Famous hackers discuss Zuckerberg’s “Hacker Way” comments

In last week’s SEC filing, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg poked a huge hornet’s nest when he referenced “The Hacker Way.”

Some of the pioneers of the hacker ethos and culture have previously defined hacking as having strong connections to tinkering, “playing” with code and systems, and most importantly, absolute freedom.

The kind of freedom those earlier hackers talk about is the freedom to inspect, to look under the hood, to break, to tamper, to share, … Continue Reading

Anonymous intercepts call between FBI and Scotland Yard discussing Anonymous

It’s the sort of gamesmanship that keeps readers turning the pages in a spy novel. The FBI says that Anonymous, the loose-knit collective of global hackers, intercepted a highly sensitive call between American cybercrime experts and their counterparts at Scotland Yard discussing, what else, Anonymous.

“The FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now,” Anonymous teased in a Twitter message.

The 15 minute recording was released … Continue Reading

Set hidden traps for cyber criminals with Mykonos Software

Mykonos Software sets “tar traps” to catch of cyber criminals trying to hack your Web app. The company announced a $4 million first round of funding today.

“After 20 years of leading technology companies that sell to large enterprises, I believe that Mykonos’ ability to use deception in cyber security could forever change the economics of hacking,” said investor Jeff Clarke, who serves on the board of Red Hat, in a statement.

The company’s technology, … Continue Reading

In further Megaupload retaliation, hacker group Anonymous takes down CBS.com

Hacker collective Anonymous continues to strike at sites around the Web in retaliation for the government shuttering Megaupload.com, and today the notorious group briefly took down broadcast network CBS’s homepage.

Anonymous has a long history of attacking government and business websites, and on Thursday the organization intermittently shut down the Department of Justice and Universal Music‘s websites. The collective said through various channels that it was retaliating for the shut down of popular file-sharing site … Continue Reading

Anonymous hacks DOJ, record label sites over Megaupload case (updated)

Updated 6:24pm with statement from Anonymous.

Hacker collective Anonymous has hacked the Department of Justice and Universal Music‘s websites to protest the government’s decision to shut down the popular Megaupload file-sharing site.

The Department of Justice’s website has been intermittently down and up in the past hour, and we can only imagine hackers and government agents fighting for control like a scene out of a movie. Universal Music’s homepage has been down for the past … Continue Reading

Israeli hackers attack Saudi & UAE stock exchange websites

The Middle East has always been a troubled place, and now people are taking to the web to launch their attacks. On Tuesday, a group of Israeli hackers took down the Saudi Arabia stock exchange and the United Arab Emirates stock exchange websites, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports. The group, which calls itself IDF-Team, was able to paralyze the Saudi stock exchange site and cause delays on the UAE site.

The attack came in retaliation to … Continue Reading

Stratfor site is back online after recovering from Anonymous attack

Stratfor, an organization that provides international intelligence reports to a large (and often influential) clientele, has finally brought its site back online after last month’s Anonymous-driven takedown.

Anonymous, a hacktivist collective, opened fire on the site for reasons unknown. The group gained access to and then published contact and financial information for hundreds of thousands of Stratfor subscribers.

“In the global commons, anonymity is an option,” said Stratfor CEO George Friedman in a statement this … Continue Reading

10 things you need to know about Anonymous’ Stratfor hack

On Dec. 24th, hacker collective Anonymous stole credit card info and other sensitive data from U.S. security firm Stratfor, but keeping track of who and what are affected by the scandal can be difficult.

We’ve put together a 10-point FAQ for better understanding the major hacking incident, which blew up in the news cycle on Christmas and continues to worry people as more details are released.

1. What is Stratfor?

Stratfor Global Intelligence is an … Continue Reading

Hacker group Anonymous steals sensitive info from Stratfor security firm

Hacker collective Anonymous claims to have stolen credit card data and other sensitive details from U.S. security think tank Stratfor, with plans to donate $1 million in stolen cash to charity.

