Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Visa. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Visa. Sort by date Show all posts

Again WikiLeaks Shuts Down Visa Card Payments

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/08/2011 11:54:00 pm

The brief, accidental lull in the fighting between WikiLeaks and the card companies that refuse to allow the group donations has ended. After WikiLeaks announced Thursday that a “workaround” had appeared for those hoping to contribute to the group via credit card, Visa has moved to shut down that channel and reinstitute the card companies’ financial blockade of the secret-spilling group. Payments to WikiLeaks from all card companies have been blocked again since early Friday, according to Sveinn Andri Sveinnson, an Icelandic lawyer for WikiLeaks and its payment gateway DataCell. More than six months after the Danish payment processor Teller shut down Visa and MasterCard payments to WikiLeaks at the card companies’ request, DataCell had made a new contract with the Icelandic processor Valitor,which unbeknownst to Visa allowed payments to WikiLeaks.

“When we signed this contract, it was clear to Valitor that this was for WikiLeaks donations, and they assented,” says Sveinnson. “Visa was saying that they hadn’t ended their financial blockade but people could see they could make payments. So it was very embarrassing for Visa and very hilarious.”

But Visa, which has claimed that WikiLeaks may violate its terms of service for encouraging illegal activity, didn’t find the situation so funny. It quickly shut down that new line of payment, pressuring Valitor to end its relationship with DataCell and WikiLeaks Friday morning. A spokesperson for Visa confirms in a somewhat convoluted statement that “An acquirer briefly accepted payments on a merchant site linked to WikiLeaks. As soon as this came to our attention, action was taken with the suspension of Visa payment acceptance to the site remaining in place.”

That means all card payments to DataCell and WikiLeaks–including MasterCard and American Express–are blocked again, says Sveinnson.
DataCell chief executive Andreas Fink told Bloomberg News that in the brief window in which WikiLeaks could receive credit card donations, it amassed “five-to-six digit figures” in contributions.
WikiLeaks and DataCell had been planning to file a complaint Thursdaywith the European Union Commission against Visa, MasterCard, and the Danish payment processor Teller. Sveinnson said they held off on filing that complaint after it seemed the card companies might have reopened payments. Now Sveinsson says they will go ahead with their complaint against the card companies early next week, and will file an additional protest against Valitor with the Icelandic Financial Authority.

“Now we’re back to the same position,” says Sveinnson. “It’s a strange world we live in.”

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Global Payments Hacked, 50K Cardholders At Risk (Visa & MasterCard Investigating The Breach)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/03/2012 01:54:00 pm


Global Payments Hacked, 50K Cardholders At Risk (Visa & MasterCard Investigating The Breach)

A security breach at Global Payments Inc, a third-party U.S. based processor, may have compromised 
50,000 Visa and MasterCard cardholder accounts. Both Visa and MasterCard have sent out non-public alerts to banks notifying them of the breach.
Major credit card issuing agencies have alerted customers and asserted that their own systems are still secure. MasterCard has hired an independent data security firm to look into the hack, while Visa has given the affected account number to the banks so that steps can be taken to protect those customers and to help find the hacker. However, the breach affects all major credit card brands, including Discover and American Express.
Visa and MasterCard are investigating whether a data security breach at one of the main companies that processes transactions improperly exposed private customer information, bank officials said Friday. The event highlighted a crucial vulnerability that could affect millions of credit card holders. The breach occurred at Global Payments, an Atlanta company that helps Visa and MasterCard process transactions for merchants. One bank executive estimated that about one million to three million accounts could be affected. That does not mean that all those cards were used fraudulently, but that credit card information on the cardholders was exposed. The bank official, who insisted on anonymity because the inquiry is at an early stage, said that Visa and MasterCard notified his company on Thursday, but that banks had been frustrated with the pace of disclosure by Global Payments. He said that Global Payments, which is one of the biggest transactions processors, had provided little information on where the breaches took place, how accounts were hacked and other details that could indicate which customers might be vulnerable. This is the second breach at Global Payments in the last 12 months, according to two individuals briefed on the investigations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Another similar attack was disclosed by Heartland Payment Systems in 2009, a breach that began in 2007 and resulted in the exposure of data on 130 million credit cards. Heartland estimated that breach cost it $140 million in fines, settlements and legal fees.
If you use a Visa or MasterCard credit card, you may be affected by this breach. The good news is that most credit cards have fraud protection, so even if you are affected by this security breach, you most likely will not be affected by fraudulent charges if you catch them early enough.




