How To Protect Your Laptop Against Theft

Our laptops often contain a large amount of confidential business information and personal use, and for most people, the thought of losing all that information is more than a little scary. The sudden and unexpected loss (or worse, theft) of expensive equipment and sensitive documents are not required to have a negative effect, however.

Here are some tips to outline the steps you should take your laptop will be lost. We also added some useful precautions, you can do in advance, so that the laptop has a better chance of getting home safely, if the two of you to stand out.

1. File a police report
Although it may seem obvious, many people do not bother to file police reports of lost property under the assumption that there are few law enforcement can do. While this may or may not be the case (depending on your situation), by contacting the police receive word that your computer has. Even if the police can not find your missing MacBook, stolen hardware went into a national database, so if someone tries to sell a laptop, there is a good chance that a warning when they do, even if they are throughout the country.

If you live near a university, be sure and tell the police the campus of your laptop lacks both, and do not forget to warn all private security companies in the area where you work when laptop disappeared.

2. Inform local repair and pawn shops
Tell any pledge or repair shops in your area on your computer is missing. Be sure to give them the serial numbers and describe the characteristics of identification, as in the case of scratches or paint wear. Pawn most reputable repair shops will check with the local police department before buying used laptops, but it never hurts to be aware of their situation, either.

3. Contact your insurance agent
Many home insurance policies, and part of the tenants, to cover the purchase of stolen computers, even if the goal had not been taken into your home. If your laptop was stolen from the car, its loss may be covered by your insurance. If your laptop is owned by the company, certainly covers the business of insurance. Contact your insurance agent and find out about filing claims in order to restore some of the costs of replacing the laptop. You will probably need the offense to make this announcement, but your insurance agent can assist you with the details.


4. Continue spreading the word

Getting the word to friends, colleagues and members of the Community to leave Twitter and Facebook friends to know your laptop is missing. Please send ads like Craigslist and other local directories. You may also want to tolerate flyers in your local grocery store or remove an advertisement in a local newspaper. If you can afford it, consider offering the prize of a laptop back. Premium offering, which is responsible for the handset is not the true value can save a lot of money to replace equipment, but can help to ensure that the information is returned safely.

5. Remain vigilant
Once you have submitted all the documents, get the word out to local businesses by chirping of your laptop and place a lost ad in the lost and found section of Craigslist. It may be tempting to sit back and let fate decide what happens next, but gon't give up being proactive. Check the lost and found ads themselves, and even go beyond. Many laptop thieves will try to sell the line laptop, because it is more difficult to follow, so keep an eye on sites like eBay and Craigslist. If you were a business, when your laptop is gone, check with them every day. Keep your eyes open for the local newspaper or community bulletin boards. Can screw up your laptop and if so, you should be aware of what you can qualify.

How to prevent theft and protect data
By taking the steps above to maximize the chances that your equipment will be returned to you if stolen or lost, simply. But what precautions? Here are some things you can do in advance to help ensure that your laptop is gaining ground and that the data remain protected.

1. Install Prey
Prey is a monitoring program that you can enable remote access to your laptop is missing or stolen. Prey then "call home" Prey server (or your own server, depending on configuration) when the laptop connects to the Internet. Prey report provides the IP address, geolocation (with maps) and even a screenshot of your webcam. You can also use Prey to lock your device to prevent others from accessing it.

2. Encrypt sensitive data
Personal data such as credit cards, financial and medical records should always be encrypted, this is doubly true if your computer is portable. Encrypt data that will help ensure your identity is stolen laptop and helps protect from liability for any loss of sensitive work files.

There are several good encryption tools out there, and many modern operating systems have the encryption settings for the oven in a popular encryption tools for Mac, Windows and Linux TrueCrypt. Cross platform and free TrueCrypt is an inexpensive way to protect your personal files.

3. Make your laptop easy to Return
Consider placing a text file called a show on the desktop (for example, REWARD_IF_FOUND.TXT) that contains your contact information and any other information about the reward, if you can afford to offer. These details will be easier for someone who has stumbled across his team not to return without the need to look at the data. Even a repentant thief may cause a change of heart, especially if you can provide a way for the laptop to be returned anonymously.

4. Back up your data frequently

You should already be backing up your data regularly to protect your hardware or software, but if you do not have the possibility of missing laptop is just a motivation to do so. If you move the laptop a lot, you can take advantage of online backup services like Dropbox. If you want to back up an external hard drive, do not keep your laptop bag album! Although this is a great protection to your technical questions, please back up your hard drive with the stolen laptop that does not do you any good at all.

5. Consider an engraving
If you are serious about hanging on your laptop, consider having your company or your name and a piece of contact information such as your e-mail address or phone number engraved in a prominent location on your computer portable. This greatly reduces its resale value and make it clear that the laptop belongs. Engraving is a deterrent against theft and gives pretty good just another way to leave the viewfinder of your laptop does not know who to return it to the. Of course, the downside of this is that it makes the laptop more difficult for you to sell as well, unless you replace the burned portion of the case.


Image credit: rubenhi

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Facebook data used to steal £35,000 from online bank accounts

Hacker gathered personal details to break account security

A man has been sentenced to prison for 15 months for using personal data gathered from neighbours’ Facebook and Friends Reunited postings to hack their bank accounts and steal more than £35,000.

Iain Wood, who owns a carpet-fitting business, befriended people who lived in his block of flats in Newcastle on social networking sites such as Facebook, and used the sites to find out as much personal information about them as possible.

With this data, Wood was able to access victims’ bank accounts and ordered replacement bank cards to be delivered to his address. He then used these to withdraw more than £35,000 between June 2008 and June 2010, which he spent on gambling.

When he was unable to access bank accounts, Wood used the personal information to provide requested security information, such as mother’s maiden name, when prompted.

The scam ended when Wood decided to directly transfer money out of a neighbour’s account into his own in November 2009. The victim was alerted to the fraud when he was contacted by his bank over the withdrawal of £1,500.

Prison term
Wood was sent to prison for up to 15 months for the offences.

