Data Security News

Cross-subdomain Session Fixation

- By Mike Bailey skeptikal.org September 2, 2010
Last fall I wrote a bit about cross-subdomain cookie attacks. As often as I come across more uses for them, I think that they are a much more

Snoop Dogg joins cybercrime fight because 'hack is wack'

- By Michael Hardy GCN.com Sept 02, 2010
Hack is wack, fo' shizzle.
Ready to show off your mad freestyle rap skillz? Snoop Dogg and Symantec's Norton are teaming up to sponsor a video contest for raps

Botnet takedown may yield valuable data

- By Jeremy Kirk IDG News Service September 2, 2010
Researchers are hoping to get a better insight on botnets after taking down part of Pushdo, one of the top five networks of hacked computers

Russian Trojan blamed for credit card losses at US diner

- By John E Dunn Techworld 01 September 10
Hundreds of lunchtime customers of a diner in the US city of Memphis are believed to have had funds stolen from their debit and credit cards

News of the World faces fresh phone hacking charge

- By Nick Davies, Vikram Dodd and Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk September 2010
The government tonight came under pressure to set up a judicial inquiry into the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World after the paper confirmed that it has suspended a journalist while it investigates new allegations of the unlawful interception of voicemail.
The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, has denied a report in the New York Times which claimed he freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques when he was editing the paper and "actively encouraged" a named reporter to engage in illegal interception of voicemail messages. Coulson has always denied knowing of any illegal activity by his journalists.
Scotland Yard, too, found itself in the firing line after the New York Times quoted unnamed detectives alleging they had cut short their investigation because of their close relationship with the News of the World. A group of four public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, is poised to sue police over a failure to warn them they had been targeted by the private investigator at the centre of the scandal, Glenn Mulcaire.
The Guardian has learned that the Metropolitan police commissioner at the time of the original investigation, Sir Ian Blair, was among those whose names were found in material seized from Mulcaire, raising questions about whether officers who were directly involved in the investigation had discovered that they, too, had been targets of the newspaper. It is understood Blair was assured at the time that his phone had not been hacked.

Russian government email servers hacked

- By Evgeniya Chaykovskaya The Moscow Times 24/08/2010
On Monday it turned out that the Federal Service of Protection (FSO) is not that good at protecting its own privacy. Yesterday internet forums

DARPA Soliciting Bids On Insider Threat Prevention

- By Elizabeth Montalbano InformationWeek September 2, 2010
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a new program aimed at quickly finding and stopping insiders from trying to

Iran's Cyber Army Hacks 1, 000 US, British, French Gov't Websites

- FARS News Agency 2010-08-30
TEHRAN (FNA)- An Iranian cyber group announced that it has hacked more than 1,000 important governmental websites of the US, Britain and France in protest at their support and financial aids to anti-Iran terrorist groups.
"To commemorate the Day of Campaign against Terrorism and the martyrdom anniversary of (former Iranian President Mohammad Ali) Rajayee and (his Prime Minister Mohammad Javad) Bahonar (by the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization), the group rose to protest at the inhumane measures of the supporters of terrorism, with the US and Britain standing on top of them, through a new method and hacked and changed the pages of more than 1,000 of their websites," Behrouz Kamalian, Head of the Iranian Ashiyaneh (nest) cyber group, told FNA on Monday.
If you open the hacked sites now, you can see a logo of Iran and some pictures of martyrs Rajaee and Bahonar and a bi-lingual text in Persian and English expressing our group's protest at the US, Britain and France's attitude towards terrorism, Kamalian added.
Noting that the project started on Saturday and continued until Monday morning, he reminded that the group managed to hack more than 1,000 governmental sites of the aforementioned countries, including the official website of Louisiana state in the US, Britain's Pevensey city council and other websites.
"All of the hacked websites have been registered at this address: www.zone-h.org," Kamalian added.
His remarks came after the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced in March that its cyber teams have hacked 29 websites affiliated with the US espionage network.
The IRGC has recently set up a new center to detect and combat organized crimes on the internet.
The newly-established center is tasked with monitoring the internet to detect and campaign against organized crimes, espionage, economic and social corruption, money laundering and cultural inroad.
Iran has said many times in the past that the western government's support for the MKO proves that their claims about advocating human rights are nothing but lies.
The MKO members last month celebrated the anniversary of their group's bomb attack on the central office of Jomhuri Eslami party in Tehran in 1981 in which 72 party members, including senior Iranian political and religious officials, were martyred.
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.
Some other members of the MKO who have had a role in the assassination of a large number of Iranian citizens and officials are currently living in France.
The group started assassination of Iranian citizens and officials after the Islamic Revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran's new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including Rajayee, Bahonar and the then Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.
The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
Many of the MKO members have abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.
A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.
Numerous articles and letters posted on the Internet by family members of MKO recruits confirm reports of the horrific abuse that the group inflicts on its own members and the alluring recruitment methods it uses.
The most shocking of such stories includes accounts given by former British MKO member Ann Singleton and Mustafa Mohammadi -- the father of an Iranian-Canadian girl who was drawn into the group during an MKO recruitment campaign in Canada.
Mohammadi recounts his desperate efforts to contact his daughter, who disappeared several years ago - a result of what the MKO called a 'two-month tour' of Camp Ashraf for teenagers.
He also explains how the group forces the families of its recruits to take part in pro-MKO demonstrations in Western countries by threatening to kill their loved ones.
Lacking a foothold in Iran, the terrorist group recruits ill-informed teens from Iranian immigrant communities in Western states and blocks their departure afterwards.

Darpa’s Star Hacker Looks to WikiLeak-Proof Pentagon

- By Spencer Ackerman Danger Room Wired.com August 31, 2010
Tomorrow's WikiLeakers may have to be sneakier than just dumping military docs onto a Lady Gaga disc.

State retiree data breached

- By J.L. MILLER The News Journal August 31, 2010
DOVER -- In a data breach that one security expert said could be worth millions of dollars to scam artists, Aon Consulting, the state's