Austin, Tex.-based Stratfor is a research group that posts a daily newsletter on security issues and counts the Defense Department, Lockheed Martin and Bank of America as clients. But for being a so-called “intelligence company,” the organization did an awful job of protecting its … Continue Reading

Turn off the faucet: Foreign hackers target a water treatment plant

Foreign hackers may have broken into the computers of a water treatment plant in Illinois last week and damaged a water pump,  according to the Washington Post.

The attack appears to be the first malicious cyber assault against a critical infrastructure computer network in the U.S., according to an expert cited by the newspaper.

The attack was noticed on Nov. 8, when there were problems with the city’s water pump control system. A technician figured … Continue Reading

Hackers spend a lot of their time educating other hackers

Hackers spent about 25 percent of their time in forums giving other hackers beginner tips, according to a survey by cyber security firm Imperva.

Hackers devote a lot of time to hacking tutorials, which means there is a strong and steady interest in content related to learning the tricks of the trade. About 22 percent of the discussions related to hacking tools and programs, while 21 percent related to web site and forum hacking.

This … Continue Reading

Not again: Sony’s online game networks get attacked, 93,000 accounts compromised

Sony said tonight that hackers have once attacked the company’s online gaming networks, and this time they have broken into 93,000 accounts. The new hack will bring back bad memories from April, when the PlayStation Network and its sister network Sony Online Entertainment went down for weeks because of a hacker attack.

Philip Reitinger, the newly hired chief information security officer at Sony, said in a blog post that Sony had detected attacks on the … Continue Reading

Exclusive: How Appirio is legitimizing the freelance hacker

You know it’s hard out here for a hacker, tryin’ to get money for his rent.

At least, that’s how it’s been up until now. Most freelance developers typically rely on contract jobs. But Appirio, a company that ports applications to cloud services like Salesforce.com and Amazon’s AWS, is trying to change that, with a system for documenting and scoring hackathons, which debuted at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.

That’s important because hackathons — … Continue Reading

Hackers steal 21,000 passwords from Star Wars game fan site

A Star Wars Galaxies fan site got hacked today and thieves stole 21,000 email addresses and 23,000 passwords. And judging from an analysis of the passwords, most of them were weak.

The site SWGalaxies.net is a fan site owned by LFNetwork, an independently owned network of LucasArts fan sites. Hackers from the group ObSec, a small hacking collective with apparent sympathies for the LulzSec and AntiSec hacktivist groups, broke into the site’s security and posted … Continue Reading

Apple’s surprising new intern: iPhone hacker Comex

The notorious iPhone jailbreak hacker Comex has been snapped up by Apple as an intern, he announced on his Twitter account last night.

Comex, who was outed by Forbes as Nicholas Allegra, has gained a reputation as someone who can find obscure security holes in Apple’s iOS software. Last summer, he and his team made jailbreaking the iPhone as simple as visiting the website Jailbreak.me.

“It’s been really, really fun, but it’s also been a … Continue Reading

Insulin pump hacker says vendor Medtronic is ignoring security risk

Jerome Radcliffe scared a lot of people — including himself, since he is a diabetic — when he showed how easy it was to hack an insulin pump from a distance at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas early this month.

At the time, Radcliffe didn’t disclose the names of vendor names or models. He withheld the information to stay within legal boundaries, to protect himself, and to make sure he did not … Continue Reading

Annoyed by braggarts, hackers will vote on best security hacks

Skilled hackers are often annoyed by amateurs who use automated attacks to cause mayhem. They refer to the youngsters as “script kiddies,” since they follow scripts and aren’t truly skillful. So a new web site called RankMyHack.com has emerged that will allow underground hackers to anonymously submit their exploits and have the community vote on them.

The New York Times reports that some 700 hackers have submitted evidence of more than 1,200 web site hacks … Continue Reading

Anonymous fights with itself over planned Facebook attack

New details have emerged on the purported plot by hacker collective Anonymous to “kill” Facebook on Nov. 5. In recent Twitter posts, it appears the group has confirmed that some of its members are working on the plan, nicknamed #OpFacebook, but that other members do not support the initiative.

On Tuesday the @AnonOps Twitter account, which has been one of the more official outlets of communication for Anonymous, posted that #OpFacebook wasn’t real. “Medias of … Continue Reading