Hacks

Reuters hacked, phony Syria stories posted

The 19th century military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously asserted that war was an expression of politics by other means. A 21st century postscript: add cyber hacking to the list of means.

With Syria in the midst of a raging civil war, somebody hacked the Reuters.com Web site on Friday with a phony post purporting to carry an interview with Free Syrian Army head Riad al-Asaad.

"Our blogging platform was compromised and fabricated blog posts were falsely attributed to several Reuters journalists," the company said in a statement and later tweeted. "We are working to address … Read more

Jeter has sex change in Yankees Facebook page hack

Hackers can be rather menacing sorts. They sometimes heave into places and cause painful havoc without compunction.

Sometimes, though, they try and reveal a deep and meaningful sense of humor.

That's not necessarily true in this particular case, but some hearty partisans might fleetingly think so. For several Major League Baseball team's Facebook pages were briefly broken into today and messages were posted that, at least, Mashable describes as "inappropriate."

Here at Technically Incorrect, we prefer to let people judge for themselves.

So here is what was reportedly posted on the Yankees' Facebook page:

We regret … Read more

Anonymous in a tizzy over logo trademark

Anonymous' iconic logo was quietly trademarked in France in February, but now that Anonymous has found out, it's not going to take it lying down.

Twitter user Asher_Wolf picked up on the trademark application (PDF) yesterday, but the application was first filed with the Institut National De La Propriete Industrielle (INPI) in France on February 16 by Apollinaire Auffret from Early Flicker, encompassing both the Anonymous logo and slogan.

Early Flicker has an eBay store that appears to sell a variety of Anonymous-themed T-shirts. Following the revelation yesterday, Anonymous has responded via a YouTube video, and has promised distributed … Read more

Dropbox confirms it was hacked, offers users help

When a few hundred Dropbox users began receiving spam emails about online casinos and gambling sites two weeks ago, it seemed like something was up. And indeed there was.

The online file storage service confirmed today that hackers accessed usernames and passwords from third party sites and then used them to get into Dropbox users' accounts.

"Our investigation found that usernames and passwords recently stolen from other websites were used to sign in to a small number of Dropbox accounts. We've contacted these users and have helped them protect their accounts," the company wrote in a blog … Read more

Hackers accused of stealing data from 9M Korean mobile users

Hackers who allegedly stole information from almost 9 million telecom customers in Korea are now in police custody.

One suspect, identified by the name Choi, and another as yet unnamed suspect have been accused of selling the data to telemarketers, the National Police Agency's cyberterror response team told the Korea Times.

The two suspects reportedly took in around $877,000 by selling the contact information and plan details of 8.7 million KT subscribers, almost half of the carrier's total customers.

Seven other people accused of buying the data were arrested but not detained.

The hacking started in … Read more

Hackers build private 'Ninja Tel' phone network at Defcon

Hackers who spent their teen years phone-phreaking -- breaking into telephone networks and making free calls -- have created their own GSM network at Defcon and are using creative and silly apps on highly customized Android phones.

The Ninja hacker group is giving the phones away to people who have contributed to the community, and to their lucky friends. The phones and accompanying lanyards serve as "badges" that provide entrance to the annual Ninja party tonight. (Defcon attendees can also get in by donating blood or signing up to donate bone marrow, or donating money to the Electronic … Read more

NSA director finally greets Defcon hackers

LAS VEGAS -- Over the past two decades, hackers at Defcon and the feds have been circling each other suspiciously. The nation's top "spook" -- National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander -- giving a keynote at the hacker confab, shows just how much tensions have mellowed.

"I've spent 20 years trying to get someone from the NSA" to speak at Defcon, said Defcon founder Jeff Moss, who serves on the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council and is chief security officer for ICANN. "It's eye-opening to see the world from their … Read more

iOS app hacking alive and well

LAS VEGAS -- While Apple was making its decidedly lackluster Black Hat debut just one floor up, security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski was explaining the dark art of iOS app hacking to a smaller but still crowded room.

A senior forensics scientist at viaForensics, he clearly didn't have much faith in the security of apps running on iOS. "iOS can be infected through a new zero-day, or you can take a phone and run real fast. Apparently, bars are a great way to pick up iPhones," he said as the audience chuckled, clearly remembering the two separate lost iPhone prototype incidents. … Read more

Researcher uses NFC to attack Android, Nokia smartphones

LAS VEGAS -- Security specialist Charlie Miller demonstrated at the Black Hat security conference today a way to hijack an Android smartphone via the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology that's turned on by default on the device, and said he's found problems with NFC implementations on Nokia as well.

NFC tags have built-in antennas and are found in stickers and smart cards that are designed to transfer data to NFC readers, to send specific phone numbers and Web addresses to smartphones and other benign purposes. They require close proximity, a few centimeters or so, for data to be … Read more