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WikiLeaks Get Court Victory, Donations By Visa & MasterCard May Resume Soon

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/17/2012 05:08:00 pm

WikiLeaks Get Court Victory, Donations By Visa & MasterCard May Resume Soon

Court victory to WikiLeaks, this Thursday an Icelandic court declared victory in the first round of its campaign against the financial blockade imposed by Visa and MasterCard to WikiLeaks donation. Judge ruled 'Valitor' -Icelandic payments processor to reopen a gateway handling Visa and MasterCard donations to Wikileaks. The court ruled that Valitor must resume processing payments for Wikileaks' partner DataCell within two weeks. If Valitor doesn't, then it must pay a fine of 800,000 Icelandic kronur (USD$6,200) per day until the company complies with the ruling, the Reykjavik district court ruled. 
WikiLeaks says that the ensuing blockade has led to a 95 percent fall in revenue, something which founder Julian Assange says has forced him to focus on fundraising at the expense of his site's publication work.
The judgment, handed down by Reykjavik District Court, is "a very important milestone in our campaign," WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said in a telephone interview. Lawsuits remain active in Denmark and in Belgium, he said, but the Icelandic win was "a small but very important step in fighting back against these powerful banks."
DataCell CEO Andreas Fink said the court had dismissed Visa's argument that DataCell should not be allowed to process donations for third parties.
"The verdict is an important one as the court had to rule on the conditions of the contracts we had with a payment processor which indirectly imposes Visa general rules on us," said Fink. 
Still neither Visa Inc. nor MasterCard Inc. immediately returned emails seeking comment on the judgment.



-Source (Newsday & PCW)





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Global Payment company Visa Conducted Security Training For CBI Officials

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/07/2012 12:16:00 am

Global Payment company Visa Conducted Security Training For CBI Officials To Fight Against Cyber-Crime
Global Payment company Visa has sensitized officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) about modus operandi of electronic payment frauds and measures to combat the rising cyber-crime. This whole campaign was a part of spreading awareness on changing nature of cyber crime and card frauds in India. Visa conducted a workshop in New Delhi where CBI officials of economic offence wing were given information on global trends in fraud risk management, cybercrime and measures available to detect and combat them. The company said that given the rapidly changing nature of cybercrime and card fraud in India, the objective of the awareness programme was to share the modus operadi of electronic payment frauds and the intricacies involved in them. 
Visa said it has stepped up its electronic payments security awareness initiative with a Cards Fraud and Payments Risk Awareness Programme for Indian law enforcement agencies.
"This programme has been developed in response to growing government and public concerns around increased fraud exposures around electronic payment products, cyber security and cyber crime," it said in a statement. Visa Group Country Manager (India and South Asia) Uttam Nayak said the company is committed to developing a safe and secure online experience. "Through such programmes we play our part in keeping the country's payment system safe and ensure that law enforcement agencies have the latest skills at their disposal," he said.
VK Gupta, Special Director of CBI said that as a law enforcement agency, it is critical to understand the evolving cybercrime landscape and the latest technology used to track and prevent criminal activities.
-Source (Money Life)



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Global Payments Inc -Security Breach Compromised 1.5 Million of Visa and MasterCard

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/15/2012 05:08:00 pm

Global Payments Inc -Security Breach Compromised 1.5 Million of Visa and MasterCard

Earlier in this year cyber criminals had breached the security system Global Payments Inc. a leader in payment processing services. During breach experts have estimated that more than 50,000 Visa and MasterCard information was stolen. And now after the investigation Global Payments says that no more than 1.5 million credit card numbers were harvested during the intrusion into its systems disclosed earlier this year. The incident only affects North American Visa and MasterCard customers. The Company has, however, provided a larger quantity of card numbers to industry brands to enable them to proactively monitor cardholder activity.  The evidence continues to indicate that the potential card exportation was limited to Track 2 data. 

This type of track data on the magnetic stripe of a credit card includes numerical data such as the card number and the expiry date but doesn't include information like the card owner's name.
Additionally, Global Payments says that it believes that not all of the nearly 1.5 million cards have been compromised. However, the payment processing company has notified credit card companies of all potentially affected numbers so that they can "proactively monitor cardholder activity"; Global Payments has previously said that it might pass on further card numbers for monitoring purposes. Paul R. Garcia, the Chairman and CEO of Global Payments, has apologised for the incident and said that his company is working diligently to conclude its investigations. At the end of its fiscal year in July, the company plans to present its shareholders with a final report on the incident. Once investigations are complete, the payment processing firm plans to reapply as a "PCI DSS Compliant Service Provider" with MasterCard and Visa: after the incident was made public, the credit card companies revoked Global Payments' certification.





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Donations Reopened- WikiLeaks Opens New Path Through Banking Siege

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/21/2012 03:09:00 am

Donations Reopened- WikiLeaks Opens New Path Through Banking Siege  

After the court victory against the financial blockade imposed by Visa and MasterCard to WikiLeaks donation, now WikiLeaks is opening a new path  in its battle to breakthrough the banking siege. In early Wednesday morning, WikiLeaks announced  via its twitter feed while saying it could now accept donations through a French non-profit. 
"After almost two years of fighting an unlawful banking blockade by US financial giants VISA and MasterCard, WikiLeaks has announced it is back open for donations. After WikiLeaks’ publications revealing US war crimes and statecraft in 2010, US financial institutions erected a banking blockade against WikiLeaks wholly outside of any judicial or administrative process. The blockade came during a time of substantial economic growth for WikiLeaks but blocked more than 95% of donations, costing the organization in excess of USD 20 million.
The Wau Holland Transparency Reports for WikiLeaks’ finances, released today, illustrate the financial consequences of 18 consecutive months of economic censorship. For the year 2011, the blockade resulted in WikiLeaks’ income falling to just 21% of its operating costs. WikiLeaks has been forced to run on its cash reserves at the Wau Holland Foundation, which have diminished from EUR 800,000 at the end of December 2010, to less than EUR 100,000 at the end of June 2012. As the graph shows, WikiLeaks’ reserve funds will expire at the current austere rate of expenditure within a few months. In order to effectively continue its mission, WikiLeaks must raise a minimum of EUR 1 million immediately.
Against this background, WikiLeaks is launching a new payment gateway, designed to work around the blockade. The French credit card system, Carte Bleue, is coupled with the VISA/MasterCard system globally. VISA and MasterCard are contractually barred from directly cutting off merchants through the Carte Bleue system. The French non-profit FDNN (Fund for the Defense of Net Neutrality- Fonds de Défense de la Net Neutralité) has set up a Carte Bleue fund for WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks advises all global supporters to make use of this avenue immediately before VISA/MasterCard attempts to shut it down.
However, WikiLeaks and FDNN are ready for the fight. Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ founder said: "We beat them in Iceland and, by God, we’ll beat them in France as well. Let them shut it down. Let them demonstrate to the world once again their corrupt pandering to Washington. We’re waiting. Our lawyers are waiting. The whole world is waiting. Do it."

