large cable at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The cable, owned by Telecom Egypt, forms an important part of Egypt’s Internet connectivity, and is one of the main cables at the bottom of ...
Put an Android phone in the freezer to unlock its secrets, say researchers
Fri 08 Mar, 2013 // BrionyGerman security researchers have discovered that putting an Android smartphone in the freezer for as little as an hour can help to unlock its confidential contents.A team of three security researchers from Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) in Erlangen, Germany, discovered that if an Android smartphone is cooled to about -10 degrees ...
Computers hacked at Microsoft, Apple and Facebook
Wed 27 Feb, 2013 // BrionyMicrosoft has issued a blog posting confirming that a “small number” of computers on its premises were subject to a successful hacking attack a short while ago, involving malicious software. These computers included not only Windows PC’s but also some Mac computers. Microsoft stated that, as far as it could ...
Pioneering encryption app for smartphones could revolutionise privacy and security
Tue 19 Feb, 2013 // BrionyA new invention in mobile phone encryption has profound implications for the way in which phones are used, both by citizens and by criminals and terrorists.A technology start-up firm, Silent Circle, has launched a ground-breaking mobile phone encryption app, “Silent Suite”. It builds on their earlier app, launched in October ...
New “Google for spies” software tracks people on social media
Mon 11 Feb, 2013 // BrionyThe “Guardian” newspaper today revealed how new and secret software from the defence contractor Raytheon is capable of tracking users by “data mining” of social media websites, and can predict their future behaviour – including future criminal behaviour.The software, named “Riot” (“Rapid Information Overlay Technology”) gathers a great deal of ...
Twitter passwords hacked in serious security breach
Mon 04 Feb, 2013 // BrionyTwitter, the social media website, has suffered a serious breach of security where the passwords of about 250,000 users have been stolen, thus compromising their Twitter accounts. Although this breach represents only a small proportion of Twitter’s 200 million users, it nevertheless represents a major security incident. Twitter has taken ...
Most user-created passwords can be cracked in seconds, study finds
Fri 01 Feb, 2013 // BrionyA new study from Deloitte, the “Canadian Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions 2013 report”, finds that this year most passwords generated by end users will be easily cracked by technology readily available today. Once the password has been cracked, the user’s online accounts (including bank accounts if applicable) will ...
Government political advisor with sensitive document falls victim to the telephoto lens
Wed 09 Jan, 2013 // BrionyOn Wednesday January 9th, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on a deeply embarrassing data leak from the Government, stemming from a photograph of a Government advisor carrying a politically sensitive document in plain view.The previous day, Patrick Rock (the political advisor to the Prime Minister) had been photographed in Downing ...
Amazon Kindle Fire targeted by Android malware
Thu 03 Jan, 2013 // BrionyAmazon’s Kindle Fire e-reader has recently become a target for malware from Amazon’s own App Store.The Kindle Fire tablet/e-reader is a popular device, customised towards the consumption of media from Amazon (text, audio, video) rather than for general-purpose processing. It runs the open-source Android operating system produced by Google. Content ...
Swiss intelligence agency falls victim to insider theft of data
Fri 21 Dec, 2012 // BrionyEarlier this year, the Swiss intelligence agency NDB experienced the theft of a vast amount of confidential data by a former employee, who was an IT technician with high-level access to NDB’s data. Recently, more information has become available. It seems that the data was simply copied to hard drives, ...
US military training moves into cyberspace with new simulation
Fri 07 Dec, 2012 // BrionyAfter generations of military training in physical training grounds, the US military has now moved into cyberspace for specialised training exercises. Created by SANS, a major information security training provider, a simulated city known as “NetWars CyberCity” will provide cyber-warriors with the opportunity to hone their defensive skills in a ...
Hackers attack Pakistan domain name system: major websites cut off
Mon 26 Nov, 2012 // BrionyA shadowy group of hackers known as “eboz” has exploited flaws in the infrastructure of PKNIC, the Internet domain name agency for Pakistan, to attack major websites in Pakistan and redirect all traffic destined for them to another website. More than 280 major Pakistan-based websites, including local versions of Microsoft, ...
New EU data protection regulations and the “right to be forgotten”
Thu 22 Nov, 2012 // BrionyA set of proposed data protection regulations from ENISA, the EU’s cyber-security agency, include the concept of a “right to be forgotten”. This involves obliterating electronic records about an individual from the Internet or from any kind of data storage. However, the concept is fraught with technical and legal difficulties.The ...