According to the Sunday Sun, Judge Guy Whitburn, at Newcastle Crown Court, said during sentencing: “This is the first time I’ve come across a sophisticated fraud such as this. It was very well planned, complex and clever. He was using other people’s identities and there was a considerable breach of trust in assuming his neighbours’ identities.”

Wood admitted hacking into bank accounts and intercepting other people’s post when interviewed by police.

The authorities also found numerous bank account PIN numbers, someone else’s passport and bills, many of which he had stolen from post boxes of the flat’s other residents, when they searched his flat.

Online bank access
Prosecuting lawyer Neil Pallister said: “He said he had figured out how to access online bank accounts."

“He would go on and say he couldn’t remember the password and would be asked security questions about dates of birth and mother’s maiden names and he was able to give correct details in some cases. He said he would be on the computer 18 hours a day to find out information about people on websites such as Facebook and Friends Reunited."

“He would make friends with people on Facebook, and having got their user names he would try it on the bank websites, on the basis people use the same passwords. If that did not work he would fill in the security information, which he had got from Facebook and Friends Reunited.”

Most of the accounts he targeted were dormant, but Wood was also able to exploit victims’ overdraft facilities before they realised.


source: Tech World

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Anonymous hacks SF’s myBART website. Thousands of names, addresses & numbers released.

Anonymous, the online hacktivist group, has released thousands of names, email addresses, home addresses and phone numbers believed to be from myBart.org, an independent site that uses BART’s (San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit) open data services.

The hacking is part of a carefully planned effort by Anonymous to bring BART to its knees in retaliation for its shutdown of cell phone service Thursday night at some of its stations to disrupt planned demonstrations over a police shooting.

A notice on BART’s website says the following:

BART’s online services including web, mobile web, email and SMS are used by nearly 2 million customers every month. We’re disappointed to announce that the BART website may be subject to an online attack today, Sunday August 14, between noon and 6 pm, because this action will directly affect those customers who depend upon our site, as well as the developers who use BART’s open data services to serve BART customers.

We’re doing what we can to defend against any attack on the BART website. BART’s website infrastructure is wholly separate from any computer network involved in the operation of BART service. In the event that bart.gov is not available or working as you’d expect, we encourage you to use the 511.org website for alternative transit information.

Anonymous has posted a list of all the names and addresses on a miscellaneous website (we won’t currently be linking to) and also included the following message (click for large version)

Anonymous issued a press release on Saturday claiming it would:

1. Begin a “Black Fax and E-Mail Bomb action”, where it would fill every inbox and fax machine at BART with thousands of copies of its message claiming the outage was unacceptable. A list of those email addresses just been posted to Pastebin, a site commonly used by hackers to share text anonymously.
2. It would remove BART’s website for exactly six hours. Intended to be twice as long as BART shut off cell phones for. This has yet to materialize.
3. A “physical protest” will take place at the Civic Center Bart Station at 5PM Pacific Time. BART has issued a statement warning users of possible disruption to its train services on the day.

It also released the following video propaganda video in aid of the attack:

source: TheNextWEB

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Hacker Group Anonymous Aims To Destroy Facebook on Nov. 5

Hackivist group Anonymous vows to “kill Facebook” on November 5, citing users’ lack of choice in privacy as its reason for attack.

Update: Anonymous confirmed via a tweet that while some of its members are organizing the upcoming attack against Facebook, the hacker organization as a whole does not necessarily agree with the attack.

The group of hackers has claimed participation in just about every recent notable hacking attack of this year and successfully broke into 70 law enforcement websites and took down the Syrian Ministry of Defense website this week alone.

This recent interest in Facebook, despite a slew of privacy concerns raised against the social network since its founding, may be a result of Anonymous’s recent announcement that it plans to create its own social network, called AnonPlus. After the group’s Google+ account, called “Your Anon News,” was banned, it began fleshing out AnonPlus.com, “a new social network where there is no fear … of censorship … of blackout … nor of holding back.”

Below is a video and statement released by Anonymous explaining the reason for its upcoming battle with the world’s largest social network.

Anonymous Statement

Attention citizens of the world,


We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows:
Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy.


Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.


Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your "privacy" settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you "delete" your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more "private" is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family.


http://www.physorg.com/news170614271.html
http://itgrunts.com/2010/10/07/facebook-steals-numbers-and-data-from-your-iphone/


You cannot hide from the reality in which you, the people of the internet, live in. Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realise what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.


The riots are underway. It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent. It's unfolding because people are being raped, tickled, molested, and confused into doing things where they don't understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them "for their own good" while they then make millions off of you. When a service is "free," it really means they're making money off of you and your information.


Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #opfacebook . Engaged.


This is our world now. We exist without nationality, without religious bias. We have the right to not be surveilled, not be stalked, and not be used for profit. We have the right to not live as slaves.


We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us






more at Mashable

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Anonymous Hackers Take Down Syrian Ministry of Defense Website

Hacktivist group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for taking down the Syrian Ministry of Defense website, posting in its place a message that calls for the removal of President Bashar Al-Assad.

“To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad,” the message begins in both English and Arabic. ” … To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people, and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country — rise up against the regime!”

This message has since been removed from the still-down Ministry of Defense website, but the Anonymous Twitter account posted a link to a replica.

In April, the Syrian government launched a series of crackdowns on protesters. By the count of some human rights groups, The New York Times reports, more than 2,000 people have been killed since then. Links on the top of the Anonymous message lead to YouTube videos that illustrate the unrest.

Anonymous frequently expresses its opinion through cyberattacks. It is best known for attacks on the websites of the Church of Scientology and those who spoke against or stopped doing business with WikiLeaks. The loosely affiliated group has also claimed responsibility for politically motivated attacks on government websites in Turkey, Egypt and Yemen.

more at Mashable

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Alleged Miley Cyrus Hacker Pleads Guilty to Spamming From Hacked Celebrity Accounts

A hacker who boasted that he was responsible for stealing and posting provocative pictures stolen from Miley Cyrus’ Gmail account pleaded guilty on Monday to other charges involving credit card fraud and hacking.