NEW LINKS FOR DONATION:-

FDNN-WikiLeaks Payment Gateway (Donate here): https://shop.wikileaks.org/donate#dccard
















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Again WikiLeaks Donations Has been Blocked By Icelandic Bank

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/11/2011 06:10:00 am


An Icelandic bank that unknowingly provided a way for WikiLeaks supporters to fund the controversial website best known for publishing classified military and diplomatic websites earlier this week has closed the proverbial loophole, according to Reuters reports.

In a story published Friday, Maria Aspan of the wire service revealed that Valitor had agreed earlier this week to accept payments processed by DataCell, a data hosting service provider and a WikiLeaks supporter. However, bank officials later told Aspan that they had not been informed that the transactions would include donations to the Julian Assange owned website.

Credit giants Visa and MasterCard have banned DataCell from processing such donations for months, and on Friday, Valitor spokeswoman Jonina Ingvadottir sent an emailed statement to Reuters stating that the bank "was not informed that DataCell would be conducting these activities when their business agreement was made," and another source told Aspan that Valitor had "blocked the Visa and MasterCard WikiLeaks donations and terminated its contract with DataCell" earlier in the day.

That source told Reuters that less than 100 donations were processed before the agreement was terminated.

"The failed Valitor partnership is the latest blow to Assange, who has struggled to gain funding since the major payments networks stopped processing payments to WikiLeaks," Aspan wrote.

"The Internet vigilante group Anonymous temporarily shut down the public websites of both Visa and MasterCard in December after the companies began their embargo."
She added that Olaf Sigurvinsson, the founder of DataCell, "confirmed that Valitor had terminated the contract with his company" and that when the contract was signed, he had made it "absolutely clear" to the Icelandic financial institution that the company would "continue… to collect donations" for various organizations, including WikiLeaks.
On a special page dedicated solely to donations, Sigurvinsson's company posted a statement in which they said, "DataCell advocates free speech and jurisdiction independence. We plead the public support for the independence of media and jurisdiction; and to bring truth, integrity, dignity and justice to the world… You can help by donating financially to the following organizations."

Further down on the page is a form which individuals can donate by credit card to WikiLeaks.

In addition, the web page claims that, "DataCell is taking on legal case against Visa and MasterCard for suspending its account, for which DataCell was processing credit card donation for WikiLeaks. Please contribute to DataCell legal fund to support in its legal battle against credit card giants for their unjustified and prejudicial action."

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Top 5 DDoS Attacks of 2011, Exclusive Report By Corero Network Security

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 10/09/2011 04:42:00 pm

Corero Network Security (cns:LN), the leader in on-premises Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Defense Systems for enterprises, data centers and hosting providers, named its list of 2011's Top 5 DDoS attacks. Corero's findings show an increase in newer, intelligent application-layer DDoS attacks that are extremely difficult to identify "in the cloud," and often go undetected until it is too late. Corero also found an uptick in attacks against corporations by "hactivists" DDoS-ing sites for political and ideological motives, rather than financial gain. Attacks against Mastercard, Visa, Sony, PayPal and the CIA top Corero's list.
"The cat-and-mouse game between IT administrators, criminals and hactivists has intensified in 2011 as the number of application-layer DDoS attacks has exploded. Coupled with an increase in political and ideological hactivism, companies have to be extremely diligent in identifying and combating attempts to disable their websites, steal proprietary information and to deface their web applications, " said Mike Paquette, chief strategy officer, Corero Network Security.

Corero's 2011 Top 5 DDoS Attacks:-

1. Anonymous DDoS Attacks on WikiLeaks "Censors" Visa, MasterCard and PayPal. The most significant DDoS attack so far this year, the WikiLeaks-related DDoS attacks on Visa, MasterCard and PayPal were both Anonymous' "coming out" party, and the first widespread example of what has been dubbed "cyber rioting" on the Internet, with virtual passersby joining in the attack voluntarily.

2. Sony PlayStation Network DDoS. A shocking wake-up call for many gamers, customers and investors, the Sony Playstation Network DDoS attack began a series of cyber attacks and data breaches that damaged Sony financially and hurt its reputation.

