Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) Under DDoS Attack
Hacker performed massive denial of service attack to take down the official website of UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). Last night cyber criminals sent large number of data packets by which they managed to send SOCA offline. SOCA authority confirmed that they have suffered a DDoS attack which interrupts their services. A spokesman said the site was taken offline at 22:30 on Wednesday, but that the attack did not "pose a security risk to the organisation". The exact reason of this attack is unclear but it can be predicated that either Soca's movement on closing down 36 websites believed to be selling stolen credit card information may caused this DDoS attack. “The SOCA DDoS attack is probably related to the carder site takedowns last week,” F-Secure’s Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponenwrote on Twitter.Experts are also highlighting another reason which may have influenced hacktivist to engage this cyber attack and that is the Supreme Court's decession on blocking The Pirate Bay in UK . What ever this is the second time in less than a year that SOCA's website has found itself the target of malicious attackers, having previously suffered from a DDoS attack at the hands of the notorious LulzSec gang in June 2011.
LulZsec Hacker Jeremy Hammond Aka "Anarchaos" Might Have to face 10 Years Imprisonment
Federal prosecutors said four Irish and British men charged in a crackdown on the international hacking group Anonymous also helped breach the security analysis company Stratfor last year. Among them 27-year old Chicago hacker Jeremy Hammond had been formally charged with the Stratfor breach. Hammond, who is in custody in New York, was formally indicted on Wednesday for the first time, and has yet to be arraigned. His lawyer declined comment. Hammond's arrest was announced on March 6 along with charges against the four suspected"AntiSec" members, Donncha O'Cearrbhail and Darren Martyn of Ireland, and Jake Davis and Ryan Ackroyd of Britain.
In announcing the charges in March, U.S. authorities revealed that a leading hacker known online as "Sabu" was Hector Xavier Monsegur, and that he was arrested at his small apartment in a Manhattan housing complex last June and had been cooperating with the FBI ever since. U.S. authorities said all six men were top members of LulzSec, an offshoot of the loose-knit cyber-activist group Anonymous.
Wednesday's indictment also charged Hammond, known online as "Anarchaos," "tylerknowsthis" and also "crediblethreat," and Davis, known as "Topiary," with a June 2011 hack of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The four Irish and British defendants are charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, which each carry a 10-year maximum prison term. Hammond is charged with two hacking conspiracy charges and one substantive hacking count. He also faces one count each of aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to access device fraud.
VMWare Source Code Was Stolen at The Time of CEIEC Breach
In the official blog VMWare, the visualization software company has revealed that a hacker associated with hacktivist calling himself "Hardcore Charlie" has stolen at least one and possibly many more source files for its software - and has begun posting them on line. VMware on Tuesday announced that a single file from its ESX server hypervisor source code has been posted online, and it held out the possibility that more proprietary files could be leaked in the future. The fact that the source code may have been publicly shared does not necessarily mean that there is any increased risk to VMware customers, Said by VMWare official. Earlier we covered that Hardcore Charlie claimed to breach China NationalElectronics Import-Export Corporation (CEIEC), based in Beijing, he got inside CEIEC and posted documents ranging from purported U.S. military transport information to internal reports about business matters on several file-sharing sites, but the authenticity of the documents could not be independently confirmed. Hacker Charlie' claims to have found program files for virtualisation software on CEIEC. In a conversation with Kaspersky Lab, the hacker claimed to have 300MB of VMWare source code.
The hacker also claimed to have cracked cryptographic hashes on the credentials of hundreds of thousands of sina.com email accounts with the help of another hacker, who goes by the name of @Yamatough and who is thought to have been involved in the distribution of documents suggesting that the Indian government had put in monitoring systems for Nokia, RIM and Apple smartphones. The companies all denied the claim, and the documents were later shown to be faked.