Josh Holly, 21, pleaded guilty to possessing about 200 stolen credit card numbers, and to breaching celebrity MySpace pages in a spamming scheme that earned him at least $100,000.

Holly has never been charged with hacking Cyrus’s e-mail account, but after bragging online about this and other activity, and taunting authorities that they would never find him, his apartment in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was raided in October 2007, at which point authorities found evidence of the cards and spamming scheme.

Holly, who went by the screen names “TrainReq,” “Rockz” and “h4x,” told Threat Level in 2008 that he had gained access to a Gmail account Cyrus had used (messagemebaby@gmail.com) and found images the Hannah Montana actress had purportedly sent to singer Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers.

Holly claimed that he tried to sell the pictures to TMZ.com and other celebrity outlets, but no one would buy them, given the illegal manner by which he’d obtained them. He then posted some of them online at digitalgangster.com, after which numerous gossip and celebrity websites published them for free. More photos followed thereafter.

The images showed the then-15-year-old Cyrus in a wet T-shirt in the shower, baring her midriff while blowing a kiss to a mirror, and posing seductively in her underwear and bathing suit.

Holly told Threat Level he got access to Cyrus’s Gmail account after obtaining unauthorized access to a MySpace administrative panel where he found passwords for MySpace accounts stored in cleartext. Holly said he obtained access to the administrative panel by social engineering a MySpace employee. Once inside the panel, he found the password Cyrus used for her MySpace account — Loco92 — and tried it on a Gmail account she was known to use.

In addition to stealing Cyrus’s password, he reset MySpace account passwords for a number of other celebrity MySpace users, then used their accounts for a spamming scheme that he said netted him about $50,000.

According to an affidavit (.pdf), Holly admitted to the FBI that beginning in 2005 he had hijacked numerous celebrity internet accounts to conduct spamming. An investigation of his bank records showed that between November 2007 and July 2008, he received more than $110,000 from companies for spamming on their behalf. Holly told Threat Level that half of his illicit income went to an accomplice in Israel who used the online nickname elul21 (Elul is the Hebrew name of a month on the Jewish calendar).

Holly also said that the celebrity MySpace accounts he accessed to conduct his spamming activity belonged mainly to recording artists and groups — Chris Brown, Rihanna, Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy. He accessed about 20 accounts. Once he had passwords to the accounts, he used the accounts to send bulletins to all of the friends on the MySpace accounts advertising a ringtone or call service for the recording artist. For example, he’d send out a bulletin from Fall Out Boy’s MySpace account telling fans that the band would call their phone and send them a ringtone if they clicked on a link and entered their details.

Holly said the advertising affiliates he worked for paid him between $5 and $12 per person who responded to the ad. The affiliates didn’t know he was spamming customers, he said, and when they found out they terminated their work with him and refused to pay him outstanding earnings.

Asked at the time charges were filed against him if he was concerned about the repercussions of his actions, he replied, “There’s no way I can get out of this at all. Not even OJ’s lawyers or Michael Jackson’s lawyers can get me out of this. To be blunt, I was an idiot and I didn’t delete any of my [hard drives]. I never thought they would raid me. They’re going to get full proof evidence of everything that I’ve said I’ve done.”

Holly’s sentencing hearing is set for October 31


Photo: Mug shot of Josh Holly courtesy of The Smoking Gun


more at Wired

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Letter from Lulz Security, Anonymous and AntiSec [ Hacking ]

Dear staff of PayPal, its customers and friends around the world,

This is an official communication by Anonymous lulz, and Security, united in the name of AntiSec.

In recent weeks, we were outraged by the arrest by the FBI and threats perpetrated against people involved in protests modern form of information operations. The security forces continue to fly in the face of their ridiculous rules. The members of Anonymous could face a fine of $ 500,000 and fifteen years in prison, all this why? To be part of an activist movement that fights for the people on the web. Many of the Anon arrested are accused of taking part in DDoS attacks against corrupt and greedy organizations, such as PayPal.

What the FBI needs to learn is that there is a big difference between adding a voice to the chorus part in a sit-in digital LOIC and control of a vast botnet infected computers. However, today, both involving the same sentence.

In addition to this unacceptable incompetence of the police, continues to steal PayPal funds to Wikileaks, real beacon of truth in these dark times. PayPal continues to wash their hands of any guilt and simultaneously encourages and helps the police to hunt down participants in the movement AntiSec.

Quite simply, we, the people, are disgusted by these injustices. We do not stop and we will not step from any company or government. We are not afraid, and this is what you should be scared of you. We are not terrorists here: you are, there obstacles and pursuing your interests.

We urge anyone using PayPal to close their accounts immediately and take coinsiderazione alternative. The first step to be truly free is to put one's trust in a company that freezes the accounts if it wishes, or when it is under pressure from the U.S. government. The desire to bend the laws of PayPal should be proof enough that it does not deserve to get customers. He does not deserve your business, does not deserve your respect.

Join us in our last operation against paypal - Twittered pictures of your account closed, speak to us about the IRC, Tell it to the world. Anonymous has become a powerful channel for information and, differnza of the various governments of the world, we are here for you to compact. Always.

Signed, your allies,

Lulz Security
Anonymous
AntiSec

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Scotland Yard Arrests Suspected LulzSec Spokesman

Scotland Yard says it has arrested a teenager accused of being the voice of LulzSec, the loose group of hackers behind some recent, notable site takedowns.

A 19-year-old who used the online name Topiary was arrested in Scotland, Scotland Yard said Wednesday. He faces charges for cybercrime, hacking and network intrusions, according to reports.

This latest arrest is the third made in the UK related to LulzSec. Another 19-year-old LulzSec suspect was arrested a month ago in Essex, England. According to the Guardian, he is due to appear in court August 30. A 16-year-old was also arrested and has been released on bail.

Hackers who identify themselves with the group have in recent months targeted the CIA’s website, Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper, the U.S. Senate’s site, Sony’s PlayStation Network and online games. And less than a week ago LulzSec and Anonymous released a joint statement in response to a law enforcement crackdown on hacking.