3. CIA and SOCA Hit by LulzSec DDoS Attacks. The appearance of LulzSec on the cyber attack scene, highlighted by bold DDoS attacks on the CIA and the U.K. Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), made us wonder if anyone was safe on the Internet.

4. WordPress DDoS. A massive DDoS attack disrupted one of the world's largest blog hosts--some 18 million websites. The huge attack hit the company's data centers with tens of millions of packets per second.

5. Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This DDoS attack had a major impact on the financial world, disrupting stock market trading in Hong Kong. This was a highly leveraged DDoS attack, potentially affecting hundreds of companies and individuals through a single target.

For all the pain and suffering DDoS attacks have caused, there are a number of best practices that companies can implement to reduce their risk. The most effective defense against DDoS attacks requires expert preparation of defensive resources, ongoing vigilance and a rapid, organized response.

-News Source (Corero Network Security)


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Wikileaks Will Take Legal Action Against PayPal, MasterCard & Visa

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/06/2011 01:24:00 am


There hasn't been much talk lately over the fact that PayPal, MasterCard and Visa all cut off Wikileaks late last year, after the US government freaked out about the release of some State Department Cables. None of the firms has done a very good job explaining why this makes sense (or why they continue to allow other groups, such as the KKK to receive funding, while singling out Wikileaks). I'm sure those three firms, which took quite a public bashing when the news originally dropped, would prefer that there not be any more talk about it. However, Wikileaks and the payment firm they used, DataCell, are apparently planning to file a legal complaintthis week against all three firms in Europe. A draft of the complaint, which was obtained by Andy Greenberg at Forbes (linked above and embedded below), claims that the three firms violated Articles 101 and 102 of the EU Treaty, effectively a form of antitrust law. While I tend to think many antitrust claims are merely attacks on successful companies, this seems like a case where they could make sense. Here you have basically the only three ways for most people to transfer money easily, all agreeing to block a single (small) client from receiving money, despite no legal ruling against the operation (hell, charges haven't even been filed). It certainly would make for an interesting case.

-News Source (techdirt)

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MasterCard Commercial (VIDEO) Has been Spoofed By WikiLeaks

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/02/2011 12:37:00 pm


The latest spoof on a classic MasterCard ad campaign comes from one of the credit card company’s best known adversaries. “There are some people who don’t like change,” ends the short video that was recently posted to Vimeo. “For everyone else, there’s WikiLeaks.”
On-screen text encourages people to learn more about the financial blockade that a number of major financial institutions announced they would instate in December. According to the video, these companies’ refusal to process any of WikiLeaks’s payments has cost the group $15 million in lost donations. “What do MasterCard, Visa, Bank of America, Paypal and Western Union all have in common?” reads the video’s description.”They help you pay for what you want? Well, yes… that is unless you want to help WikiLeaks make the world a better place.”
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been under house arrest in Britain since December when Sweden issued an extradition request on accusations of sexual misconduct, makes a cameo appearance. By its own calculations, WikiLeaks is spending $500,000 on his house arrest and $1 million in legal fees. The video directs supporters toward alternate donation methods (some of these methods, The Atlantic points out, do not support WikiLeaks’s greater goals, but rather Assange’s legal expenses). Because, it argues, “change as a result of your work: priceless.”
Click HERE to See  The Video On Vimeo Posted By Wikileaks

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Wikileaks Is Now Exposing Bollywood

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/07/2011 04:18:00 pm

WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public who used to expose the governments across the globe. This time wikileaks is on Bollywood industry. Many of the cables are surprisingly succinct and contain detailed analysis of the Indian film industry that churns out almost 1000 films a year and generates billions of rupees in revenue. The documents look at different aspects of Bollywood, including its profitability, connections to organized crime, growth opportunities, and the Bollywood-Hollywood partnerships. India's movie industry generated an estimated Rs 10,700 crore in revenue in 2008, and that is expected to increase by an average of 11.5 per cent a year to 2013, Price water house Coopers said in a study.

  • Hollywood-Bollywood Partnerships:-

Two documents that analysed the Hollywood-Bollywood partnership are critical of the Hindi film industry and the scope of US film studios in the second fastest growing economy. "Hollywood film studios, amongst the world's highest revenue earners, are increasingly beginning to stake their claim in Bollywood," a document said. "Though not without challenges, major US studios have started to try to capture a piece of this potentially lucrative market. US studios ranging from Sony, Disney, and Warner Brothers have co-produced Hindi movies attracted by the growth potential and opportunities in Indian cinema," it said.
The embassy cable said while big budget Hollywood action films - dubbed in vernacular languages - have done relatively well in India, success has eluded Hollywood-Bollywood co-production partnerships so far.

  • Black Money:-

A leaked diplomatic cable also said that Bollywood welcomed funding from gangsters and politicians, known in India as "black money." While there is no direct reference of Dawood Ibrahim which allegedly financed a number of movies, the cable said that in recent decades, Bollywood has been associated with the notorious Mumbai underworld, at the nexus of gangsters, money, and politics.
According to Jehil Thakkar, Head of Media and Entertainment for (KPMG), this association stemmed from the financing needs of the industry; until 2000, by government fiat, the film industry was ineligible for bank credit, private equity, and other means of legitimate commercial financing.

