hacker

Anonymous plans more attacks on China, report says

The hacker group Anonymous has its sights set again on China.

Anonymous plans to launch more attacks on Chinese government Web sites in an effort to highlight corruption and push for human rights improvements, a member of the activist group told Reuters today.

The comments come after Anonymous, a loosely knit group of hackers, infiltrated hundreds of Chinese government sites last week. Messages posted on the compromised sites warned of the downfall of the Chinese government, although no central government sites were compromised.

The group commented to Reuters through its Anonymous China Twitter account.

Anonymous hinted at taking down the … Read more

Anonymous hacks hundreds of Web sites in China

Anonymous has recently turned its attention to the human rights struggle in China, hacking and defacing hundreds of government and commercial Web sites in that country.

The online hactivist group claims to have compromised more than 500 Web sites over the past couple of days, defacing them with messages claiming responsibility for the breach while The Who's "Baba O'Riley" plays in the background. (A complete list of the Web sites Anonymous claims to have hacked.)

The group posted the following message -- still visible at the time of this publishing -- predicting the downfall of the … Read more

Old-time hacktivists: Anonymous, you've crossed the line

In December 1998, a U.S.-based hacker group called Legions of the Underground declared cyberwar on Iraq and China and prepared to protest human rights abuses in those countries by disrupting their Internet access.

About a week later, a coalition of hackers from groups including Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), L0pht, Chaos Computer Club in Germany, and hacker mags 2600 and Phrack issued a statement condemning the move. "We - the undersigned - strongly oppose any attempt to use the power of hacking to threaten to destroy the information infrastructure of a country, for any reason," … Read more

U.S. 'not winning' war with hackers, says FBI bigwig

With hackers around the world taking aim at business and government sites seemingly at will, one would think the FBI would have a solution. Think again.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in an interview published yesterday, FBI executive assistant director and cyber czar Shawn Henry said that despite recent arrests of alleged hackers "Sabu" and others, "we're not winning."

It might be hard to argue with Henry's assertion. Although dozens of hackers have been arrested worldwide, the attacks keep coming. Earlier this week, for example, hackers took aim at a military dating Web site … Read more

Celebrity hacker pleads guilty to Scarlett Johansson e-mail hack

Christopher Chaney entered guilty pleas to nine felony counts in federal court today, admitting that he hacked into dozens of celebrities' e-mail accounts, including those of Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Today's guilty pleas shine a bright light on the dark underworld of computer hacking," said U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., whose office prosecuted the case, according to the Los Angeles Times. "This case demonstrates that everyone, even public figures, should take precautions to shield their personal information from the hackers that inhabit that dark underworld."

Chaney, 35 … Read more

Hackers steal passwords from military dating site

Hackers broke into the database for a military dating Web site and stole passwords, e-mail addresses, and other information from nearly 171,000 accounts, according to a post on the Pastebin site this weekend:

"The website http://www.militarysingles.com/ was recently closed day ago or so, so we dumped email db," the hackers said in their post. "There are emails such as @us.army.mil ; @carney.navy.mil ; @greatlakes.cnet.navy.mil ; @microsoft.com ; etc.."

So-called "data dumps" are a common occurrence, but what makes this one notable is that the group is … Read more

FBI says $700K charged in Anonymous' Stratfor attack

When the Antisec branch of Anonymous hacked into security think tank Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, at the end of December, one of its claims was the theft 200GB worth of data, including e-mails and clients' credit card information.

Days after the hack, the group published 860,000 e-mail addresses and 75,000 unencrypted credit card numbers on the Web.

Now, the FBI's Milan Patel says that between December 6, 2011, and February 2012, "at least $700,000 worth of unauthorized charges were made to credit card accounts that were among those stolen during the Stratfor Hack," according … Read more

Google hires DARPA Director Regina Dugan

One of the Pentagon's most tech-forward leaders is heading to a new job at Google. Regina Dugan has been the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which works on military technology for the U.S. Department of Defense, for the past three years.

"Regina is a technical pioneer who brought the future of technology to the military during her time at DARPA," a spokesperson for Google told CNET. "She will be a real asset to Google, and we are thrilled she is joining the team."

Although Google confirmed Dugan's hire, it … Read more

Anti-abortion Anonymous hacker arrested in U.K.

Shortly after hacking into Britain's biggest abortion provider's Web site and stealing 10,000 database records of women registered with the service, self-proclaimed member of Anonymous James Jeffery proudly touted his triumph on Twitter.

It was this misstep that quickly led to his arrest, court hearing, admission of guilt, and impending sentence, according to the Guardian.

It all started on Thursday when the British Pregnancy Advisory Service reported that there were 26,000 attempted break-ins to its Web site over a six-hour period. According to the Guardian, the site was also defaced with the Anonymous logo and a … Read more