Hackers Revenge with Pizza

Hackers change their strategy: some of them were so miffed with a target company which managed to lock them out, that they had to use other tactics to hack the security experts off. Security experts at Florida-based TorGuard have defeated a number of powerful DDoS attacks that aimed at crippling their VPN service.

The hackers tried to lock down the TorGuard servers and move them behind the protective services of anti-DDoS service CloudFlare. The company’s admin admitted that the next wave of attacks became more personal. For example, throughout the day, the company received multiple unrequested deliveries of pizza, Chinese food, and even sushi. After dinner, electricians and plumbing services also showed up to solve nonexistent problems. It seems that the hackers didn’t call the cops or fire services only because those could trace their call.

This unusual hacking campaign went on for a couple of months. TorGuard suggests it was carried out by a business rival, as the attack started after a promotional campaign. Within a single day, TorGuard’s support inbox has got torrents of junk e-mails which were spoofed to appear as if they were coming from the company’s own support desk.

The security experts started their investigation. The SMTP servers generating 10,000,000 e-mails per day were in Argentina. A few new rules on the Apache firewall module mod-security were enough to allow the company to successfully block the “mailbomb” attack.

A month later, TorGuard came under another attack, a little more complicated one. The company faces the 10Gbps waves of traffic coming from PowerStresser.com and AvengeStressor.com, which were sending junk traffic only at IP addresses used by the new VPN nodes announced in the company’s promotion newsletter. This meant that the hackers were running the TorGuard service to be able to keep track of the internal servers it used. The company managed to block the assault by modifying the border gateway protocol, which routed the junk traffic into a virtual black hole rather than to the VPN servers.

Finally, the last attack started when TorGuard released new proxy software making it easier for customers to use service with Vuze, uTorrent, and other BitTorrent apps. Apparently, the business rivals had paid for botnets of infected computers this time. TorGuard had to use the anti-DDoS mitigation service CloudFlare to restore its operations. In response, the hackers tried to brute-force crack their e-mail account passwords and make lots of calls to TorGuard’s toll-free support number. When all of that brought no results, pizzas arrived. TorGuard keeps smiling – they love pizza and the company’s security experts managed to create a great secure network for just $800 a month.

Internet Drugs Marketplace Closed after Bitcoin Hack

Sheep Marketplace, a darknet shopping site, vanished from the web after a catastrophic theft of 5,400 Bitcoins (approximate value of $5.8 million).

The online service used technologies like Tor and Bitcoin in order to enable users to purchase illegal items on the Internet. Sheep was known as one of a spate of successors to the Silk Road website that was shut down a month ago. Recently, visitors to Sheep Marketplace have got a notice blaming the theft for the closure, and today its entire online presence is gone.

The website admins say that the money was stolen by a dealer nicknamed EBOOK10, who managed to find a bug in their system. However, it is known that the service still had far more than this amount remained in its wallets after the closure, so the disgruntled users are now accusing the service of stealing from them.

Actually, the fears had already been raised over the security of the illegal service. For instance, a few months ago, the members of its subforum on Reddit found glaring holes linking Sheep and a normal website, sheepmarketplace.com, which existed as an online signpost to Sheep. The problem was that since it was an unprotected site, it allowed users to track the location of the black marketplace’s owner – the resident of Czech Republic.

Sheep wasn’t the only website of such kind to disappear: another black marketplace, Black Market Reloaded, also warned users that it was going to close down. The latter is the largest of the darknet marketplaces by turnover at the moment, but its operators are worried by that fact. They say that Tor can’t support any service to be too big, so without competition the best thing to do is to shutdown the market – in time and orderly manner.

Hackers Stole Passwords from Social Networks

Hackers have recently managed to nick millions of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Yahoo passwords by installing key logging software on millions of personal computers. The security experts confirmed that the malware was capturing log-in credentials for key sites over the past month and sending the data to a server controlled by the hackers.