  • Bollywood & US Visa:-

Following intensive investigation which also included a visit to the shooting site of 'My Name is Khan' the US Consulate in Mumbai in 2009 concluded that Bollywood generally does not misuse the US visas issued to its crew. Home to one of the largest entertainment industries in the world, Mumbai sends many stars and production crews to the US on O1 and O2 visas, it said, adding that the investigation was based on reports of fraud in other categories of visas.
"The study found that O2 travelers have a low overstay rate of 1.6 per cent. Site visits to major Indian production houses and no evidence of fraud for O2 applicants further suggests that most entertainment companies in Mumbai do not intend to misuse their US visas," said the US Consulate in Mumbai its cable dated December 14, 2009, which was released by WikiLeaks on August 30. 


-News Source (Wikileaks & IBN)

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Leaked FBI Documents is Calling "Anonymous is A National Security Threat"

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/17/2011 02:42:00 pm


According to a PDF containing what purports to be a leaked psychological assessment of the leaders of LulzSec and Anonymous by the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (which also profiles serial killers), Anonymous is not only not a collection of individuals, it's a coherent group that poses a threat to national security.
Neither the FBI nor Dept. of Homeland Security have commented on the "leak," which may be a fake according to the TechHerald, but seems to reflect accurately the thinking behind a series of DHS warning bulletins and crackdowns that have resulted in 75 raids and 16 arrests of Anonymous members just this year.
Anons themselves refer to the group as a rough, almost coincidental collective of individuals that occasionally cooperate on projects to protest specific things. There are approximately eight vortices of special interest within the collective, according to interviews, postings and counter-arguments posted by various Anonymi in response to invective by those it attacked.
Attacks are the work of small groups of interested individuals who, on their own initiative and using public argument as their weapon, gather like-minded Anonymi to protest governmental outrages or attack injustice in whatever form they find it, according to de facto leaders in the non-existent but vocal #OPpublicrelations.
In March, for example, members of Anonymous and 4Chan debated, in the finest traditions of American Democracy and citizen activism, whether to attack and defeat the Internet scourge that is Rebecca Black – the annoying but harmless pop "singer" whose made herself famous with a mom-and-dad-funded music video on YouTube that repeated the same lyrics so often it became apparent those might be the only words she knows.(Other, less world-shaking Anonymous projects resulted in significant attacks against the embattled governments of Egypt and Syria, the exposure of government atrocities in Bolivia, civil protest against censorship on the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, attacks on Visa, Mastercard and Paypal in support of whistleblower site WikiLeaks and a long-simmering, high-profile protest against unrestricted greed, corrosive dishonesty of Wall Street and the and economic destruction from which the rest of the country suffers while financiers continues to prosper.)
The FBI has analyzed various instant messages, forum postings, emails, Twitter posts and other documentation and decided Anonymous behaves more like a coherent organization led by a small number of powerful and focused activists, not a politically involved group of individuals using the Anonymous banner as gathering point.
  • "The Anonymous ‘collective’ has risen from an amorphous group of individuals on the Internet to the current state of a potential threat to national security. Due to the nature of Anonymous, they believe that they are a leaderless collective. However, it has been shown that there is a defined leadership group," the document reads.

  • "A thorough assessment of each UNSUB’s online activities, speech patterns, and general writings was collected by the FBI. Each UNSUB was individually assessed by members of the SBU (sic) and a psychological profile created from these datasets."

  • Most of the members of Anonymous are under 30, but the bulk of its leadership are not teenage hacker/script-kids as many portray themselves, according to the FBI.

  • "It is likely" that Sabu, one of the more vocal spokestrolls for the LulzSec mini-collective of Anonymous, "works in the information security sector and has been doing so since the early days of the internet and hacking activities. His use of net speak is interspersed with proper American English diction and grammar that implies he is an American citizen and has been educated,” the FBI notes said.

BS, quoth the Anon:

"Anonymous is not a group, it does not have leaders, people can do ANYTHING under the flag of their country," according to one member in an email interview with the AP. "Anything can be a threat to National Security, really," the member said in an email interview. "Any hacker group can be."
If the document is real, it ends on a disturbingly dangerous and presumptive conclusion: that attacks and protests by Anonymous will eventually lead to the death of members of Anonymous, law enforcement or the public that will drive many supporters away from Anonymous.
Until then, Anonymous, whether collectively or individually, may be unstoppable in practical terms.

The overall assessment for the movement however is the following:

1. The movement is out of control and there seems to be no real coherent motivation
2. The leaders have begun to hide themselves a bit more due to arrests that have been made
3. Their reliance on technology will eventually be their downfall
4. Their interpersonal relationships are weak points, as such they should be leveraged
5. Their increasing attacks on infrastructure will eventually lead to serious results that could in fact lead to deaths

-News Source (IT World)


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NATO Said:- Anonymous will be "infiltrated" and "persecuted"