Anti-virus software alone can no longer provide complete protection
Wed 14 Nov, 2012 // BrionyAnti-virus software, for so long the foundation of users’ arsenal of computer security weapons, is no longer enough on its own.The claim was made by Mark Patton, general manager of GFI Software’s Security Business Unit, in a recent interview in Infosecurity Magazine. In the space of just 14 months, there ...
Unemployment will lead to increased hacktivist activity, says researcher
Mon 29 Oct, 2012 // BrionyAn increase in unemployment will lead to an increase in hacktivist cyber-crimes, according to Miloslav Kucera of the Czech Technical University in Prague. In a talk at the ISSE conference (Information Security Solutions Conference) in Brussels, Belgium, the scientist outlined recent research into the similarities between hacktivist groups (such as ...
UK Foreign Secretary announces spy apprenticeships for future cyber-warriors
Mon 22 Oct, 2012 // BrionyWilliam Hague, Foreign Secretary of the UK and the man responsible for the UK’s intelligence agencies, announced a new programme of apprenticeships for aspiring cyber operatives on Thursday October 18th.Mr Hague was touring Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes, the wartime home of Britain’s codebreakers, which is being preserved as a ...
UK considers plans for civilian reservists to form a new cyber-army
Mon 15 Oct, 2012 // BrionyThe UK’s Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), situated in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, may form the centre of a new reservist cyber-army under plans currently being considered by ministers and by the security services.The UK, in common with other countries, is facing a greatly increased cyber-security threat, which has the potential to cripple ...
New report shows increasing number of cyber-attacks and cost of cybercrime
Tue 09 Oct, 2012 // BrionyThe 2012 “Cost of Cyber Crime” report was published earlier this week. It is a survey by the Ponemon Institute (commissioned by HP). The survey covers two hundred companies from all sectors, in the US, the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia. Its figures are estimates only, yet the conclusions are ...
More than fifty universities hacked and personal information made public
Fri 05 Oct, 2012 // BrionyA team of criminal hackers known only as “Team Gh0stshell” has succeeded in hacking into the computers of more than fifty universities around the world, and has published on the Web some of the personal data thus retrieved. The hackers, who refer to this attack as “Project Westwind”, claim to ...
Sophos anti-malware software classifies itself as a virus
Mon 24 Sep, 2012 // BrionySophos, a leading security firm, last week released an update to its anti-malware software that classified itself as a virus, leading to widespread disruption for users.The new update classified all update utilities, including itself, as viruses (specifically, the Shh/Updater-B virus), and attempted to remove them from the computer, while also ...
Some new PC’s made in China are already infected with malware
Mon 17 Sep, 2012 // BrionyMicrosoft security investigators have discovered that some of the PC’s manufactured in China are already infected with malware even before they are sold.Microsoft bought a selection of brand-new PC’s (both desktops and laptops) from various manufacturers based in China, buying them in several different cities. They discovered that about twenty ...
Survey finds most parents unaware of security threats to children’s mobile phones
Tue 11 Sep, 2012 // BrionyA recent survey by the security software vendor ESET finds that most parents are unaware of the security threats to their children’s mobile phones. The survey covered more than 1000 parents, and was carried out in June by research firm Vision Critical.About a third of parents did not believe that ...
Cyber Security Challenge UK announces new-style security challenge
Mon 03 Sep, 2012 // BrionyCyber Security Challenge UK is a series of information security competitions designed to identify people with much-needed cybersecurity skills in the UK, and to assist them to enter the cybersecurity field. It has been running for three years, sponsored by various information security companies, universities and Government agencies.The prizes for ...
Web storage provider now offers two-factor authentication
Wed 29 Aug, 2012 // BrionyThe web storage and sharing provider Dropbox has now begun to offer two-factor authentication. This will make it much harder for hackers to gain access to the stored data of Dropbox users.Cloud storage providers such as Dropbox enable users to send large files that are too big to send as ...
Technology journalist is hacked and suffers serious identity theft
Tue 28 Aug, 2012 // BrionyThe technology journalist Matt Honan, who writes for Wired magazine and the technology website Gizmodo, found recently that a hacker had gained access to a large portion of his digital identity, and had succeeded in taking it over, with highly damaging personal consequences.In a detailed analysis of the exploit (at ...
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