Back in November, the security researchers tracked that server to Holland and discovered compromised credentials for over 93,000 websites, including 318,000 Facebook accounts, 70,000 Google accounts, 60,000 Yahoo accounts, 22,000 Twitter accounts and 8,000 LinkedIn accounts – all hacked. The tech giants were immediately notified of the breach, and perhaps this is why Google was asking me to change my password a few weeks ago. Thus far, there’s no evidence that the hacked passwords have been ever used.

The security experts hadn’t found out how the malware got onto so many PCs. The intruders set up the key logging software to rout sensitive data via a proxy server, so it was impossible to track down which PCs are currently infected.

The hacking campaign started in the end of October, and it might be still ongoing. The researchers believe that there are some other proxy servers running the attack which they haven’t found yet. The malware running in the background is hidden, but antivirus software and the latest patches for browsers, Adobe (ADBE) and Java will be able to detect it and prevent it from running. Secure your PC.

Rebekah Brooks unsure Andy Coulson could stay at No 10, hacking trial hears

A friend of the prime minister told the court that Rebekah Brooks said she was unsure Andy Coulson could keep his Downing Street job. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex

Rebekah Brooks told one of David Cameron's best friends that his spin doctor Andy Coulson may not "survive" in his role because of the phone-hacking scandal, the Old Bailey has heard.

Dom Loehnis told the court on Tuesday he had the conversation with the former chief executive of News International at a birthday party thrown for the prime minister in October 2010 at his Chequers country retreat.

"I asked her whether Andy Coulson, who was then the prime minister's communications secretary, would survive the press speculation that was going on at the time," said Loehnis, explaining that he was referring to allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World, which Coulson had edited before joining the Conservative Party in a PR role.

"She said she was not sure that he could survive," said Loehnis. "She said that she felt that the story would not go away and the reason for that was that at a certain point in time, people had discovered that you could get into mobile phone voicemails by tapping out a pin, a default code."

Under questioning by the prosecution, Loehnis told the jury his recollection of the conversation was that Brooks was concerned that because it was common knowledge that voicemails could be hacked, there was no way of knowing "how many people did do it" and "therefore it was a story that could not be closed down".

The jury heard that the party, "a private dinner for close friends" – Cameron was best man at Loehnis's wedding – was thrown as a celebration for the prime minister's birthday and his election victory in May that year. About 60 people attended, sitting at between six and eight tables with husbands and wives and partners separated.

Loehnis, who works for the media recruitment agency Egon Zehnder, was called as a prosecution witness after police discovered a letter he had written to Brooks after she resigned from News International in July 2011.

In the handwritten letter, he said he was sorry that she had to resign and hoped she would come through to the other end and mentioned their meeting and the conversation that had occurred at Chequers.

Brooks is standing trial along with Coulson on a conspiracy to intercept voicemails, a charge which they both deny.

Asked by the prosecution whether Brooks said anything about how extensive the practice was, Loehnis said he got the impression it was "something you discover, you can do" and "you do it almost because you can".

Counsel for Brooks, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, put it to Loehnis that her concern was Coulson would not survive at Downing Street because "the spokesman had become the story", because of the "ongoing" press allegations about hacking at the News of the World.

"She remembers that you were concerned, as a friend of the host, that sort of publicity might be a problem for the Conservative party," said Laidlaw.

He added that Brooks' recollection was that he had asked her something like "do you think this phone hacking is going to be a problem for the Tories because of Andy?"

Loehnis replied: "Something like that. 'Could he survive?' is my recollection."

Laidlaw continued: "Mrs Brooks remembers in terms of her reaction there was a recognition that there might be an issue."

Loehnis said: "In the context of this ongoing story, there was pressure on him to be fired and could he survive?"

He added that he recalled the reasons Brooks felt Coulson could not survive was "because the story wasn't going to end" and that would make it "harder and harder" for him to continue in his role at Number 10.

Laidlaw put it to Loehnis that the conversation was "no more than a reflection of common knowledge" that phone hacking was technically possible.

Loehnis agreed that Brooks did "not say or even hint of any knowledge she had of phone hacking at the News of the World during here editorship" between 2000 and 2003.

The jury heard that Loehnis had delivered a birthday message in the form of a poem at the party.