VMWare insisted that the code dated back to 2003-04, though it did not say whether that section of the code had been changed since then. "We will continue to provide updates to the VMware community if and when additional information is available," said Iain Mulholland, director of VMware's security response centre in a statement. VMWare didn't indicate whether its own systems had been breached, and seemed to widen the number of potential targets to include commercial partners.
Like VMWare, a hacker group named The Lords of Dharmaraja has managed to steal the source code of Norton anti-virus, Symantec. There also hacker leaked the source code and hacktivist Anonymous take the responsibility of the entire phenomena
LulzSec Hacker Cody Kretsinger Pleaded Guilty in Sony Breach
Accused LulzSec hacker Cody Kretsinger pleaded guilty on Thursday in federal court in California to taking part in an extensive computer breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Kretsinger, a 24-year-old who used the moniker "Recursion," pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer in a deal with prosecutors. "I joined LulzSec, your honor, at which point we gained access to the Sony Pictures website," Kretsinger told the judge after entering his guilty plea. He testified that he gave the information he got from the Sony site to other members of LulzSec, who then posted it onto the group's website and on Twitter. Kretsinger flew from Decatur, Illinois, to Los Angeles for the hearing, and responded to the judge's questions calmly, with his hands clasped behind his back.
He and other LulzSec hackers, including those known as "Sabu" and "Topiary," stole the personal information of thousands of people after launching an "SQL injection" attack on the website, and ultimately caused Sony Pictures Entertainment more than $600,000 in damages, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Vandevelde said.The plea agreement is under seal, although Vandevelde said Kretsinger would likely receive substantially less than the 15-year maximum sentence he faces. He could also be forced to repay any damages. His sentencing is scheduled for July 26. Neither Kretsinger nor his lawyer would comment after the proceedings.
LulzSec Hacker Ryan Sent Back To Prison For Contacting Sabu (Violation of His Bail Agreement)
Former Lulzsec hacker Ryan Cleary from Essex, England sent back to jail for violating court's conditions. Few days ago Ryan has been granted bail by Westminster magistrates until a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on 11 May. He has been charged of conspiring with three British teenagers to bring down the websites of the CIA and the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency. Ryan was also accused of attacks on the NHS and News International, publisher of the Sun, as well as police authorities in the UK and US. Court granted his bail on condition that he does not access or have in his possession any device that could access the Internet. But it has been found that he tried to make contact with none other than LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur aka "Sabu". That was a direct violation of his bail agreement, which dictated that Cleary was to have no access to the Internet whatsoever. London's Metropolitan Police say they rearrested Cleary on March 5, the day before the FBI revealed Sabu's identity, and that "the party boy of the projects" had been eagerly spilling the beans on his fellow hackers. According to Cleary's lawyer, the teen is being held at Chelmsford Prison north of London, awaiting a court appearance in May.
Sabu was recently revealed to have betrayed LulzSec members, and associated Anonymous hacktivists, by secretly working for the FBI for many months.
CSS Corp- Global Information & Communication Technology Services Hacked By LulzSec
LulzSec Reborn the newly formed hacker group who are claiming to be a part of hacktivist Anonymous strikes again. Yesterday the have hacked into the data base of MilitarySingles.com and exposed more than 163,792 user details including names, usernames, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, and passwords.Now they have find their second target and that is CSS Corp (Global Information & Communication Technology Services). In a pastebin release they hacker group who are claiming to be infamous Lulzsec or in other word modified Lulz have posted entire email database of CSS Corp.Also they have leaked details (Email-id, Full name, user name, mobile number) several CSS users. Here’s what the group tweeted via the Twitter accountlulzboatR, which now has over 2,000 followers. Still it is unclear that is it really the come back of Lulzsec or Lulz Security because the twitter account LulzSec is still silent and lulzsecurity.com is still down. And also if LulzSec Reborn is the revised Lulzsec then what about 1st April declaration made by FawkesSecurity. So here again it fully depends on you that will you trust these newly formed groups or just let them go.