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/07/2011 04:26:00 pm


The North Atlantic Treaty Organization contains the combined military might of 28 member countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. All three of those nations, and the United States, possess huge armies, nuclear weapons, and are committed to Article Five of NATO's charter:
"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked."
Yet reading NATO's new draft general report on cyber security, one gets the impression that what the alliance worries about most these days is not an "armed attack," but a cyberattack on its network servers, or the infrastructure of any of its member countries.
"In this Information Age, the North Atlantic Alliance faces a dilemma of how to maintain cohesion in the environment where sharing information with Allies increases information security risks," NATO's Information and National Security survey observes, "but where withholding it undermines the relevance and capabilities of the Alliance."
And WikLeaks and Anonymous get top billing as visible threats to NATO's efforts to control its information perimeters.
"The time it takes to cross the Atlantic has shrunk to 30 milliseconds, compared with 30 minutes for ICBMs and several months going by boat," the report warns. "Meanwhile, a whole new family of actors are emerging on the international stage, such as virtual 'hactivist' groups. These could potentially lead to a new class of international conflicts between these groups and nation states, or even to conflicts between exclusively virtual entities."

The irony of 9/11:-

Authored by Lord Michael Jopling, Rapporteur for NATO, the study begins with an irony. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York City and Washington, DC, the United States government concluded that one of the reasons that the plot succeeded was because information about its perpetrators wasn't widely shared among US intelligence agencies, especially the Department of Defense, CIA, State Department, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And so the US opened up its data sharing practices. This made matter worse, Jopling appears to suggest. It "resulted in an exponential number of people obtaining access to classified information." Over 850,000 functionaries now enjoy some kind of "top-secret" security status, he claims. Many have access to the DoD's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), dispenser of embassy cables.
The study cites critics of SIPRNet who say that it lacks the ability to detect unauthorized access. "Thus, those in charge of the network design relied on those who had access to this sensitive data to protect it from abuse. These users were never scrutinized by any state agency responsible for the data-sharing system."
Jopling doesn't explicitly blame this openness policy for WikiLeaks phenomenon, but his narrative leads right into Private Bradley Manning, accused of providing documents for the outfit, prompting the group's famous publication of a continuous stream of State Department cables.
Not surprisingly, he thinks that this is bad:
The Rapporteur believes that even if one is in favour of transparency, military and intelligence operations simply cannot be planned and consulted with the public. Transparency cannot exist without control. The government, and especially its security agencies, must have the right to limit access to information in order to govern and to protect. This is based on the premise that states and corporations have the right to privacy as much as individuals do and that secrecy is required for efficient management of the state institutions and organizations.

Hacktivity:-

A big chunk of the assessment is devoted to the activities of Anonymous, most notably its denial-of-service attacks against PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Amazon.com for shutting down financial and server space services to WikiLeaks. Next comes the Anonymous assault on HBGary Federal, which had been planning some methods to take down WikiLeaks and expose Anonymous. It didn't turn out that way, of course. Instead, Anonymous penetrated the security company, erasing data, publishing e-mails, and wrecking its website.
The author seems confident, however, that the notorious group's days are numbered. "It remains to be seen how much time Anonymous has for pursuing such paths," Jopling writes. "The longer these attacks persist the more likely countermeasures will be developed, implemented, the groups will be infiltrated and perpetrators persecuted."
But the larger question hovering over this document is what NATO should do if one of its over two-dozen member nations is cyberattacked. The US has lately been pondering this dilemma as well.
"Certain hostile acts conducted through cyberspace could compel actions under the commitments we have with our military treaty partners," says a White House strategy report published in mid-May. "When warranted, the United States will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would any other threat to our country."
This NATO draft seems to want to go in a similar direction—especially if something on the scale of a Stuxnet malware attack is deployed against a member nation. Designed to penetrate software for industrial equipment, researchers believe that it was originally intended for Iran's nuclear program.
"Some argue that Article 5 should not be applied with respect to cyberattacks because their effect so far has been limited to creating inconvenience rather than causing the loss of human lives and because it is hard to determine the attacker," Jopling notes. "However, The Rapporteur believes that the application of Article 5 should not be ruled out, given that new developments in cyber weapons such as Stuxnet might eventually cause damage comparable to that of a conventional military attack."

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Master Card Blog Hacked & defaced By Syrian Electronic Army

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 1/16/2013 06:57:00 pm

Master Card Payments Perspectives Blog Hacked & defaced By Syrian Electronic Army

It's became a very common scenario that hackers targets banks, payment gateway and other financial sectors. Sites like Paypal, Visa, Master Card were among those common victims who used to face massive round of cyber attacks. Past two years hacktivist managed to interrupt the service of those websites many times. Here also in the beginning of 2013 almost same situation took place, when the official blog of Master Card get hacked and defaced.  It was the Saturday evening when a hackers collective group named "Syrian Electronic Army" managed to breach and get access inside Master Card blog. I am sure that all our readers will be shocked after hearing the way of intrusion. In the platform of the blog, Master Card was using an older version of WordPress (Ver. 3.3.2) which has several critical vulnerabilities like XSS, file uploading, CSRF and so on. Exploiting those loopholes the hacker managed to get access inside the blog and defaced one of the page of the giant in international financial services company's blog. Though WordPress have released a security patch and also version 3.5, but it's quite unfortunate and shocking that Master Card did not even patched their older version for which their system get penetrated. It is truly unbelievable that sites like Master Card is so careless about basic security and counter measure of cyber attack. According to sources Syrian Electronic Army used  the CSRF exploit of WordPress which is said to be available on the Internet and allows an attacker to add a new administration user. This is a possible explanation of how the Syrian Electronic Army managed to hack and deface the blog. After this incident occurs Master Card immediately updated the version of WP and closed those back doors. Still the the defaced and cached version of the  blog can be viewed on Google’s Web Cache. 







