Hacking

Why not give the gift of safer computing habits this year? This articles outlines how you can give someone the gift of secure computing with very little effort:
“Internet use can be far safer for most home computer users through the use of free tools and services that help protect computers from malicious code that can […]

ArsTechnica is reporting that Sony’s lack of regard for its customers as well as the DMCA lead it to developing the now infamous CD rootkit.
“In a new paper examining the Sony BMG rootkit fiasco, a pair of lawyers argue that the music company didn’t just damage itself—it unwittingly struck a blow against DRM in general.
Deirdre […]

Gunslot is carrying an interesting article on why computer hackers will always be one step ahead of the government:
“The United States Government, Playboy, Western Union, Creditcards.com and CD Universe are just a few of thousands of businesses and government departments that have been hacked into resulting in over a billion dollars of damages per year […]

The concept of “first, do no harm” apparently doesn’t extend to those who provide support services for doctors, as a founder of a medical answering service has been charged with hacking into a competitor’s service, and rearranging the system so that calls to the doctors were met with the passionate moans of someone seemingly in […]

The University of California at San Diego announced this week that hackers have again broken into their computer system, compromising the personal data of thousands of UCSD students, staff, and faculty. The UCSD machines which the hackers accessed contained the trifecta payload of social security numbers, drivers license numbers, and credit card numbers. […]

In case you were listening to the radio or televion news today, yes, you heard it right, and your ears were not deceiving you. The credit card information of 40 million MasterCard and Visa cardholders was compromised when someone hacked into the computers of Arizona-based CardSystems Solutions.

With little fanfare, and looking for proof of the existence of aliens and UFOs, Gary McKinnon, using the online name “Solo”, hacked into both Pentagon and NASA computers and, the U.S. government alleges, caused $1billion worth of damage.

Stanford University has joined that special inner circle - no, not the top tier schools - those which have had their computer systems hacked and data compromised.

As many of Aunty’s regular readers know, Paris Hilton’s Sidekick was hacked, and the data was posted to the Internet, several months ago. And they also know that one Nicholas Lee Jacobsen plead guilty to the T-Mobile hacking which is assumed to have lead to Miss Hilton’s Sidekick account being hacked.

A St. Petersburg, Florida veterinarian nailed a wardriver he caught parked outside his home, jacked into his Internet connection. Realizing that there was someone surreptitiously using his Internet connection, the unnamed veterinarian called St. Petersburg police, who quickly came and arrested

There has been a lot about DNS poisoning, also known as DNS cache poisoning, in the news lately. But what exactly is DNS poisoning? Put simply, DNS cache poisoning is when a DNS server is made to tell your computer that a domain resides at a naughty IP address belonging to a bad […]

The BlueSniper Bluetooth sniffing and hacking “rifle” is truly the Bluetooth hacker’s Bluetooth hack. Equipped with a yagi antenna, and powered by a little bitty Gumstix motherboard, the BlueSniper can detect vulnerable Bluetooth devices up to a kilometer away.

Lexis Nexis has been compromised and has hemorrhaged the personal information of tens of thousands of individuals whose data was stored with Lexis Nexis. Identity theft is a real possibilty for these people.
Many will remember that this exact same thing happened to ChoicePoint just last month.

Remember the MBA applicants who hacked in to the admissions database for Harvard, Stanford, Duke, and other business schools? Well, the dean of Harvard’s business school has indicated that any applicant who hacked in to find out their application results will be automatically rejected for admission regardless of what would otherwise have been […]

Fred Durst, frontman for rock band Limp BizKit, is finding himself in a new leading role, in a sex video in which Durst is seen having sex with an unidentifed woman, and which has been posted to the Internet by someone calling themselves the “T-Mobile Terrorist”. The sex video hacker is assumed by many […]

Dozens of future MBA students flunked their first business ethics test when they hacked in to the admissions information for Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Dartmouth, among others, following instructions which had been written by a hacker calling himself “brookbond”.
Brookbond, after determing how to hack into the schools’ web sites to access the admissions information, […]

Do you remember when Aunty told you that ChoicePoint had been hacked, leading to dozens of thousands of people having their private information which had been stored on ChoicePoint’s servers compromised, including credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other personal information?
And do you remember Aunty told you that ChoicePoint’s spokesperson had said that other […]

What do you think the hot news is on the mean streets of the Internet? The Apple lawsuit against pre-med student Vivek “Desicanuck” Sambhara for putting a beta version of Mac OS X 10.4 (”Tiger”) on Bit Torrent? The teenager who was arrested for sending instant messenger spam (”spim”)? The release of […]

Those of you who recall Aunty telling you about the T-Mobile Sidekick hacker will be interested to know that not only has he been apprehended, but he has pleaded guilty.
Twenty-one year old Nicholas Lee Jacobsen, an engineer now living in Oregon, formerly of Orange County, California, pleaded guilty to charges which could land him in […]

As many as 35,000 Californians may have had their credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other personal information compromised when hackers accessed identification and credential verification service provider ChoicePoint’s data servers.
Hacks into ChoicePoint’s system have already lead to six documented cases of identity theft in California alone. Authorities say that “hundreds of thousands […]