MilitarySingles.comHacked By Lulzsec, 170K Military Details Exposed
Couple of days ago infamous Lulzsec or Lulz Security confirmed that they will sail the boat again from 1st April. In a twitter account of FawkesSecurity tweeted about this. Many of us taken that as a April fool joke but today a group of hackers claiming to be the reborn Lulz Security (LulzSec) took credit for an alleged compromise of MilitarySingles.com, a dating website for military personnel, and the leak of over 170937account details from its database. The Pastebin post included links to RAR archives hosted on public file sharing websites that allegedly contain the names, usernames, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, and passwords of 163,792 MilitarySingles.com users.
"There are emails such as @us.army.mil ; @carney.navy.mil ; @greatlakes.cnet.navy.mil ; @microsoft.com ; etc.," the group wrote.
One of the official twitter account of Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) today confirmed that Antisec, which was created just before LulzSec began retreating into Anonymous, was in fact the creation of the FBI. At the time of Antisec’s inception, there was some chatter within the hacking community that LulzSec created Antisec in order to stage some misdirection—to get authorities looking elsewhere. Almost simultaneously, if memory serves, some observers were even suggesting that government authorities, whether in the US or UK and elsewhere, were bearing down on LulzSec. YourAnonNews has created a document laying out the timelines of the FBI’s activity with Sabu and the rise of Antisec, and it’s a very enlightening read.
For instance, the first mention of Antisec occurs on June 4, 2011, when The Lulz Boat Twitter feed tweets, “So gather round, this is a new cyber world and we’re starting it together. There will be bigger targets, there will be more ownage. #ANTISEC.”
On June 7th, as we know, the FBI paid a visit to Sabu and got him singing arias. On June 19th, Sabu returns from an extended break and tweets, “Operation Anti-Security" The biggest, unified operation amongst hackers in history. All factions welcome. We are one.” The same day Operation Antisec is announced via Pastebin.
#LulzSec Planned To Back Again On April Fool's Day (#Project Mayhem!)
We have good news for Hacktivist supporters and parallely bad news for corrupt Govt & Industries. Infamous hacker collective group named Lulzsec or Lulz Security promised to back live again on the day of 1st April. According to a You-Tube video - "Several days ago we decided to swiftly bring back our humble hacking group and set sail towards the Interwebz once again, much to the dismay of corrupt governments and corporations across the planet. It's ridiculous to believe that by arresting the six prime members of LulzSec that you've stopped us. You haven't stopped us, you have merely disrupted the active faction".The group announced that it would officially resume attacks on April 1, 2012. The video continued, "Lulzsec will start targeting governments, corporations, agencies, and quite possibly the people watching this video. We are here for the lulz, the fame, the anarchy, and the people."
Since last 30 days we have seen many key members of Lulz & Anonymous are randomly getting busted by Federal authorities, so it can be suspected that coming April attack will be a tit for tat. The announcement was previewed one day prior via the FawkesSecurity Twitter channel in a tweet that read, "Expect something BIG and rather Lulzworthy very soon. CIA, FBI, Interpol, you're all on teh (sic) list." Wednesday, meanwhile, tweets from the same Twitter channel promised that "Anonymous will target national infrastructure" and create a "global financial meltdown" as part of what's been dubbed "Project Mayhem."
One thing is very unclear and that isthe Twitter account AnonOps, which has 302,000 followers, has not mentioned Project Mayhem, Project Facebook, Operation Imperva, Operation Restore, or anything else on FawkesSecurity’s YouTube account. Furthermore, the Twitter account LulzSec is still silent and lulzsecurity.com is still down. So now it depends on you that how you will react this one, may be April Fool joke or may be some thing else.
LulzSecHackerRyan Get Bail (He Was Behind The Attack Against CIA & SOCA)
Two days ago an alleged hacker has appeared in court accused of conspiring with three British teenagers to bring down the websites of the CIA and the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency. Ryan Ackroyd, 25, appeared at Westminster Magistrates court in London on Friday charged with computer hacking offences for the so-called “hacktivist” group, LulzSec.
