attack

Facebook has confirmed it was attacked by someone using a particularly sophisticated hacking technique. It says it doesn't appear the hackers were able to access any user data, but the site says it is taking the issue very seriously. The hackers ... didn't use the direct approach favored by many would-be attackers who either try to simply access a website's public servers, or send bogus emails to staff in the hope of tricking them into opening infected attachments. Hackers Lay Trap for Developers Instead, the hackers breached security at an external website used by developers of mobile ... (view more)

The President of the United States has the right to authorize an online attack on another nation if he has credible evidence to suggest that country plans to attack the US. That's the conclusion of a secret review of rules governing the US ... military's online behavior. Officials are said to be planning the first comprehensive set of guidelines for the military's online activities, though the rules themselves will be classified. The review was prompted by concerns over the current division between the military and intelligence services. For example, the armed forces are only allowed to launch ... (view more)

The US Federal Reserve has confirmed that it recently suffered a cyber attack that resulted in personal data being lost. It's also possible that this information has already been published online. A spokesman for the Federal Reserve said the attack ... was made possible by hackers "exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product." That problem was quickly fixed once officials became aware of it. The spokesman didn't publicly confirm what information was stolen, but did say that the attack failed to negatively impact critical operations. There's no indication the hacking ... (view more)

The United States Department of Energy has been attacked by hackers. The unknown assailants reportedly gained access to employee personal information. News agency Reuters recently acquired a letter between the US Department of Energy (DOE) and its ... employees. In that letter, the DOE admits that the attack "resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of employee and contractor Personally Identifiable Information." Employee Personal Data Lost to Hacker The letter indicated that employee and contractor personal information was lost. However, it also noted that none of the stolen information was ... (view more)

Hackers have reportedly breached Twitter security defenses. According to the social networking site, it's possible that up to a quarter of a million accounts were affected by the attack. Twitter director of information security, Bob Lord, announced ... on Friday afternoon that the site had been under attack throughout the day. An investigation by Twitter's security team discovered that the attackers had in fact bypassed site security and had gained access to a large amount of user data. That user data reportedly contained user names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords. Passwords Reset, ... (view more)

South Carolina taxpayers are upset after an estimated 3.6 million of their Social Security numbers were exposed to an international hacker who breached the state's Department of Revenue database. Approximately 387,000 credit and debit card numbers ... were also exposed during the attack. Luckily, most of these numbers appear to have been encrypted. The breach occurred in mid-September 2012. However, South Carolina officials didn't learn of the problem until several weeks later. Officials then initiated an investigation that discovered how the data had been accessed. South Carolina officials say ... (view more)

Web hosting company GoDaddy suffered an outage this week that knocked thousands of small business websites offline. It appears hackers may have been responsible, but at the moment it's unclear exactly who was behind the attack. GoDaddy is best known ... for helping users register domain names, also called URLs or website addresses. However, GoDaddy also hosts millions of large and small websites, physically storing the data for the site's pages on GoDaddy's computers. GoDaddy Sites Down For Hours GoDaddy's customer websites and email services began suffering "intermittent outages" on ... (view more)

A hacking group says it has acquired personal information associated with 12 million Apple user accounts, and that it got those details by hacking into an FBI agent's computer. So far, the group has published data from one million of those Apple ... accounts. The publication comes from LulzSec , a group whose name is a combination of "security" and a slang term for carrying out online activities for the sake of amusement ("Lulz"). Last summer, the same group leaked documents belonging to Sony Pictures. LulzSec claimed it ceased operations after a 50-day campaign. But later it re-emerged ... (view more)

A new survey shows that most IT professionals are very concerned at present about the activities of 'hacktivist' groups like Anonymous. According to the study's results, about six in every ten IT pros believe members of hacktivist cells are most ... likely to attack enterprise-wide computer systems. But the specialists don't believe that's the most worrisome threat they face. The survey was carried out by Bit9, a company that calls itself "the global leader in Advanced Threat Protection." IT Pros Believe Hacktivists Most Likely to Attack Bit9's recently released report shows that 61 per cent of ... (view more)

Google has temporarily suspended one of the features on its mobile wallet system for smartphones following word the platform has at least two serious security flaws. Google Wallet allows users to make payments using "near-field communications," a ... wireless protocol like Bluetooth, but with a maximum range of just centimeters. Users can hold, tap or swipe their smartphone next to a payment device without having to worry about the signal being intercepted. 'Brute Force' Could Break Code The system can be protected with a PIN (personal identification number) code, to prevent misuse when ... (view more)