“These governments and corporations are our enemy,” the statement said. “And we will continue to fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, airportrait




more at Mashable

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LulzSec and Anonymous hacker suspects arrested by US, UK and Dutch authorities

Computer crime authorities will be hoping that they have struck a significant blow against the Anonymous and LulzSec hacking groups, following a series of raids and arrests on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the United States, 16 people have been arrested in connection with an internet attack last year against PayPal - an assault which was claimed by the loosely-knit hacktivist group known as "Anonymous", in retaliation for the website withdrawing support for WikiLeaks.

According to a Department of Justice press release, arrests were made in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and the District of New Jersey.

In all, FBI agents executed more than 35 search warrants as part of the co-ordinated investigation.

In addition, the UK's PCeU arrested a 16-year-old youth known as "T-Flow" in South London, on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act. The teenager is allegedly connected to hacks perpetrated by the LulzSec and Anonymous groups.

Finally, the Dutch National Police Agency arrested four individuals for alleged cybercrimes related to the case.

Defendants named by the US authorities include:

* Christopher Wayne Cooper, 23, aka "Anthrophobic"
* Joshua John Covelli, 26, aka "Absolem" and "Toxic"
* Keith Wilson Downey, 26
* Mercedes Renee Haefer, 20, aka "No" and "MMMM"
* Donald Husband, 29, aka "Ananon"
* Vincent Charles Kershaw, 27, aka "Trivette", "Triv" and "Reaper"
* Ethan Miles, 33
* James C. Murphy, 36
* Drew Alan Phillips, 26, aka "Drew010"
* Jeffrey Puglisi, 28, aka "Jeffer", "Jefferp" and "Ji"
* Daniel Sullivan, 22
* Tracy Ann Valenzuela, 42
* Christopher Quang Vo, 22

In addition, 21-year-old Scott Matthew Arciszewski, 21 who was arrested by the FBI in Florida, was charged with hacks targeted at the Tampa Bay InfraGard website.

InfraGard is a public-private partnership for critical infrastructure protection sponsored by the FBI.

Meanwhile, 21-year-old Lance Moore, of Las Cruses, New Mexico, was charged with allegedly stealing confidential business information from AT&T's web servers. Moore is said to have worked as a customer support contractor at the firm and is alleged to have downloaded thousands of documents and other files that he was not authorised to access.

The AT&T files were later published by the LulzSec hacking group.

Computer crime authorities will no doubt be hoping that they have struck a significant blow against the Anonymous and LulzSec hacking groups - but anyone who believes we have heard the last of the hacktivists is probably going to be sourly disappointed.

more at Naked Security

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An Interview With a Target of the FBI’s Anonymous Probe

The feds are taking Operation Payback seriously: In response to the Anonymous attacks on Paypal, Mastercard, Amazon, and other corporations that severed ties to Wikileaks in the wake of Cablegate, the FBI has served more than 40 search warrants and subpoenas as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the attacks based in San Jose, Calif. We spoke to one target of the investigation, a 19-year-old woman who lives on the West Coast, anonymously about the FBI raid on her home, her participation in the movement, and the FBI's fundamental cluelessness about the nature of Anonymous.

The woman, who operated Internet Relay Chat (IRC) rooms where efforts to shut down Paypal and other sites were planned under the screen name "No," was raided late last month. Agents served a search warrant, questioned her, and seized two computers, her iPhone, and a router. Far from being a devious "hacker" who used her skills to undermine global corporations, "No" describes herself as a computer illiterate—"everything I know about computers I have learned since November"—who simply helped keep order and crack jokes in IRC channels. She says she never actually participated in DDOS attacks or cracking corporate security. And the FBI agents who raided her house at 6 a.m. displayed disconcerting naivete about what they were investigating: One agent asked her if she had a Guy Fawkes mask, the ad hoc symbol of anonymous that was adopted as a real-world totem by some protesters against Scientology but remains largely a digital badge. It would be weird if she actually had one.

The interview was conducted via e-mail and has been edited into a coherent Q-and-A.

Why did you get involved in Anonymous?

I saw something about them. Some web article. I said, "Wow, wtf are these people?" So I initially joined the IRC to watch them. It seemed like an interesting concept. A large group of angry people with supposedly no control structure tearing shit up online. I wanted to know if they really had no command structure. I wanted to know how it worked. Like a clock, sort of. Watch it. Take it apart. See how it ticks. And I liked what they were doing. I disagree with copyright. I disagree with how companies can shit on our rights and the government stands by and does nothing. I disagree with how a single mother can be sued for millions of dollars over 15 or 20 songs when those same songs are 99 cents on iTunes.

So what did you do? Did you participate in any DDOS attacks?

The phrase I used to use is "I don't lead Anonymous. I don't lead anyone. I just troll with authority." I never hosted a hivemind. I never wrote a piece of DDOS software. I never touched a server. I was a channel operator. Meaning, I had the ability to ban people from the channels I was operator on, kick them from those channels, change the [rules] of the channels. As far as the "did participate in DDOS, etc." question: That is, ironically, the same question the FBI asked me. "Do you have to DDOS or vandalize websites or hack to gain operator status in Anonymous?" My answer was: "No. That would be stupid. What if you are a horrible op and you abuse your privilege?" We give op to the people who we think will do a good job of maintaining the channels.

Why did the FBI target you?

My personal opinion is that, when I was "no," I got away with quite a bit of bullshit on the servers. I had op in quite a few channels. I was allowed to do things that the average user would have been banned for. I was friends with a few of the people that the FBI considers higher up in Anonymous. I helped in some of the setup channels. I think the FBI came to my house that morning thinking that I either was "high up" in Anonymous, or could and would hand them the people they are looking for. None of these things are true. I am just a user the IRCops [or people running IRC servers] find particularly amusing and so they let me get away with the ridiculous amount of running amok that I have a tendency to take part in.

Can you describe the raid?