Ryan was also accused of attacks on the NHS and News International, publisher of the Sun, as well as police authorities in the UK and US. The Doncaster man is the last of four British males to appear in court in the UK in connection with attacks by LulzSec, a spin-off group linked to the hacking collective Anonymous.
He faces two counts of conspiring with Jake Davis, 18, Ryan Cleary, 19, and a 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to do “an unauthorised act with intent to impair or with recklessness as to impair the operation of a computer” between 1 February and 30 September 2011.
He made no plea and was granted bail by Westminster magistrates until a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on 11 May. Mr Ackroyd is the last of four alleged members of LulzSec to appear in court. District judge Howard Riddle granted him bail until a plea and case management hearing at Southwark crown court on 11 May, on condition that he does not access or have in his possession any device that could access the Internet.
Earlier in 2011 Ryan also faced imprisonment and later released on bail. Court ordered him not to use Internet even Ryan was also banned from seeing his girlfriend alone by the court.
Sabu Former #LulzSec #Anonymous Leader Was Working As An Informant For FBI (Key Members of LulzSec Arrested)
Several members of the LulzSec and Anonymous hacking groups were arrested this morning by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. It is reported that the arrests were made possible after turning the group’s "senior leader", Hector Xavier Monsegur aka "Sabu", 28, who is believed to be a cooperative witness after the FBI turned him last June. Monsegur pled guilty to several charges of computer hacking conspiracy, for which he could receive a maximum of 124 years behind bars. Those arrested today included a member of the AntiSec hacking group who is believed responsible for the massive intrusion at security think tank Stratfor last December.
A law enforcement official in New York confirmed the arrests and said that six hackers belonging to the Anonymous, LulzSec and Antisec groups were nabbed in U.S. and overseas locations. The official described those arrested as "principal members" of Anonymous and LulzSec. The five hackers are identified in the report as Ryan Ackroyd, aka "Kayla" and Jake Davis, aka "Topiary"from London, two residents of Ireland, Darren Martyn, aka "pwnsauce" and Donncha O'Cearrbhail, aka "palladium", and Jeremy Hammond aka "Anarchaos," from Chicago, USA. According to the FBI press release, all but Davis face charges of computer hacking conspiracy and various other charges. Each carries a maximum 10 year prison sentence.
According to Anonymous Twitter feed: "We are Legion. We do not have a leader nor will we ever. LulzSec was a group, but Anonymous is a movement. Groups come and go, ideas remain"
It is unclear what to expect from Anonymous in reaction to the arrests. The hacking group is known for revenge cyber attacks. After 25 Anonymous members were arrested on February 29, the group downed Interpol’s main website. The same thing happened when the CIA website became a victim of Anonymous. The group also downed several large music industry, Department of Justice, FBI and many other federal authorities websites in response to the shutting down of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder Kim Dotcom.
News of Sabu's arrest prompted several tweets from Anonymous this morning, including one that threatened retaliation. "The way Sabu & gang took control of Anonops.. anonops gonna retaliate," the tweet said.
Anonymous Take Down CIA- Central Intelligence Agency Website
The official website of CIA- Central Intelligence Agency faced massive cyber attack on the last Friday. Hacktivist Anonymous took responsibility if the cyber attack. At approximately 3:10 p.m. Eastern time one of twitter accounts related to the hackers' group announced "cia.gov DOWN. #UMAD?#Anonymous." And also claimed that this is yet another biggest denial of service attack of this year. This attack was the part of Anon's traditional #FuckFriday boom. The last Friday Anonymous released sensitive conference call between FBI & Scotland Yard. Earlier for #OpMegaupload they have bring down Federal Authorities, US Govt, Brazil Govt, Ireland's Dept of Finance & Justice, CBS TV Network, UFC.com and many more.