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Anonymous to target Iran with DoS attack

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/30/2011 12:07:00 pm


Anonymous says its next target is Iran.
The hacker group Anonymous has its next denial-of-service (DoS) target in sight: Iran, CNET has learned.
Members of the loosely organized group are planning "Operation Iran," an attack designed to shut down Iranian Web sites beginning Sunday, according to their latest online proclamation. May 1 is International Worker's Day.
"The people of Iran have the admiration of Anonymous, and the entire world," the statement says. "We can see that Iran still suffers at the hands of those in power. Your former government has seized control, and tries to silence you. People of Iran--your rights belong to you."
The operation seemed to already have begun late today with Web page defacements ostensibly targeted at Iranian hackers. Anonymous left messages on several Web sites that had allegedly been previously attacked by the Iranian Cyber Army, including the site of a Canadian information systems firm and the site of a Ukrainian dancing group, according to an observer on an Anonymous Internet Relay Chat channel that members use to coordinate their operations.
Anonymous is known for its renegade cyberattacks in defense of perceived underdogs or to support freedom of expression or other anti-establishment causes. In defense of whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks, the group targeted PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and other companies late last year that had stopped enabling WikiLeaks to receive contributions.
Earlier this month, Anonymous targeted Sony in protest of the company's treatment of Sony PlayStation hacker George Hotz. Hotz and Sony have since settled the lawsuit Sony filed, and Anonymous has denied any involvement in a recent serious breach that exposed information of millions of Sony PlayStation Network customers.
Other Anonymous targets have been: Broadcast Music Inc., the Church of Scientology; the governments of Egypt, Iran, and Sweden; the Westboro Baptist Church; conservative activist billionaires Charles and David Koch and their companies; as well as security firm HBGary Federal, which had reportedly been working with the FBI to identify the leaders of Anonymous.

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Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner 8 BETA Arrived

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 11/19/2011 05:58:00 pm

One of the worlds famous web vulnerability scanner Acunetix has released their next version WVS 8 BETA. Many of you have been biting their nails in anticipation of this Beta, so sit tight and read on for the next most important stage in the evolution of Acunetix WVS.  Version 8 of Web Vulnerability Scanner has been optimized to make life easier at every stage of a security scan. WVS is easier to use for web admins and security analysts alike: enhanced automation, ability to save scan settings as a template to avoid reconfiguration, and multiple instance support for simultaneous scans of several websites. WVS 8 also ushers in a new exciting co-operation between Acunetix and Imperva: developers of the industry’s leading Web Application Firewall.

Some Improved Features:-    
  • AcuSensor Technology
  • An automatic client script analyzer allowing for security testing of Ajax and Web 2.0 applications
  • Industries' most advanced and in-depth SQL injection and Cross site scripting testing
  • Advanced penetration testing tools, such as the HTTP Editor and the HTTP Fuzzer  
  • Visual macro recorder makes testing web forms and password protected areas easy
  • Support for pages with CAPTHCA, single sign-on and Two Factor authentication mechanisms
  • Extensive reporting facilities including VISA PCI compliance reports
  • Multi-threaded and lightning fast scanner crawls hundreds of thousands of pages with ease
  • Intelligent crawler detects web server type and application language
  • Acunetix crawls and analyzes websites including flash content, SOAP and AJAX
  • Port scans a web server and runs security checks against network services running on the server  
Brief Description of  Acunetix 8 Features:-

Manipulation of inputs from URLs:-
Acunetix WVS can automatically detect URL parameters and manipulate them to detect vulnerabilities. This technology is not present in any other competing vulnerability scanner.

Automatic IIS 7  rewrite rule interpretation:-
Using the web application’s web.config file, WVS 8 can automatically interpret rewrite rules without requiring any manual input.
Support for custom HTTP headers

To function correctly, some web applications need incoming requests to contain specific HTTP headers. It is now possible to define custom HTTP headers to be used during automated scans.

Imperva Web Application Firewall integration:-
An exciting co-operation between Imperva and Acunetix: WVS 8 scan results can be automatically imported into an Imperva Web Application Firewall and interpreted as rules.

New vulnerability class: HTTP Parameter Pollution:-
At the time of writing, Acunetix WVS 8 is the only scanner that tests for this security vulnerability.
Multiple instance support:-
Acunetix WVS 8 can be relaunched as multiple instances on the same machine, allowing the user to scan multiple websites and opening up further support for multi-user scenarios on the same server/workstation.
Redesigned Scheduler:-
Accessible via a web interface, the new Scheduler allows administrators to download scan results from any workstation, laptop, or smartphone. The new Scheduler will automatically launch another instance of WVS when multiple web scans are due, preventing multiple processes from depending on the resources of one WVS instance and thereby allowing scans to complete in less time.
Automatic custom 404 error page recognition and detection
Acunetix WVS 8 can automatically determine if a custom error page is in use and recognizes it without requiring any custom 404 recognition patterns to be configured for a scan

Scan settings templates:-
WVS 8 now allow the settings for the scan of a specific application to be saved as individual templates, making it quick and easy to recall the exact settings for a website each time it is scanned. This is particularly useful when scanning multiple sites, allowing the user to load the template for each site instead of re-configuring all the settings manually.

