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

Sony Hackers LulzSec Strike FBI Affiliate InfraGard

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/05/2011 03:47:00 pm


LulzSec, the hacking group that has been identified as being behind the latest attack on Sony, has struck again—this time targeting a private-sector FBI affiliate called InfraGard.
InfraGard is a non-profit organization that connects the business community with law enforcement. It has about 42,000 members, including FBI agents, according to its website, and has an FBI special agent coordinator at each the bureau's field offices who recruits interested civilians nearby to form local InfraGard chapters. The InfraGard hack was part of a LulzSec action it called "Fuck FBI Friday" and culminated in the anonymous hacking group's publication of InfraGard e-mails, passwords and personal contact information for about 180 members on Friday. One LulzSec tweet late Friday promised "700MB in emails" via a link to a torrent file. LulzSec also defaced the InfraGard Atlanta website with a YouTube video challenging its target to "LET IT FLOW YOU STUPID FBI BATTLESHIPS," according to reports.
The hack of InfraGard that netted all the data published Friday seems to have occurred about a week or more ago. One InfraGard member told CNET Friday that he was contacted by a hacker group via email on May 26.
Karim Hijazi, CEO of botnet-tracking company Unveillance, said the hackers threatened to publish information about him found on InfraGard if he didn't give them sensitive security information about botnets. Botnets are networks of personal computers used by hackers and spammers who have slaved those PCs to the botnet either from volunteers, as is the case with the Anonymous hacking group's botnet, or from unsuspected PC users through a computer virus. Hijazi said that about a week before the first email came from "unveillance.owned@husmail.com," his company had detected attempts to crack the Unveillance corporate network with iPredator, a VPN tunneling tool. He also told CNET that he believed an unknown person had listened in on a company conference call. In a later IRC chat with his tormenters, the LulzSec hackers threatened to post a recording of a company call they said they had listened in on. "They had me under the gun for a little over a week with threats and extortion," Hijazi told CNET. "The very nature of having to contend with someone who is holding something ransom is not pleasant."


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FBI Partner InfraGard Hacked Again By #Anonymous (#FFF)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/26/2012 12:10:00 am

FBI Partner InfraGard Hacked Again By #Anonymous (#FuckFBIFriday) 
It seems that this week #FuckFBIFriday rampage of Anonymous is really on the high node. In this week #FFF they have given two big boom. The 1st one was the hack of US Prison Contractor Site and the second one is FBI affiliated InfraGard. Earlier Lulzsec hit the InfraGard  and they breached the digital security perimeter surrounding the Atlanta chapter of Infragard, took complete control of the site, defaced it and leaked the local user base. So this is the second time when InfraGard became the target of Hactivist. According to AnonymousIRC twitter "#FFF FBI-INFRAGARD ROOTED AGAIN. ONE MORE TIME. FOR THE LULZ. infragard.dayton.oh.us #Anonymous #AntiSec #LulzSec #OWS" 
The message on the deface page was saying - "Today we targeted the Dayton Ohio chapter of InfraGard, the sinister alliance between law enforcement, corporations, and white hat wannabees. We broke into their webserver, perused their assorted presentation materials, and finally deleted everything and vandalized their website so we can boost our zone-h rankings..." 
So for #FFF the list of victims are increasing, in the last Friday they have breached the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Server and hacked the official website of U.S. Federal Trade Commission, consumer rights, & National Consumer Protection Week. Also one week before for Friday rampage Anonymous released sensitive conference call between FBI & Scotland Yard. Now the name of US Prison Contractor & Infragard are also enlisted. 