It was six in the morning. I had just woken up to get ready for work. Obnoxious people in vests banged on my door and pointed guns at me when I was in my fucking pajamas. Later they told my family that I was "arrogant and belligerent." I disagree. I think they expected me to cry. I think they expected me to ask for forgiveness. I think they expected me to panic and give them everything I knew. I think that these are stupid expectations based on the fact that I am 19 and female. I think that they were disappointed with what I gave them.

What were they looking for?

The warrant said they were looking for anything that could store files connected to, or software for, hacking, infiltrating, DDOS attacks, etc. This could be anything from a phone, to a USB stick, to a microSD [Flash card], to a computer, to a backup disk. I think they are still looking for a leader of Anonymous. The sad thing is, there is no leader to give them. If they catch an IRCop, if they seize the servers, someone will just make new servers, build a new IRC network, new IRCops will step forward. No one person or select group of people select the targets. If enough people say "Lets DDOS Paypal," Paypal gets DDOS'd. Not by everyone. There is rarely an op where everyone takes part. Because, who is going to make them DDOS? There is no governing body. If they are looking for the responsible party in the Paypal raids, they should look at Paypal. I did not convince 7,000 people to attack Paypal. Paypal convinced 7,000 people to attack Paypal.

So what did they take from you?

The whole thing was sort of a botch. I had this flier hanging on my fridge. It's a picture of my little sister, and it says "The [insert little sister's name] Liberation Front." I made it as a joke about how strict my mother is. It looks quite like some of the fliers that have been made for Anonymous. They brought it into the living room where they were asking me questions and asked very seriously, "Is this an upcoming operation for Anonymous?" I laughed and almost said, "Yes."

The whole time they are asking me questions in my living room, I can hear the rest of the team in my kitchen looking over my laptop giggling and all excited like little kids. You expect the FBI to be professional. I mean, they have the vest, the gun, the little LED flashlight that leaves spots on your eyes. They all have the over exaggerated adjective "special" in front of their "agent". The whole 9 yards. And then you hear them gasping and cooing over my Mac because they are so excited they think they caught a cyber terrorist. (Who cyber terrorizes from a Mac?) I think, that to them, the raid was a game. The agent in charge of my particular warrant actually asked me if I owned a Guy Fawkes mask. I told him no and then asked him if he was disappointed that he wouldn't have a picture of "a real live Anon's mask" to hang in his office. He actually said yes. He gave me his card before he left. Later on, when he talked to my family, he told them that if I released his info to Anonymous, he would bring "the full force of the FBI" down upon me.

They found my German dictionary in my room and kept it with them when they were asking questions. Rather funny in my opinion. Very "Boondocks Saints". Like I might start insulting them in German and think they couldn't look it up later.

I think the American public sometimes has this general image of the FBI as professional and well informed and omniscient. Up until this point, I sort of held this same belief.

Do you fear you will be indicted?

There is a tiny little part of me that is like, "Oh shit. It's the FBI." But in honesty, there is nothing I can do if they choose to press charges. All I can do is try to not give them more evidence against me and not make it easy for them to reach a conviction.

Or do you just think it was just that they were digging through your stuff to look for bigger fish?

I think they thought they were catching a bigger fish, or that I would lead them to bigger fish. I am not a big fish. I am rather harmless. I have a propensity for teaching other Mac users how to use their Macs. Last I checked, this is not a crime. Although, I think that certain government agencies (including Steve Jobs, who I am convinced is a government agency) would like to make it illegal.

Have you also been called to testify before the grand jury?

No I have not. I was disappointed by this. I think I would have been a fun person to question. Maybe because they didn't want to pay for a German translator?

Why do you think the feds consider some folks "leaders"? Just that they're more active?

I think the Feds need there to be a leader. How do you cut the head off a snake that doesn't have a head? They are looking for the fastest most efficient way to kill Anonymous. If they ever kill Anonymous, it won't be fast and it wont be efficient. They would have to oppress many, many civil rights to do so. As far as taking out those who are more active—I can tell you that we had a boy in the Netherlands who used to help a lot with Anonymous. He got caught. He was 16. Before he got caught, Anonymous had maybe 15 Dutch on the whole IRC. After he got caught a special channel had to be made just for all the Dutch people that were coming in.

How'd they find you?

They found me through the IRC. I did not make myself a particularly hard person to track down, because I did not believe and still do not believe that I am worth prosecuting. I am harmless. The warrant said they were looking for anything that could be used to hack or infiltrate. I do not hack or infiltrate. Everything I know about computers I have learned since November. That is if you can consider a Macintosh a computer.

How has this affected you financially? Emotionally?

Well, I had a surplus when they hit. I have since moved out of my father's house. We disagree on my civil rights. He believes I should give them everything. I believe I should give them nothing. He believes I am not entitled to privacy and a doorknob. I believe he is a drunk who needs to learn how to clean the kitchen. Me and my father no longer speak and he refuses to call me by my name. He calls me either "terrorist" or "enemy of state." I find these amusing. I am even thinking of making t-shirts.


more at Gawker

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How a Security Researcher Discovered the Apple Battery ‘Hack’

A security “noob” mistake has left the batteries in Apple’s laptops open to hacking, which could result in a bricked battery or, in a worst case scenario, fire or explosion. This was revealed Friday after Accuvant Labs security researcher Charlie Miller disclosed that he plans to detail the hack at the annual Black Hat security conference in early August.

We were curious as to how Miller, known for repeated hacks of Apple’s Safari Web browser at the annual Pwn2Own hacking competition, stumbled upon this hack in the first place—after all, it is somewhat obscure and doesn’t fall into what most people consider to be his typical focus area (browsers). Miller took time to answer our questions about what the hack is and how he found it, as well as what he plans to do when Black Hat rolls around.

The vulnerability

Laptop batteries include microcontrollers which constantly monitor charging voltage, current, and thermal characteristics, among other properties. These microcontrollers are part of a system called the Smart Battery System, designed to improve the safety of Li-Ion and Li-Poly cells used in these batteries.

According to Miller, these controllers can be hacked in a fairly straightforward manner. By reprogramming the microcontroller’s firmware, a battery could report a much lower internal voltage or current, causing the charger to overcharge the battery. In Miller’s testing, he was only successfully able to turn a series of seven $130 MacBook Pro batteries into expensive bricks, but he told Ars that it may be possible to cause fire or even an explosion.