Anonymous Released Sensitive Conference CallBetween FBI& Scotland Yard
Hacktivist Anonymous continuing their F**k Friday rampage. In the last Friday they have recorded & released a sensitive conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard. The group released a roughly 15-minute-long recording of what appears to be a Jan. 17 conference call devoted to tracking and prosecuting members of the loose-knit hacking group and its spinoff group LulzSec. FBI source said that "The information was intended for law enforcement," the source also told that those responsible will be held accountable.
The authenticity of the recording could not be immediately verified and it's unclear how the hacking group obtained it. Names of some of the suspects being discussed were apparently edited from the recording. "The information was illegally obtained and a criminal investigation is underway," FBI spokesman Tim Flannelly told FoxNews.com. He did not provide any additional details.
If authentic, the discussion itself appears quite sensitive. Those on the call talk about what legal strategy to pursue in the cases of Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis -- two British suspects linked to Anonymous -- and discuss details of the evidence gathered against other suspects "We've set back arrests of Kayla and T-flow until we know what's happening,"
In a pastebin Anon also released a email titled "Anon-Lulz International Coordination Call" with with all the email-ids of FBI & Scotland Yard officers, time, Access Code and detailed time. In their twitter AnoymousIRC said "The FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now."
Anon made the conference call available for download in mp3 and also released a YouTube video
Hactivist Anonymous vows that they will hit the Govt. of Italy (#OpItaly). As per press release of Anon the target is WWW.ITALIA.GOV.IT ON AT 14:00 GMT (15:00 - ROME). "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have Chosen the side of the oppressor" Anonymous added.
Anonymous Press Release:-
"For the attention of the citizens of the world: After almost a year since the attack on the government, we're back. Demos ocracy was called away in Greece. We lived in the conviction to live in a democracy and as citizens it is our right and duty to cooperate to make it better. Why FREEDOM 'is participation. The new government was presented with the appearance of those frigid, having never practiced the policy should be free from the temptations that we know Italian well. Waving words long coveted as equity, social justice and discipline. Well he has not yet seen such a shadow, except the attitude with which you present to the media. Know that you are under observation by many, and that it will take four good intentions. Banks and speculators have caused the financial crisis and now men of these criminal associations of financial press have been placed at the head of governments to solve the problem they themselves created. We want to give a signal for all to the good intentions and promises of social justice so that they are maintained and restored parliamentary democracy, now replaced by a gerontocracy of bankers. Increasingly invasive media have made us slaves of power, plagiarizing our families, making us more and more spectators and less involved in decision making in the public interest. Anonymous and free and all citizens will be aware not to look. We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not condone. We will not forget. Wait!..."
FBI official in charge of cybercrime speaks for the first time with the media specifically about hacktivism. Last July, the FBI executed what is arguably its most public campaign against hacktivists—individuals who breach computer systems to make a political or ideological statement. On Tuesday, July 19, the G-men cuffed 12 men and two women allegedly associated with hacktivist group Anonymous for their supposed involvement in a dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attack against PayPal's website in December 2010. The July raid appeared to be the largest public indication that the FBI was finally making headway in its investigation of hacktivist activity during a year when groups including Anonymous and LulzSec made a mockery of public- and private-sector computer systems. Between December 2010 and August 2011 alone, they broke into dozens of corporate and government networks with outrage, defiance and glee. In fact, hacktivist activity had long been on the FBI's radar, according to Shawn Henry, executive assistant director of the FBI's Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch. He first noticed it in the late 1990s, when he was working as a supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters on computer intrusion cases. At the time, hacktivism consisted mostly of website defacements, he says. Today, it's more menacing. Consider the outcomes of just three data breaches launched in the name of hacktivism.
Dangerous Lulzsec strikes the WWW and claimed the responsibility for the attacks on the governmental websites in Portugal, as a response to social inequalities and police brutality, Press TV reports.