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An army of techies waging war on spam

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/09/2011 03:27:00 pm




It's a vast, invisible battle, going on all the time - and, unbeknownst to you, your computer may be one of the battlegrounds.
The struggle pits thousands of smart, evil folks, who send out trillions of pieces of spam e-mail, against the people in law enforcement and business guarding against them and trying to shut them down.
On the front lines against spam and cybercrime, some analyze malicious computer code (malware), and others - in the young science of cyberforensics - examine computers and drives confiscated in investigations.
Spam - hated word - is again in the news. A May 3 FBI alert warned of e-mail carrying purported images or videos of Osama bin Laden. "This will leave you speechless)," the spam says. "See picture of bin laden dead!"
Don't even open it, warned the alert. "This malicious software or malware can embed itself in computers and spread to users' contact lists, thereby infecting the systems of associates, friends, and family members."
Pumped out by networks (botnets) of malware-enslaved personal computers, unwanted e-mail - random junk, ads, porn, viruses, Trojan horses, get-rich-quick offers from Nigerian nobility - makes up most of all e-mail sent in the world. By far. Estimates range around 80 percent - but a 2007 Microsoft security report in October put it at 97 percent. It ranges from crud to criminal. As for malware, the United States has about 2.2 million computers (more than any other country) infected, according to Microsoft numbers (likely to be low).
"I guarantee," says FBI Special Agent Brian Herrick, director of the FBI Cyber Crime Squad in Philadelphia, "that thousands of Inquirer readers probably have computers infected with spam or malware, part of a botnet just pumping out spam."
The cyberthugs have an advantage, says Special Agent Cerena Coughlin, also of the Cyber Crime Squad. "We can stop them for a while, but they always come up with ways to circumvent it. And we're more restricted. We have to follow the letter of the law - they don't."
The extent of it is staggering. Before U.S. marshals took it down in March, the Rustock botnet was pumping out an estimated 30 billion spam e-mails a day. The botnets - big names include ZeuS, SpyEye, Dogma, Koobface, and Alureon - are run by criminal groups that use servers and supercomputers in several countries. Tracing their activity is extremely difficult and calls for highly skilled technical workers.
One of 16 such FBI squads in the country, the Philadelphia Cyber Crime Squad has 15 agents working full-time on cybercrime; the national program began in 1996. Working with national and international agencies, the squad studies and traces viruses, junk, and spam. Cases involve computer intrusions (everything from local hackers to international cyberespionage and terrorism), child exploitation (as in pornography), intellectual-property rights (copyright infringement, movies, music, software, proprietary business secrets), Internet fraud, and identity theft.
Coughlin says, "We are insanely busy. This is the third-busiest squad in the country, because of where it is and all the affected business and government concerns nearby. We don't have enough bodies for all the work there is."
In the Philadelphia area, the FBI joins hands with local businesses such as banks, agribusiness, and utilities (enterprises often attacked by spam and cybercrime) in a group called InfraGard. There are more than 1,400 local members - "So many people want to be part of it that we don't even need to solicit members," Coughlin says.
At monthly meetings, members share information, news, and tips. The FBI gives presentations and talks, and individual members speak about the cases they face. "It's a communication channel," Herrick says, "between the U.S. government and people in industry down in the trenches, looking to protect critical infrastructure."
Current president of the local chapter of InfraGard is Brian Schaeffer, chief information officer of Liberty Bell Bank in Marlton. He says, "I get thousands of cyberattacks a day. A lot of them are idiots just wanting to show what they can do. But a lot of them are looking to access banking information."
Like most banks, Liberty Bell has a strong firewall, "so hackers take a back-door approach," sending bank clients "phishing" e-mails - which pretend to be trustworthy communications but hide nasty intentions. "If a client even opens such an e-mail, they can get into their account information, their contacts, the keys to the kingdom."
Such attacks mean that "not only do I have to defend my own system, but also I try to help the customers with theirs. If their computers get infected, their account and credit information could get sold to strangers, and that could hurt us all." Schaeffer tells of an elderly couple who came to his bank one day, and just by coincidence, a bank clerk brought him a suspicious request "to withdraw a huge amount of money from their account - but there they were, sitting with us, so we knew some hackers had got at their information through e-mail."
He says InfraGard "has given me a network of people I can go to if I see things I never saw before. If I have a question, there's likely to be someone with an answer."
The other side of the battle is cyberforensics. Think of it as CSI with computers. It's happening right now, with the cache of computers, flash drives, and other cyberstuff taken from Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. U.S. agents instantly began to analyze this precious trove for criminal evidence - and links to other al-Qaeda operatives.
Work much like this goes on in Radnor at the FBI's Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, one of 16 such labs in the country. As with InfraGard, the flavor is distinctly federal/local. Law enforcement agencies - such as the police departments of Philadelphia, Lancaster, Lower Merion, and Lower Providence - send officers to guest-work at the lab and receive training and experience in fighting computer crime.
Supervisory Special Agent J.P. McDonald directs the lab, which has been involved in some of the highest-profile local investigations of recent years, including the 2007 Fort Dix attack plot, the manhunt for the Coatesville arsonists, the case of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, and the 2007-08 "Bonnie and Clyde" case of Jocelyn Kirsch and Edward Anderton, now in prison for fraud and identity theft.
"You can track the growth of cyberforensics along the same timeline as computers," McDonald says. "The FBI's program began in 1999, and, as of the mid-2000s, cyberevidence now has recognition and a firm track record in courts."
The lab is a techie's paradise, with gadgets and screens galore, racks of digital evidence sealed in antistatic wrap, sophisticated hard-drive readers, radiofrequency-shielded spaces, and kiosks for quick analysis of cell phones and thumb drives. "The majority of what we do," McDonald says, "is analysis of what's in a machine, how it got there, and then making a timeline of the history of what got there when."
"People's electronic devices are really an extension of their thoughts," says Philadelphia Police Lt. Edward Monaghan, deputy director of the lab. "If you're into NASCAR, you're likely to have NASCAR stuff in your computer. Thugs who are into drugs and money like to have their pictures taken with drugs, guns, and money. It sounds dumb, but they love it. That's what cyberevidence is all about."
The FBI's Herrick is resigned to a long battle: "There's probably some high school kid someplace in the Midwest - or maybe Europe or Asia someplace - who's cooking up something nobody's ever seen before. You really have to stay on your game with these guys."