“Lithium-ion batteries are potentially dangerous, and it’s possible that futzing with the parameters could cause the battery to fail at best, or explode at worst,” Miller said. “I know there are internal fuses and other safeguards to prevent that from happening, and I never did it myself, but there’s certainly potential to get some malware to rewrite the smart battery firmware and cause some catastrophic failure.”

As Miller noted, Smart Battery Systems include fuses which can disable cells if they reach dangerous internal voltages. But even these safeguards occasionally fail, resulting in toasted laptops.

Miller also told Ars that the battery firmware hack could be used to create a sort of “permanent” malware infection. Such malware, or a least a portion of it, could be installed in the micorcontroller’s flash memory. Even if an infected computer’s drive were replaced and the operating system re-installed, it’s possible that an exploit could allow the malware to be reloaded from a laptop’s Smart Battery System firmware.

The discovery

While the threat of un-installable viruses that cause laptop batteries to explode is highly unlikely, the truth is that the vulnerability exists in the first place because of a blunder on Apple’s part. While researching potential vulnerabilities in the MacBook Pro’s power management system, Miller inadvertently discovered that Apple used default passwords described in publicly available documentation on the Smart Battery System, which allows rewriting the firmware itself.

Miller began by trying to determine if it was possible to manipulate or control the battery charging system. He downloaded a battery firmware update that Apple released a couple years ago, and dug through its code to see how the system communicates with the Smart Battery System. Inside the firmware updater, he found a password and a command to “unseal” the microcontroller, which allowed the firmware updater to change some of the battery’s parameters.

This particular updater, according to Miller, merely told the battery to always keep a slightly higher minimum charge in order to keep the battery from becoming unable to hold a charge after being unused for an extended period of time. But searching for the unseal command led Miller to the Smart Battery Charger Specifications. Digging through the documentation, Miller learned that the password Apple used to unseal the microcontroller was the default used in the specifications.

On a whim, Miller tried the default password to switch the microcontroller into “full access mode,” sort of like an administrator account on your Mac. “Unlike the unsealed mode, in full access mode, I could change anything: recalibrate the battery, access the controller at a really low level, including getting the firmware or changing it,” Miller said.

Miller downloaded the firmware and reverse engineered the microcontroller’s machine code, bricking several batteries in the process. Eventually he was able to change the firmware to “always lie, like to say it wasn’t fully charged even when it was.”

The fact that Apple never bothered to change the default password is disconcerting, especially considering the effort Apple has made to beef up security in Mac OS X Lion. Lion’s implementation of address space layout randomization (ASLR) is now “complete,” according to Miller, making it impossible to know where the OS has loaded system functions into memory. Furthermore, Safari—Miller’s preferred exploit vector—is now divided into two sandboxed processes, one for the GUI and one for rendering Web content.

“That second process is sandboxed; it can’t access your files and other stuff,” Miller explained. “Even if you have browser exploits, the only way to do anything [useful] is to get out of the sandbox.” Miller said that would mean finding a bug in the kernel itself. “That’s not impossible… but it’s definitely much harder with a sandbox than without.

“It’s certainly going to be a lot harder to own a Mac at Pwn2Own next year,” Miller admitted.

Miller speculated that Apple assumed that the battery would never be a target for hackers, and so kept the default passwords described in the documentation as a convenience. Unfortunately, that convenience has resulted in a potential headache for Apple laptop users.

Miller handed his research over to Apple a few weeks ago to give the company time to come up with its own workaround before he presents his findings at the Black Hat conference on August 4. Miller has also written a Mac OS X tool that will generate a random password and store it in a battery’s firmware, preventing future hacks—but also preventing future firmware updates, which will be released when he gives his talk at Black Hat.

Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson


more at Wired

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Oslo Bombing Video Is a Facebook Scam, Infecting 1 User Per Second [WARNING]

In light of the bombing and shootings in Norway on Friday, it’s hard to believe that scammers would take advantage of such a tragic situation. But that’s just what’s happening on Facebook today, where a bogus post claims to link you to a video from an Oslo security camera showing the detonation of a car bomb near a Norwegian government building in which at least 10 people were killed.

The truth is, there was no security camera that captured such a video, at least as far as we know thus far. So if you see the following message on Facebook (pictured below): “[Video] OSLO Security Camera Captures Blast!”, don’t click on it, delete it from your Facebook feed, and report it to Facebook security. Help Net Security says the scam is infecting one user per second:

According to security firm Sophos, clicking on the link redirects victims off-site to a fake video player that mimics Facebook. They’re asked to take a survey, and then presented with an IQ test. After that, they’re asked to enter a mobile phone number that will charge the victim $2 per trivia question, four times per week. Ouch.

Facebook scams seem to be proliferating these days, preying on the curiosity or desires of unsuspecting victims. For instance, there was a Facebook Video Calling scam during a time of intense interest in the new feature two weeks ago, a particularly virulent scheme that lured users into clicking a link that spammed all their Facebook friends.

Patrik Runald, senior manager of security research at Websense told Help Net Security, “Criminals know how to take advantage of disasters and the hottest news items to get people to click on infected links. Tragedy is just one type of news that the bad guys use to exploit, compromise and infect your computer. Videos are an especially popular lure; we saw the same thing when Osama bin Laden died and when Casey Anthony was acquitted.

Other popular lures involve non-existent but widely desired Facebook features such as a Facebook “dislike button” scam, fake invites to Google+ and fake invitations to Google Music.

We’re always on the lookout for fakey Facebook behavior, so let us know if you see anything fishy. Is there no end to this needless duplicity? Is there any good news on this front? Although scams seem to be gaining popularity, spam decreased 82.22% over the past year.


more on Mashable

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24,000 Pentagon Files Stolen in Cyberattack

A Pentagon official says some 24,000 Department of Defense files were “lost” in March in a cyberattack on a military contractor. It may be the most damaging breach the U.S. military has seen.