Simplified Scan Wizard:-
In addition to the introduction of Scan Settings Templates and automatic custom 404 error page recognition, the Scan Wizard contains far less options so it’s much easier and quicker to kick off a scan.
Smart memory management

The following settings have been added to ensure even the most complex scans will complete automatically, and successfully:-
  •     Define number of files per directory
  •     Limit number of subdirectories per website
  •     Assign Crawler memory limit

Real-time Crawler status:-
Crawler data is now updated in real-time information and provides live feedback how many files have been crawled, how many inputs have been detected, and more.

Scan termination status included in report:-
Reports now include the termination or completion status of each vulnerability scan. For example: the report will display if the scan was completed successfully or halted manually.

Web application coverage report:-
A new report template that lists all the web application files crawled and specific vulnerability tests performed on each file.
Log file retention:-
It is now possible to define the retention span before log files are automatically flushed; to ensure logs are not deleted each time WVS is restarted.


To Download Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner 8 BETA Click Here


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Anonymous & Lulzsec Declared #OpPayPal (Antisec)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/28/2011 12:27:00 am

Anonymous and LulzSec's PayPal boycott campaign gathers momentum. Following the arrests of members in connection with an attack on PayPal's Web site, hacktivist groups Anonymous and LulzSec have launched an online campaign calling for people to close their accounts with the e-payments firm.
Earlier this month the FBI arrested 14 people accused of involvement in last year's cyber-attack on PayPal's Web site by Anonymous in retaliation for the company's closure of a donation account for Wikileaks.
Anonymous has teamed with LulzSec under the #AntiSec banner to issue a joint statement, declaring themselves "outraged at the FBI's willingness to arrest and threaten those who are involved in ethical, modern cyber operations".
In a change of tack, the partners are now calling for a legal form of protest, saying "we encourage anyone using PayPal to immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative" and asking people to tweet pictures of their actions.
The call to arms appears to have gathered some momentum, with the #OpPayPal hashtag the number three trending topic worldwide by 12.00 GMT, prompting @AnonymousIRC to tweet
 
"We hoped for a little impact, but honestly did not expect this. Waiting for NASDAQ to open. Our tip: SELL EBAY! WikiWiki! #AntiSec #OpPayPal"
 





In a tweet posted late afternoon, Wikileaks says it intends to file suit against eBay and Paypal in the US and Europe in line with its ongoing legal and anti-trust actions against Visa and MasterCard.
Separately, Anonymous' Austrian branch has accessed the bank data of 96,000 people in an attack on the GIS television licence agency's Web site, according to AFP.
To See the official press release of Anon & Lulzsec click here
To join the Official IRC of #opPayPal Click Here

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UK is Enhancing Cyber Security to fight Against Hackers

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/07/2011 12:11:00 am

The fight against cyber crime needs a stronger common international legal framework to enable perpetrators outside the country of their victims to be tracked down and punished, a British security official said on Tuesday.
James Brokenshire, a Home Office (Interior Ministry) Minister for Crime and Security, added in remarks to reporters that governments and companies had to work much more closely together to fight the "scammers, fraudsters and hackers" who were creating a truly global problem.
"Active international partnerships are central to tackling cyber crime," he said. "There needs to be an international response including international treaties, bilateral treaties and common agreements between countries." A priority for governments is to find ways of hunting criminals across borders and ensuring they are punished, but many nations lack a common definition of cyber crime or common legal standards that would enable prosecutions of criminals operating offshore. Security experts have long said the core problem has been that nations are thinking too parochially about their online security to collaborate on crafting global cyber regulation.
High-profile online assaults in recent weeks have targeted the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Senate, and companies such as Citigroup and Lockheed Martin Corp. The raids have raised doubts about the security of government and corporate computer systems and the ability of law enforcement to track down hackers. Saying there should be "no safe haven" for online criminals, Brokenshire added that governments had to work with the private sector to provide technical expertise to police in those countries that lacked the resources to fight cyber criminals.

He was speaking at the launch of the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA), a global not-for-profit organisation that aims to channel funding, expertise and help directly to law enforcement cyber crime units around the world.The venture, which will seek funding from the European Union, governments of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain, and private sector companies, plans to work in partnership with European police agency EUROPOL.
Rik Ferguson, Director of Security Research at Trend Micro said areas of concern to ICSPA included Brazil, which had expertise in banking malware, China, where computers were often used by criminals elsewhere to host attacks in third countries, and Russia and Ukraine.Companies supporting the venture include McAfee , Cassidian, Trend Micro, Yodel, Core Security Technologies, Visa Europe , Shop Direct group, A&REdelman, Transactis and Article10. Cyber crime costs the British economy some 27 billion pounds ($43.5 billion) a year and appears to be "endemic", according to the first official government estimate of the issue published in February 2011.
Brokenshire's call echoes remarks by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano who said last week that cyber criminals were outwitting national and international legal systems that fail to embrace technological advances.

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