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FBI partner’s site has been breached by Hackers

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/06/2011 09:27:00 pm


Nearly 180 passwords belonging to members of an Atlanta-based FBI partner organization have been stolen and leaked to the Internet, the group confirmed yesterday.
The logins belonged to the local chapter of InfraGard, a public-private partnership devoted to sharing information about threats to US physical and Internet infrastructure, the chapter’s president said.
“Someone did compromise the website,’’ Paul Farley, president of the InfraGard Atlanta Members Alliance, said in an e-mail exchange. “We do not at this time know how the attack occurred or the method used to reveal the passwords.’’ Copies of the passwords — which appear to include users from the US Army, cybersecurity organizations, and major communications companies — were posted to the Internet by online hacking collective Lulz Security, which has claimed credit for a string of attacks in the past week. In a statement, Lulz Security also claimed to have used one of the passwords to steal nearly 1,000 work and personal e-mails from the chief executive of Wilmington, Del.,-based Unveillance. Lulz Security claimed it was acting in response to a recent report that the Pentagon was considering whether to classify some cyberattacks as acts of war.
The FBI said yesterday steps were being taken to mitigate the damage.

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LulzSec Hacker Ryan Cleary & Jake Davis Plead Guilty at London Court For Hacking CIA & Pentagon

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/25/2012 10:26:00 pm

LulzSec Hacker Ryan Cleary & Jake Davis Plead Guilty at London Court For Hacking CIA & Pentagon

