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

19 Years Old Guy get Busted by London Police in Sony Hacking Case

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/21/2011 06:30:00 pm


A teenager has been arrested near London in connection with the hacking of Sony, London's Metropolitan Police said Tuesday. The 19-year-old is suspected of hacking into systems and mounting denial of service attacks against "a number of international businesses and intelligence agencies," police said. Naming suspects who have been arrested in Britain is illegal. Sony's PlayStation Network went down on April 20 after what Sony said was a massive data breach. It had more than 70 million subscribers at the time. It began coming back on line in mid-May. The PlayStation Store did not reopen until June 2.

The company estimated the cost of that attack will total $171 million. Hackers later broke into Sony Pictures website, compromising the accounts of over 1 million users, and the gaming company SEGA, stealing nearly 1.3 million users' details via a British subsidiary of the Japanese company. SEGA makes games for PlayStation and other gaming systems. The suspect's computer "will now be examined for ties to any potential group, including LulzSec," a police spokesman told CNN, declining to be named in line with custom. "This link has not been established yet as it is still early days," the spokesman said. The hacker group LulzSec claimed recently to have attacked the CIA website, and took credit for hacking into the website of the American public broadcaster PBS and posting a fake story saying the rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive. He was killed nearly 15 years ago. It's unclear whether LulzSec members played a role in the Sony PlayStation Network breach. But they have posted on their website what they claim is proprietary information from Sony Pictures and other Sony properties' websites. On Friday, on the occasion of their 1,000th tweet, the group posted a manifesto of sorts in which they said people, including their targets and advocates of Internet freedom, should be thankful. "The main anti-LulzSec argument suggests that ... our actions are causing clowns with pens to write new rules for you," the group wrote. "But what if we just hadn't released anything? What if we were silent? That would mean we would be secretly inside FBI affiliates right now, inside PBS, inside Sony... watching... abusing... ."
They seemed to suggest that by making their attacks public, they'll push websites to increase security. They said they're sitting on account information for 200,000 players of the online game Brink, but moments later said that releasing people's information is worth doing sometimes because it's fun. 
"Yes, yes, there's always the argument that releasing everything in full is just as evil, what with accounts being stolen and abused, but welcome to 2011," they wrote. "This is the lulz lizard era, where we do things just because we find it entertaining."
Analysts said the group appears to be some sort of spin-off of "Anonymous," the loose coalition of hackers that grew to prominence through their support of the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks.
But while Anonymous has its own set of moral codes and is largely politically motivated, LulzSec seems to be random.
For every hack like the one on PBS, which the group said came out of anger over a documentary about WikiLeaks, there's the cracking of porn site pron.com -- and a subsequent public list of members' e-mail addresses and passwords.
LulzSec has not yet posted a comment on the arrest of the teen in Essex, outside London, which police said was "intelligence-led."
The suspect was arrested Monday night and police are now examining a "significant amount of material," they said.


The Suspect Details:- 
Name: Mr Ryan Cleary
Alias: viraL
Age: 18-19
Address: 10 South Beech Avenue Wickford SS11 8AH
Phone Number: +447510557265
-NEWS SOURCE (CNN)

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Lulzsec Member Recursion Might Have to Face 15 Years of Imprisonment

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/26/2011 10:18:00 pm

The FBI has arrested a member of the LulzSec hacking group over its attacks on Sony Pictures earlier this year. Cody Kretsinger, who goes by the name ‘Recursion', was arrested during a raid on his home in home in Arizona. Kretsinger has been charged with conspiracy and the unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, and faces a statutory maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
An FBI statement alleges that Kretsinger was involved in the hack on Sony Pictures, and the distribution of information stolen from the company. The statement said that he posted the stolen information on the LulzSec site, and announced the attack via Twitter. He is also alleged to have erased the hard drive of the computer used to attack Sony, in a bid to avoid detection. Four other raids were conducted looking for members of Anonymous, which has loose affiliations with LulzSec.
LulzSec embarked on a string of high profile attacks between May and July this year, targeting the US Senate, the CIA, the NHS, and Sony, but the group claimed to have disbanded.


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Sabu Former #LulzSec #Anonymous Leader Working As An Informant For FBI (Key-Members of LulzSec Arrested)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 3/07/2012 04:58:00 pm

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.
 

-Source (FOXNews, Computer World)



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Security Experts are saying that China at Risk From Cyber Attacks

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/18/2011 05:34:00 pm



A report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revealed that software systems used by China to run its weapons, utilities and chemical plants systems suffer from an inherent bug, leaving them vulnerable to hacker's cyber attacks. The report, which was first disclosed to Reuters, saw the department warn China over the vulnerabilities in its software. The software was designed by Beijing-based Sunway Force Control Technology Co. According to the department, hackers could exploit the bug to inflict an attack that could cause lasting damage on critical parts of the country's infrastructure.

