hacker

It seemed like celebrity deaths were contagious last week. After the sad news about Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon dying, a wave of viral death notices went out on Twitter for Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Goldblum, and P. Diddy. But all are safe and sound.

"Britney has passed today," the bogus tweet announced on Sunday. "It is a sad day for everyone. More news to come."

The message was immediately taken down and Spears' staff tweeted that her account was hacked into and that, "She is fine and dandy spending a quiet … Read more

When Adrian Lamo first started compromising Web sites and alerting the owners to the security holes, he was thanked, until he struck the likes of The New York Times and Microsoft.

He spent six months on home detention and studied journalism before becoming a threat analyst.

Motivated by the process of hacking and delighted by the unexpected opportunities that could arise, Lamo spent time doing things like responding to customer help desk requests he discovered languishing in the networks he broke into.

In the third of a three-part Q&A series with hackers, Lamo, now 28, talks about his &… Read more

Mark Abene first started using computers when he was about 9 years old, and by 12 he was exploring the electronic frontier from his home in Queens, New York. On bulletin board systems he swapped information with other phone phreakers and hackers, who formed the "Masters of Deception" group and inspired a book.

Abene, whose handle was "Phiber Optik," later received a one-year prison sentence for computer-related activities committed when he was a minor from a judge who said he wanted to send a message.

Featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, radio shows, and in … Read more

There is no question who the most famous hacker is. One of the first computer hackers prosecuted, Kevin Mitnick was labeled a "computer terrorist" after leading the FBI on a three-year manhunt for breaking into computer networks and stealing software at Sun, Novell, and Motorola.

Known more for social engineering his way into networks than actually hacking them, Mitnick frustrated law enforcement not only by staying one step ahead of them but also with pranks like leaving doughnuts for them to find when they raided his home.

Finally arrested in 1995, Mitnick pleaded guilty to wire and computer … Read more

A date has been set for the Britain's high court to consider whether self-confessed NASA hacker Gary McKinnon should be tried in the U.K.

Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Justice Alan Wilkie will hear on July 14 the London resident's application for a judicial review, McKinnon's solicitor, Karen Todner, told ZDNet UK on Tuesday.

McKinnon, accused by U.S. prosecutors of the "biggest military hack of all time" back in 2001, is pursuing a judicial review of a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute him in the U.K. Prosecution in … Read more

Lawyers acting for Gary McKinnon say the self-confessed NASA hacker runs the risk of becoming psychotic and suicidal if his extradition to the U.S. goes ahead.

Edward Fitzgerald, QC, described the risk during a hearing on Tuesday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Judges Lord Justice Stanley Burton and Mr Justice Wilkie are reviewing a decision by former home secretary Jacqui Smith to allow extradition proceedings against McKinnon to go ahead, despite his being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

"There is a risk of psychotic disruption, which may range on a path from anxiety through to … Read more

Updated at 2:30 p.m. PST with security source comment.

T-Mobile USA is looking into claims that a hacker has broken into its data bases and stolen customer and company information.

Someone anonymously posted the claims on the security mailing list Full Disclosure on Saturday. In that post, the hacker claims to have gotten access to "everything, their databases, confidential documents, scripts and programs from their servers, financial documents up to 2009."

The poster said he had offered the information to T-Mobile competitors, but they supposedly didn't show any interest. Now he says he is offering … Read more

Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat and Defcon hacker and security conferences, was among 16 people sworn in on Friday to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

The HSAC members will provide recommendations and advice directly to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Moss' background as a computer hacker (aka "Dark Tangent") and role as a luminary among young hackers who flock to Defcon in Las Vegas every summer might seem to make him an odd choice to swear allegiance to the government. (Although before running his computer conferences, Moss also worked in the information system security division … Read more

Hackers based in Turkey penetrated two U.S. Army Web servers and redirected traffic from those Web sites to other pages, including one with anti-American and anti-Israeli messages, according to a report in InformationWeek.

The hackers, who go by the group name "m0sted," breached a server at the Army's McAlester Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma on January 26 and a server at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Transatlantic Center in Winchester, Va., on September 19, 2007, the report said.

Investigators believe an SQL injection attack was used to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server … Read more