Two British LulzSec hacker Ryan Cleary, 20, and Jake Davis, 19 today admitted hacking into the websites of the CIA and the Pentagon as well as the Serious Organised Crime Squad in the UK. Accoridng to an exclusive report of The Guardian both Jake Davies, also known as "Topiary" and Ryan Cleary, known under the names "Anakin," "hershcel.mcdooenstein", "George hampsterman" and "ni"  have confessed attacks on the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), National Health Service, News International, Sony, Nintendo, Arizona State police, and other sites in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks designed to cause the sites to cash. Cleary also confessed to four separate charges including hacking into US Air Force Agency computers at the Pentagon.
Cleary and Davis plotted to carry out the attacks with other unknown members of internet groups Anonymous, Internet Feds, and LulzSec. Other websites targeted by the pair were Westboro Baptist Church, Bethesda, Eve Online, HBGary, HBGary Federal, PBS Inc, and Infragard. Cleary also confessed today to four separate charges, including hacking into US Air Force Agency computers, based at the Pentagon.
Both men appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court to enter guilty pleas to a series of charges brought against them.
But both Cleary and Davis denied allegations they posted 'unlawfully obtained confidential computer data' to public websites including LulzSec.com, Pirate Bay, and PasteBin, in order to encourage offences contrary to the Serious Crime Act.
Alleged co-hackers Ryan Ackroyd, 25, and a 17-year-old A-level student, from south-London, deny their involvement in the DDoS attacks and will stand trial on April 8, 2013.








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Salt Lake City Police Department Hacked By Anonymous (#OpPiggyBank)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/02/2012 06:08:00 pm

Salt Lake City Police Dept. Hacked By Anonymous (#OpPiggyBank)
Hacktivist Anonymous take responsibility for hacking into Salt Lake City Police official website. Two hackers from Anonymous named CabinCr3w & ItsKahuna was behind this hack. The hackers hacked into the database of the Salt Lake City PD and exposed confidential information such as Full name of the Employ, Address, Phone Number, email-id, password hash and so on. All the exposed information can be found on a pastebin release. After this security breach the site was kept down for maintenance as shown in the picture below.
According to a news release from police, the hacker group says the attack is a response to an anti-graffiti paraphernalia bill being sponsored by state Sen. Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City. Currently, the bill in its amended state, prohibits any person to possess any instrument, tool or device with the intent of vandalizing an area with graffiti. Offenders would be guilty of a class C misdemeanor. Depending on the extent of the vandalism, the crime could be boosted to a felony. 

Press Release Of Anonymous:- 
"=================================================                                #OpPiggyBank
                           @CabinCr3w & @ItsKahuna
 =================================================                             
Dear Salt Lake City Police Department,

We took note http://fur.ly/0/MaynePlot that Senator Karen Mayne has put forth a bill SB107 - http://fur.ly/0/MaynePlotBill that tries to resolve an inconvenience with a flamethrower. Regardless whether the messages spray painted are disturbing, this bill sets an attitude that will down the line lead to invasions of privacy in people's homes and raids at 6 am over spray paint. We know that law enforcement functions as a mindless machine led by InfraGard, PERF, and other domestic civil intelligence (so marches the security state) networks. We know there's money to be made in the "just doing my job" compartmentalized economy. Therefore we know that regardless of the intent of Karen Mayne's haphazard lawmaking, this will end in corporations selling miniature drones to police offers chasing 13 year olds. We will act now as we have seen other "well-meaning" legislation open the door to tyranny and financing of oppression. There is no denying where this will end in 3 to 5 years or perhaps sooner.

Has your Senator Karen Mayne watched Minority Report too many times? A law prohibiting ownership and use of purchased products based on suspected intent? Is she kidding? The purpose of the law is not to prevent crime, but to manage it. The public gets the benefit of the doubt. A little too zealous wethinks. Perhaps a little pre-emptive action will drive the point home. As the foot soldiers for this bill, you get a taste of Mayne's witch hunt mentality. There are plenty of means to prosecute defacement of both private and public property in a general way. There's also the fact that some of this behavior may fall under civil rather criminal context.

A felony has a serious effect on a person's liberties after serving sentences, including loss of second amendment rights. And is this really the way to handle it? Perhaps Karen Mayne should be looking into why your neighborhoods are drawing this kind of behavior? Not acknowledging grievances and social issues such as poverty can lead to communities forming their own identities separate from their leaders. If all the senator has to offer is a policy that will lead to a self-righteous escalation of enforcement, consider this our deterrent.