In a speech on the Pentagon’s cyber strategy Thursday, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III didn’t disclose what kind of files were stolen or who took them.

The department relies on a huge system of networks — more than 15,000 networks and 7 million computing devices around the world — for its military, intelligence and business operations.

“The department and the nation have vulnerabilities in cyberspace,” a Defense report states. “Our reliance on cyberspace stands in stark contrast to the inadequacy of our cybersecurity – the security of the technologies that we use each day.”

Foreign nations, foreign intelligence organizations and non-state actors are working to exploit and disrupt the Department of Defense’s unclassified and classified networks, according to the report.

“National security is being redefined by cyberspace,” the report states.

Lynn outlined the Department of Defense’s five strategies for operating in cyberspace:

• Treat cyberspace as an operational domain to organize, train, and equip so that DoD can take full advantage of cyberspace’s potential.
• Employ new defense operating concepts to protect DoD networks and systems.
• Partner with other U.S. government departments and agencies and the private sector to enable a whole-of-government cybersecurity strategy.
• Build robust relationships with U.S. allies and international partners to strengthen collective cybersecurity.
• Leverage the nation’s ingenuity through an exceptional cyber workforce and rapid technological innovation.

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Murdoch’s Sun Newspaper Hacked by LulzSec

Hacker group LulzSec, which previously announced it was disbanding, has evidently decided to come out of retirement.

The site managed to redirect the homepage of what is now News International’s best-selling newspaper, The Sun — sister paper to the News of the World — to the LulzSec Twitter account.

Minutes earlier, the hacker group reportedly managed to redirect the Sun’s homepage to a rather unfunny and poorly-spelled fake news story on the sudden death of Rupert Murdoch. That hack was widely reported, though few sources save the UK-based Guardian actually saw the hack with their own eyes.

The hacks apparently began taking place as news was breaking about the ongoing News of the World whistleblower scandal. Former NOTW reporter Sean Hoare had exposed the publication’s hacking of source’s phones to The New York Times, the BBC, and international audiences last fall and again last week. Today, it was revealed that Hoare had been found dead. The LulzSec attack, although not explicitly stated as such on the LulzSec Twitter account, would ostensibly a retaliation for any possible involvement on Murdoch’s part.

The Sun, a tabloid with more than 3 million readers, was launched in the late 1960s and quickly became infamous for its scantily-clad “Page 3″ girls. It was credited with swinging the UK’s 1992 election to the Conservative party — which it bragged about in the front page headline “It’s The Sun Wot Won It.” Five years later, it backed Labor leader Tony Blair, who won in a landslide.

LulzSec has previously hacked the websites of the CIA, the U.S. Senate, Sony Entertainment and several others. The hacker collective also seems to have brought down the official website of News International.





more at Mashable

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London's top 2 police resign in UK hacking scandal

By JILL LAWLESS - Associated Press,MEERA SELVA - Associated Press
 

Rupert Murdoch speaks outside a hotel where he met the familly
of murdered teenager Milly Dowler in central London

LONDON (AP) — Britain's spreading phone hacking and police bribery scandal forced two of London's top police officers to resign in less than 24 hours and prompted Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday to call for an emergency session of parliament.

Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson stepped down Sunday night, followed out the door Monday by Assistant Commissioner John Yates. Yates was the official who decided two years ago not to reopen police inquiries into phone hacking and police bribery by tabloid journalists, saying he did not believe there was any new evidence to consider.

Detectives reopened the investigation earlier this year and now say they have the names of 3,700 potential victims.

British Home Secretary Theresa May announced Monday that a police inspectorate will examine possible police corruption.

She told lawmakers that at moments like this "it is natural to ask whom polices the police" and announced that the Inspectorate of Constabulary would look at links between the police and the press in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

The spate of high-profile resignations have made it even harder for Cameron to contain the intensifying scandal that is threatening his leadership and knocking billions off of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire.

Parliament was to break for the summer on Tuesday after lawmakers grilled Murdoch, his son James and Murdoch's former British chief executive Rebekah Brooks in a highly anticipated public airing about the scandal. Cameron, however, wanted lawmakers to reconvene Wednesday "so I can make a further statement."

Cameron spoke in Pretoria, South Africa, on the first day of a two-day visit to Africa. He had planned a longer trip but cut it short as his government faces a growing number of questions about its cozy relationship with the Murdoch empire during a scandal that has taken down top police and media figures with breathtaking speed.

Opposition leader Ed Miliband said Cameron needed to answer "a whole series of questions" about his relationships with Brooks, James Murdoch and Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor that Cameron later hired as his communications chief. Coulson resigned from that post in January and is one of 10 people who have been arrested in the scandal. No one has been charged.

"At the moment, he seems unable to provide the leadership the country needs," Miliband said.
Cameron insisted his Conservative-led government had "taken very decisive action" by setting up a judge-led inquiry into the wrongdoing at the now-defunct Murdoch tabloid News of the World and into the overall relations between British politicians, the media and police.

"We have helped to ensure a large and properly resourced police investigation that can get to the bottom of what happened, and wrongdoing, and we have pretty much demonstrated complete transparency in terms of media contact," Cameron said.

Still, Cameron is under heavy pressure after the resignations of Stephenson and Yates, and Sunday's arrest of Brooks — a friend of his — on suspicion of hacking and police bribery.

Brooks was detained and questioned for nine hours Sunday before being released on bail. Her lawyer, Stephen Parkinson, released a defiant statement Monday professing her innocence.

Parkinson said police would "have to give an account of their actions" considering "the enormous reputational damage" Brooks' arrest had caused to the social and political insider.

Brooks was the bold chief executive of News International, Murdoch's British newspaper arm, whose News of the World stands accused of hacking into the phones of celebrities, politicians and other journalists. But it was the revelation that journalists accessed the phone of slain teenager Milly Dowler in search of scoops while police were looking for the missing 13-year-old fueled wide outrage in Britain.
Police are under pressure to explain why their original hacking investigation several years ago failed to find enough evidence to prosecute anyone other than News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Goodman has been re-arrested in the current hacking and police bribery investigation.