Dillon Beresford, a researcher for NSS Labs -- the private security firm that discovered the bugs -- commented to Reuters, "These are vulnerabilities that hackers could leverage to cause destruction".The department's advice comes in the wake of numerous cyber attacks against several big-name companies and government departments and agencies. Sunway's products, widely used in China, are also deployed to a lesser extent in other countries including the United States, DHS's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team said in its advisory  Since its advice, Sunway has reportedly  developed software patches to plug the security holes. Experts have since revealed that even with these fixes, it will take the software's users weeks, maybe months to install the new security fixes. In this month alone there have been reports of successful attacks on Citibank, The International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Senate and CIA.  The news comes a month after public attention turned to China after the search giant Google reported a hacking attempt on its Gmail email service. China was widely expected of involvement in the attack after Google traced the origin of the hackers to one of the country's provinces. There is as yet no firm date when the security fixes will be fully functional. Sunway's products, while most widely used in China, are also used by certain Western companies.  

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Special Offer From Lulzsec: Catch Me If You Can

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/14/2011 01:31:00 pm


"Catch Me If You Can" yes you all are right the famous Hollywood  Movie of Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio on Social Engineering, one of the Un-patched vulnerability ever.  Now Lulzsec one  of the most wanted hacker group  over the whole spectrum is exactly saying or we can say repeating the same words Catch Me If You Can LulzSec‘s tracks are still under observation by US authorities to get over this catch-me-if-you-can hacking group. Traversing through the hackers, left marks in Scotland Yard, authorities have trapped total of four suspected targets.
The LulzSec is also thought to be behind the Federal LLC (a U.S.-based security company) attack. The operational hacking strategies, used in this attack, were given a pseudonym-“Kayla.”
According to the US law enforcement agencies, 2011 has been entitled the year of hackers and security violation. Series of prestigious security breaches, by Anonymous (The hacking group), included breaches of agricultural company Monsanto and NATO, U.S. military contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton. Whereas the LulzSec group was involved in setting targets to take down, especially U.S. Senate, PBS, the CIA, sites and many more.
Though, searches and efforts were being carried out by the authorities worldwide to fight against this blatant LulzSec group, but still it seems challenging to trace them out. During these searches, sixteen people were eventually arrested by US officials for their cyber attacks on PayPal.
The streak of security breaches continues regardless of whatever efforts are being put by the authorities, it looks like as the group tends to play hide and seek on long term basis. Later on, a law enforcement site belonging to Texas Police Chiefs Association got hit by unusual malicious acts of Anonymous group.
Unlike the better-known Anonymous hacking group, LulzSec cyber attacks are not launched on the basis of political motivation, but the hacking group has strong connections with “antiSec” movement and do consider political reasons as their foundation to hit the specified target. The malicious acts of LulzSec are definitely entertaining them at one side, but a big loss of sensitive information on other.


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NSA (National Security Agency) is Searching For Good Hackers

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 8/03/2011 05:31:00 pm

 
The National Security Agency has a challenge for hackers who think they’re hot stuff: Prove it by working on the “hardest problems on Earth.”
Computer hacker skills are in great demand in the U.S. government to fight the cyberwars that pose a growing national security threat — and they are in short supply.

For that reason an alphabet soup of federal agencies — DOD, DHS, NASA, NSA — are descending on Las Vegas this week for Defcon, an annual hacker convention where the $150 entrance fee is cash only — no registration, no credit cards, no names taken. Attendance is expected to top 10,000.
The NSA is among the keen suitors. The spy agency plays offence and defence in the cyberwars. It conducts electronic eavesdropping on adversaries, and it protects U.S. computer networks that hold super-secret material — a prime target for America’s enemies.

“Today it’s cyberwarriors that we’re looking for, not rocket scientists,” said Richard “Dickie” George, technical director of the NSA’s Information Assurance Directorate, the agency’s cyber-defense side.

“That’s the race that we’re in today. And we need the best and brightest to be ready to take on this cyberwarrior status,” he told Reuters in an interview.
The NSA is hiring about 1,500 people in the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and another 1,500 next year, most of them cybersecurity experts. With a workforce of about 30,000, the Fort Meade-based NSA dwarfs other intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
It also engages in cyber-spying and other offensive operations, something it rarely, if ever, discusses publicly.
But at Defcon, the NSA and other “Feds” will be competing with corporations looking for hacking talent.
The NSA needs cybersecurity experts to harden networks, defend them with updates, do “penetration testing” to find security holes and watch for signs of cyberattacks.
The NSA is expanding its fold of hackers, but George said there is a shortage of those skills. “We are straining to hire the people that we need.”

It might seem to be an odd-couple fit — strait-laced government types with their rules and missions trying to recruit hackers who by definition want to defy authorities.
George said the NSA is an environment where the hacker mind-set fits with “a critical mass of people that are just like them.”
But what about culture rifts?
“When I walk down the hall there are people that I see every day and I never know what color their hair’s going to be,” George said. “And it’s a bonus if they’re wearing shoes. We’ve been in some sense a collection of geeks for a long, long time.”
The agency has long been known for its brilliant, but sometimes eccentric, mathematicians and linguists.
Jeff Moss, a hacker known as Dark Tangent, knows something about bridging the two worlds. He founded Defcon and the companion Black Hat conference for security professionals and is now a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council, which advises the government on cybersecurity.
“They need people with the hacker skill set, hacker mind-set. It’s not like you go to a hacker university and get blessed with a badge that says you’re a hacker. It’s a self-appointed label — you think like one or you don’t,” Moss told Reuters.