We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us..."



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FBI Raided Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown's Apartment

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/26/2012 02:26:00 pm

FBI Raided Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown's Apartment 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the apartment of Barrett Brown, the unofficial “spokesperson” for the hacker collective Anonymous. The warrants allowed the Feds to search for records relating to Anonymous, LulzSec, HBGary, Infragard, Endgame Systems, IRC chats, Twitter, Brown’s website Echelon2.org and and Pastebin records, amongst other things. Basically, anything on any data-storing device owned by Brown. In a pastebin note Brown himself posted this thing. 
Brown, of course, is not a hacker, but as a visible proponent of Anonymous, he’s an easy target for the Feds. In his Pastebin statement, however, Brown hit back at the federal government, independent security firms and big business in very interesting way—he brought up the corporate-government anti-hacking axis Team Themis. For anyone well-versed in the Greek pantheon of gods, you will remember Themis is the female goddess of law, justice and social control. It’s not for nothing that Team Themis would choose the goddess’s name for their vigilante form of justice, by which private entities—security firms and businesses—have launched an extra-judicial campaign against their enemies.
According to Brown's note - "With the assistance of the law firm Hunton & Williams, [Team Themis] went about collecting potential clients, including two institutions which desired to go on the offensive against certain activist groups. One of these institutions, the Chamber of Commerce, provided them with the names of various individuals believed to be involved with groups that opposed their policies, and asked them to come up with a plan by which to discredit them." Full statement of Brown can be found here.
We would also like to give you reminder that the last operation of FBI was the arrest of Higinio O. Ochoa III, a member of Anon affiliated 'CabinCr3w'.




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Professor Warner Helps FBI To Crack "Trident Breach" ($70 Million Cyber-crime Ring)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 3/23/2012 03:45:00 pm

Professor Warner Helps FBI To Crack "Trident Breach" ($70 Million Cyber-crime Ring)

Earlier in 2008 cyber criminals have managed to steal more than  $70 million from the payroll accounts of some 400 American companies and organizations – all from the safety of their homes in Eastern Europe. The case was known to us as "Trident Breach". As expected FBI was inspecting that case but hardly get success. 
At the beginning of 2008, the group of hackers compromised hundreds of thousands of Americans computers using a malicious computer “Trojan” bug called ZeuS. When computer users clicked on certain attachments and e-mail links, ZeuS infected their computers. ZeuS is designed to zero in on users’ bank information. For example, when a user visits a bank website, ZeuS knows; and since it is a key logger program, it records the user's keystrokes as he or she enters usernames and passwords. It then sends that information by instant text message to waiting hackers, who then have access to the compromised accounts. Henry is one of the country’s top cybercrime fighters. He says Americans are increasingly prone to “virtual gangs” prying on people’s personal data stored on their computers. In late 2008, they created some 3000 money mules, many of them unwitting Americans, by luring them into work-at-home jobs requiring "employees" to open bank accounts.
Later FBI appoint Prof. Gary Warner of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who teaches a program that combines computer forensics and justice studies. Warner is also a member of the little-known FBI-affiliated group called InfraGard, comprising some 50,000 members across the United States who keep an eagle eye on U.S . critical infrastructure: power plants, water supply, security and financial services…and the Internet. After the entry of Warner the investigation turns. Warner said hackers transferred cash from business payroll-type "ACH" (Automated Clearing House) accounts to the mule accounts and the mules sent the cash by Western Union or MoneyGram to Eastern Europe, taking eight or 10 percent commission. So stealthy was their ZeuS operation, neither the hackers nor the mules had counted on getting caught. But, using complex data mining techniques, Prof. Warner established links between ZeuS-infected computers and traced the origins of the mass infection to Ukraine; and many of the hackers and their mules were caught. And after the FBI published a wanted poster of the students, Warner’s students began using what they’d learned in class to track the criminals. 



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