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Thu
07
Jun
Dennis Faas's picture

Hackers Steal Millions of Social Network Passwords

Business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn has been hacked. According to new reports, hackers infiltrated the site's systems and stole an estimated 6.5 million passwords. LinkedIn is a social media platform designed with business users in ... mind. It allows members to find past and present colleagues, to search for new jobs, and exchange advice and expertise with workers in their field. It's estimated that approximately 161 million people have LinkedIn accounts, which means that it's no surprise this most recent security breach has caught the attention of many social media users. Stolen ... (view more)

Thu
17
May
Dennis Faas's picture

The Pirate Bay Disabled by DDoS Cyber-Attack

During the past few weeks, The Pirate Bay file-sharing site has faced a number of serious challenges, including orders by British and Dutch courts forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block user access. Now, the controversial site is facing ... an even bigger threat: a special type of web-based attack has disabled the site altogether. According to recent reports, The Pirate Bay was completely disabled and inaccessible for more than a day after it was struck by what appears to have been a distributed denial of service (or DDoS) attack. This kind of attack involves a massive number of ... (view more)

Fri
11
May
Dennis Faas's picture

Another Court Orders ISPs to Block The Pirate Bay

The assault on The Pirate Bay continues with five Dutch Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ordered by The Court of The Hague to block all access to the file-sharing site. The ruling comes only a week after a number of British ISPs were given a ... similar order by the UK High Court. UK Internet providers Everything Everywhere, O2, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media were told last week to block subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The new ruling was motivated by the site's prolonged activity in providing users with access to content that, in some cases, violates copyright law. Supporters ... (view more)

Mon
09
Apr
Dennis Faas's picture

Anonymous Kills Downing Street, Home Office Sites

The international hacking group Anonymous has targeted the British government with a recent string of attacks. As a result, websites for both the United Kingdom's Home Office and for Downing Street were disabled. Anonymous , which is a loose ... collective of hackers from locations around the world, has become quite renowned in recent years. Members of the group, who call themselves "hacktivists" rather than straight-up hackers, have targeted credit card companies, copyright protection agencies, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). They prefer the term "hacktivists" because their ... (view more)

Fri
02
Mar
Dennis Faas's picture

Why Does it Cost $4,500 a Month to Run Infopackets?

Infopackets Reader Bill S. writes: " Dear Dennis, [Why does it cost] $4,500 a month to maintain your website? That seems very high. I realize I run a much smaller site than yours [150 users / published once a month], but I paid $192 to register my ... [website via registrar] and have my site hosted by GoDaddy for four years. That works out to four dollars per month. I also subscribe to Windows Secrets Newsletter and frankly get much more information from that newsletter and associated site than from yours. It's contributions only by the year and I send them $25. " My response: Respectfully, I ... (view more)

Wed
29
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

Voting Poll Results, Plus Answers to FAQs

Regarding our vote on February 15, 2012 -- I have read approximately 1,000 comments from readers, along with their ballots. I will provide insight with regard to the findings, as well as address some issues. This post is approximately 1,500 words. I ... realize some of you won't want to read all of it and just want the results. So, I would like to begin by saying this: According to the results of the vote, I am pleased to announce that Infopackets will remain online. Moving forward: all users will retain access to everything that they have now and well into the future. This includes free access ... (view more)

Tue
14
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

Microsoft Security Oversight Leads to Website Hack

Microsoft's online store in India was compromised over the weekend by a group of Chinese hackers calling themselves the "Evil Shadow Team". The hackers were able to extract user IDs and passwords of the site. While many are questioning how the ... hackers were able to breach Microsoft's security system, more troublesome is the realization that the company might not have taken the proper steps to secure the credentials of their customers prior to the attack. Reportedly, Microsoft stored both login IDs and passwords for its users in plain text files, without any encryption system in place to ... (view more)

Mon
30
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

Megaupload Gov't Shutdown Results in Mega Data Wipe

Files on Megaupload, the controversial file-sharing site now under US government control , could be deleted this Thursday (February 2nd). That's caused concern amongst both former owners and for people who used the site for legitimate purposes. The ... proposed deletions won't come though a court order, but rather as an indirect result of the legal crackdown. Megaupload's financial assets have been frozen, meaning the companies it hired to physically host the files are no longer being paid. As a result, they've threatened to begin deleting the files so that they can use the space for other ... (view more)

Mon
23
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

US DOJ Shuts Down Megaupload Site, Citing Piracy

The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has shut down a leading "direct download" file-sharing site: Megaupload. In addition, employees have been charged with copyright-related offenses. Megaupload is designed to share files, regardless of ... legality. The site also allowed users to post links to the copyrighted files so anyone could obtain them. Overall, critics suggest Megaupload was much easier to use than other file-sharing sites, such as torrents or newsgroups. The site was also free of charge for most users. Anyone prepared to pay for premium membership got priority service, higher ... (view more)

Mon
14
Nov
Dennis Faas's picture

Game Service Hacked; Credit Card Data Acquired

Valve Corporation, which is behind the major online video game retailer and social networking platform Steam, has been hacked. According to reports, gamer credit cards have been compromised, as well. Steam is a major online gaming platform that ... provides nearly 2,000 games for play by some 35 million users based in 237 countries. Not only can visitors to the site download games, but they can also use the platform to easily organize multiplayer sessions, and can interact with one another through instant messaging. User Database Infiltrated by Hackers Given the massive size of Steam's user base ... (view more)

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