Lulzsec group announced that Portugal government's austerity measures and the police violence against demonstrators during the strike of November 24 set the attacks off. The group has been responsible for hacking Portugal's institutional websites, such as the police, parliament, secret services and political parties, for hours.
“The attacks made on the internet proved to the country that there is a response to the tactics utilized by the police against the activists,” a Portuguese social activist told Press TV reporter.
There is a police investigation taking place and members of public agencies are asking their employees to avoid leaving personal information on internet pages.
Hacker group Anonymous announced to carry out an attack on the country's electoral authorities Sunday.
The Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) confirmed their website had been hacked after the website had been offline for hours of Saturday. The organization knew to restore the website in the evening. The Colombian branch of international hacker group Anonymous, that has carried out similar Denial of Servise (DoS) attacks on government website denied responsibility. According to anonymous, ColombianH was responsible for the attack on MOE. This was not confirmed by ColombianH on their Twitter page.
Anonymous did announce to carry out "#opdemocracia," a DoS attack on the National Electoral Council, Colombia's highest electoral authority. During elections in 2010, the country's Registry Offica, responsible for the organization of the election and counting of the ballots was hacked, but these attacks did not come from insurgent hacker groups, but from the offices of the National Police and intelligence agency DAS.
Anonymous, the hackivist collective, appear now to be backing down from the grandiose promise to "erase" the Toronto Stock Exchange from the Internet on November 7. The one per cent has been putting their wealth in the Toronto Stock Exchange. This is why we choose to declare war against it, says the literally anonymous Anonymous voice. “On November 7, 2011, TSX shall be erased from the internet". And this is just the beginning. Previously anon threatened to erase NYSE from the Internet though that attack failed. also Anonymous threatens to erase FOX News couple of days ago.
In a video release Anon Said:-
"WE HAVE PUT A STOP TO THE OPERATION DUE TO ALOT OF CITIZENS OF CANADA THAT ARE A PART OF THE 99% DID NOT AGREE TO THE OPERATION!
WE ARE TRULY SORRY AND WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW WE ARE WITH YOU, AND WE STAND BY YOU WITH YOUR OPINIONS; BECAUSE WE ALL HAVE A VOICE. THANK YOU."
#OpDarknet by Anonymous. In the press release anon said:-
"The owners and operators at Freedom Hosting are openly supporting child pornography and enabling pedophiles to view innocent children, fueling their issues and putting children at risk of abduction, molestation, rape, and death.
For this, Freedom Hosting has been declared #OpDarknet Enemy Number One.
By taking down Freedom Hosting, we are eliminating 40+ child pornography websites, among these is Lolita City, one of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100GB of child pornography.
We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting's server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child pornography."
To see all the #OpDarknet official statement of Anonymous & to see the exposed details Click Here
It looks like the Federal Bureau of Investigation's been especially busy over the past 48 hours, because they're suddenly snatching up alleged members of hack collectives LulzSec and Anonymous across the United States.
According to FOX News:- F.B.I. arrested two members allegedly affiliated with LulzSec and Anonymous yesterday morning—one in San Francisco, one in Phoenix—while a third suspect was charged in Ohio Add Minnesota, Montana and New Jersey to the state roster: an F.B.I. official toward FoxNews.com Thursday that search warrants were underway in those states, too.
The arrested? According to a federal indictment, 23-year-old Cody Kretsinger of Phoenix, charged with conspiring to cause damage to a computer without authorization. Kretsinger allegedly used a virtual private service to probe Sony Pictures' computer systems for vulnerabilities, launched a SQL injection attack against said computers, stole confidential information in the process, handed it over to other members of LulzSec, publicized the attack, posted information from the attack online, then wiped the hard drive of the computer used to conduct the attack clean.
The other two arrested—Christopher Doyon, 47, from Mountain View, California and Joshua Covelli, 26, from Fairborn, Ohio—were charged with conspiring to damage computers and eventually putting paid to that conspiracy. They allegedly executed a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack against Santa Cruz County, California's computer systems last year.