Laidlaw put it to Loehnis that he was preoccupied with his speaking engagement as this would have been a stressful thing to do in front of such an audience. Loehnis agreed the conversation about hacking lasted just a minute or two.

Loehnis recalled that in October 2010, the press reports were "to the effect that the hacking was a more extended practice than had been revealed by the prosecution in 2006" of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator, and the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman, both of whom were jailed for phone-hacking related offences.

The trial continues.

Barnaby Jack, one of world's best known computer hackers, dies suddenly at 35

One of the world's best known computer hackers, who claimed to know how to remotely kill someone fitted with a heart pacemaker, has died suddenly at the age of just 35.

Barnaby Jack.  Photo: REUTERS

By Peter Foster in Washington, agencies

6:17PM  03 Dec 2013

Barnaby Jack, a New Zealand-born computer whizz, shot to prominence in 2010 after demonstrating that he could hack ATM machines.

He was found dead at a San Francisco apartment late on Friday night. The cause of Mr Jack's death is still under investigation, according to the San Francisco coroner's office, however a police spokesman told Reuters they had ruled out foul play after people began voicing suspicions over his death on social media.

His sudden death came just days before he was due to deliver a much-anticipated talk to the annual Black Hat security convention in Las Vegas, demonstrating how he could hack human pacemakers, potentially killing a person from 30 feet away.

Thursday's planned talk, entitled "Hacking Humans", echoed the hit US TV drama "Homeland," where terrorists kill the vice president by hacking into his heart device, and was typical of the flamboyant style of Mr Jack, who was always careful to ensure that his secrets did not fall into malicious hands.

It promised to be almost as electrifying as the 2010 presentation to Black Hat, "Jackpotting ATMs", which brought him to worldwide attention with a clip of his presentation being viewed more than 2.6 million times on YouTube.

Related Articles

• Vicar's son charged with hacking Nasa computers 
  28 Oct 2013
• Simpsons creator goes on philanthropic spree after cancer diagnosis 
  27 Jul 2013
• Passenger's view of plane crash 
  27 Jul 2013
• Anthony Weiner shows no shame in 'sexting' scandal 
  27 Jul 2013
• Fire engulfs Pennsylvania flats 
  27 Jul 2013

Mr Jack was a so-called "white hat" hacker who used his great skills to help companies improve their security.

Black Hat organisers said they would not replace Jack's session at the conference, saying the hour would be left vacant for to commemorate his life and work.

"Lost but never forgotten our beloved pirate, Barnaby Jack has passed.", said Mr Jack's most recent employer, the cybersecurity consulting firm IOActive Inc, said on Twitter, adding that Mr Jack was a "visionary" whose work had saved lives.

Even an arm of the US government paid tribute to Mr Jack for his work on medical devices.

"The work that Barnaby Jack and others have done to highlight some of these vulnerabilities has contributed importantly to progress in the field," said William Maisel, deputy director for science at the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

"He was passionate about finding security bugs before the bad guys," added longtime security industry executive Stuart McClure, who gave Mr Jack one of his first jobs and also had worked with him at Intel Corp's McAfee, a computer security company.

"He was one of those people who was put on this earth to find vulnerabilities that can be exploited in a malicious way to hurt people," Mr McClure said.

What is hacking?

Hacking is the practice of modifying the features of a system, in order to accomplish a goal outside of the creator's original purpose. The person who is consistently engaging in hacking activities, and has accepted hacking as a lifestyle and philosophy of their choice, is called a hacker.

Computer hacking is the most popular form of hacking nowadays, especially in the field of computer security, but hacking exists in many other forms, such as phone hacking, brain hacking, etc. and it's not limited to either of them.

Due to the mass attention given to blackhat hackers from the media, the whole hacking term is often mistaken for any security related cyber crime. This damages the reputation of all hackers, and is very cruel and unfair to the law abiding ones of them, from who the term itself originated. The goal of this website is to introduce people the true philosophy and ethics of hackers, hopefully clearing their name and giving them the social status they deserve.