Stephenson, the police chief, resigned Sunday over his ties to Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor who has been arrested in the scandal. Stephenson said he had nothing to do with the earlier phone hacking inquiry or Wallis, but was resigning to allow his agency to focus on the London 2012 Olympics instead of leadership changes.

London mayor Boris Johnson said Yates had questions to answer about his own links with Wallis, and said Yates resigned after being told he would be suspended pending an ethics investigation.
Yates will be replaced by Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick on an interim basis. Dick is highly regarded among her Scotland Yard peers but has drawn criticism in the past for commanding an operation that resulted in the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber.

In his resignation speech Sunday, Stephenson made pointed reference to Cameron's hiring of Coulson.
Cameron retorted Monday that the situations of his government and the police were "completely different," because allegations that police were bribed for information "have had a direct bearing on public confidence into the police inquiry into the News of the World and indeed into the police themselves."

Brooks' arrest was the latest blow for Murdoch, the once all-powerful figure courted by British politicians of all stripes. Now Murdoch is struggling to tame the scandal, which has already destroyed the News of the World, cost the jobs of Brooks and Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton and sunk the media baron's dream of taking full control of a lucrative satellite broadcaster, British Sky Broadcasting.

Murdoch is eager to stop the crisis from spreading to the United States, where many of his most lucrative assets — including the Fox TV network, 20th Century Fox film studio, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post — are based.

Sky News reported Monday that News Corp. had appointed a senior lawyer to head an internal probe on phone hacking.

Police said Monday they had cleared one of the 10 people they arrested, Press Association royal reporter Laura Elston.

Even more senior figures could face arrest, including James Murdoch, chairman of BSkyB and chief executive of his father's European and Asian operations. James Murdoch did not directly oversee the News of the World, but he approved payments to some of the paper's most prominent hacking victims, including 700,000 pounds ($1.1 million) to Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor.
James Murdoch said last week that he "did not have a complete picture" when he approved the payouts.

At Tuesday's committee hearing, which will be televised, U.K. politicians will seek more details about the scale of criminality at the News of the World. The Murdochs will try to avoid incriminating themselves or doing more harm to their business without misleading Parliament, which is a crime.

Hinton, too, could face questioning over wrongdoing at the News of the World during his 12 years as executive chairman of News International. But since he is an American citizen living in the U.S., British authorities would have to seek his extradition if he refused to come willingly.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office, meanwhile, said Monday it was giving "full consideration" to a request from a lawmaker that it open an investigation into Murdoch's News Corp. activities in Britain.



Danica Kirka and Cassandra Vinograd contributed to this report.

more at Yahoo News

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CIA website hacked by Lulz Security

The public website of the US Central Intelligence Agency has gone down after the hacker group Lulz Security said it had launched an attack.

Lulz Security has claimed responsibility for recent attacks on the Senate, Sony Corp, News Corp and the US Public Broadcasting System television network.

The CIA site initially could not be accessed from New York to San Francisco, and Bangalore to London. Later in the evening service was sporadic.

"We are looking into these reports," a CIA spokesman said.

Lulz Security has defaced websites, posted personal information about customers and site administrators, and disclosed the network configurations of some sites.
Security analysts have downplayed the significance of these attacks, saying the hackers are just looking to show off and get as much attention as possible.

In the case of the CIA attack, hackers would not be able to access sensitive data by breaking into the agency's public website, said Jeffrey Carr, author of the book Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld.

"All they're doing is saying 'Look how good we are,'" Mr Carr said. "These guys are literally in it for embarrassment, to say 'your security is crap.'"

Lulz only made claims that it attacked www.cia.gov, and there was no evidence that sensitive data in the agency's internal computer network had been compromised.

There also were no apparent links to more serious network security breaches recently at the

International Monetary Fund and Lockheed Martin Corp. Lulz Security has not been linked to those incidents.

Lulz, whose members are strewn across the globe, announced the attack shortly before 6pm East Coast time.

"Tango down," the group Tweeted, pointing to www.cia.gov.

Although the group, also known as Lulz Boat, fashions itself more as pranksters and activists than people with sinister intent, its members have been accused of breaking the law and are wanted by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

Lulz broke into a public website of the US Senate over the weekend and released data stolen from the legislative body's computer servers.

In May, the group posted a fake story on the PBS website saying that rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive and living in New Zealand. Shakur was murdered in 1996.

more at Telegraph

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Anonymous targets Monsanto, oil firms

Military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton today confirmed that it was the victim of an "illegal attack," one day after hackers posted what they said were about 90,000 military e-mail addresses purloined from a server of the consulting firm.

"Booz Allen Hamilton has confirmed today that the posting of certain data files on the Internet yesterday was the result of an illegal attack. We are conducting a full review of the nature and extent of the attack. At this time, we do not believe that the attack extended beyond data pertaining to a learning management system for a government agency," the company said in a statement after refusing to comment yesterday.

"Our policy and security practice is generally not to comment on such matters; however, given the publicity about this event, we believe it is important to set out our preliminary understanding of the facts," the company added. "We are communicating with our clients and analyzing the nature of this attack and the data files affected. We maintain our commitment to protect our clients and our firm from illegal thefts of information."

Meanwhile, the Anonymous online activist collective, which is part of the AntiSec campaign that claimed it had attacked Booz Allen Hamilton, said today that it had attacked Web servers of Monsanto and released data on employees to protest the company's lawsuits against organic dairy farmers for stating on labels that their products don't contain growth hormones. 

"Over the last 2 months we have pushed the exposure of hundreds of pages of articles detailing Monsanto's corrupt, unethical, and downright evil business practices," Anonymous said in a statement on the Pastebin site. "We blasted their Web infrastructure to **** for two days straight, crippling all three of their mail servers as well as taking down their main Web sites worldwide. We dropped dox [released information] on 2,500+ employees and associates, including full names, addresses, phone numbers, and exactly where they work. We are also in the process of setting up a wiki, to try and get all collected information in a more centralized and stable environment." more at CNET

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