-News Source (Washington Post)

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President Obama to Introduce Cybersecurity Proposal Today

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/13/2011 10:48:00 pm


Believing the U.S. to be too vulnerable to cyber-terrorism, President Obama will later today introduce a proposal to address the threat.
The law will address “complex and systemic national vulnerabilities that place the American people and economy at risk,” an administration official said.
To many Americans “cyber-security” may sound nerdy and irrelevant to their lives, but the nation’s top national security officials have been warning about the threat as dire and potentially catastrophic.
Last June, CIA director Leon Panetta told ABC News’ This Week that he worried about cyber security.
“We are now in a world in which cyber warfare is very real,” he said. “It could threaten our grid system. It could threaten our financial system. It could paralyze this country, and I think that's an area we have to pay a lot more attention to.
In February Panetta testified to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that “the potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack.” 
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the committee: “This threat is increasing in scope and scale, and its impact is difficult to overstate.”
The administration official tells ABC News that while the Obama administration “has taken significant steps to better protect America against cyber threats,…it has become clear that our nation cannot fully defend against these threats unless certain parts of cybersecurity law are updated.” The official said that President Obama’s “proposal strikes a critical balance between strengthening security, preserving privacy and civil liberties protections, and fostering continued economic growth.”
National security officials estimate there are now roughly 60,000 new malicious computer programs identified each day. As just one example, in April 2010 telecommunications companies in China rerouted about 15 percent of the world's online traffic, affecting NASA, the U.S. Senate, the four branches of the military, the office of the Secretary of Defense and a number of Fortune 500 companies by displaying false computer data that rerouted data through Chinese internet servers for about 17 minutes.
The White House estimates that there were approximately 50 cyber-related bills introduced in the last session of Congress. Senate Democrats wrote to President Obama and asked for him to weigh in.

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British Spy Agency GCHQ Performed DDoS Attack Against Anonymous -Snowden Documents Transpired

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/10/2014 01:49:00 am

British Spy Agency GCHQ Performed DDoS Attack Against Hacktivist Anonymous & LulzSec -Snowden Documents Transpired
While excavating the past, it was always found that cyber criminals, large hacker collective groups were the culprits for engaging voluminous denial of service attack. But this widely transfusing story get a one eighty degree reverse turn, when the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed another trade secret. Recently a lurid story get spot lighted, as the whistle blower Snowden unfold yet another breathtaking stealthy  documents taken from the National Security Agency. The clandestine documents taken the mask from the so called good guys, unveiling British spy agency GCHQ had launched a secret war against the infamous hacktivist collective Anonymous and a splinter group known as LulzSec several years ago. Many of you guessed right, this was happened when Anonymous were targeting various UK companies and government websites. The documents disclose that GCHQ carried out seemingly illegal DDoS attacks against the collective, flooding their chatrooms with so much traffic that they would become inaccessible – and all with the approval of the British government. The revelations come less than a year after several LulzSec activists were jailed by a British court for carrying out similar DDoS attacks against targets including the CIA, the UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), News International, Sony and the Westboro Baptist Church, among others. 
This sensational issue was made public by NBC News deferentially with the help of none other than Edward Snowden. In their exclusive report headed 'War on Anonymous: British Spies Attacked Hackers,' NBC said -The blunt instrument the spy unit used to target hackers, however, also interrupted the web communications of political dissidents who did not engage in any illegal hacking. It may also have shut down websites with no connection to Anonymous. According to the documents, a division of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British counterpart of the NSA, shut down communications among Anonymous hacktivists by launching a “denial of service” (DDOS) attack – the same technique hackers use to take down bank, retail and government websites – making the British government the first Western government known to have conducted such an attack.
The documents, from a PowerPoint presentation prepared for a 2012 NSA conference called SIGDEV, show that the unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, or JTRIG, boasted of using the DDOS attack – which it dubbed Rolling Thunder -- and other techniques to scare away 80 percent of the users of Anonymous internet chat rooms. 
The existence of JTRIG has never been previously disclosed publicly. The documents also show that JTRIG infiltrated chat rooms known as IRCs and identified individual hackers who had taken confidential information from websites. In one case JTRIG helped send a hacktivist to prison for stealing data from PayPal, and in another it helped identify hacktivists who attacked government websites. 
As soon as this story getting all the spot lights, immediately the GCHQ responded to this saying all their movements and operations were lawful. “All of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensure[s] that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All of our operational processes rigorously support this position.” -GCHQ said the press. To know more detail about this story, don't forget to stay tuned with VOGH. 



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Suspected LulzSec and Anonymous Members Got Busted

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/03/2011 03:52:00 pm

Four men have been arrested in separate parts of the UK by police investigating the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec. The suspects - from Doncaster, Warminster, Northampton and London - are being questioned by Scotland Yard's e-Crime unit. Their arrests are part of a wider operation involving UK law enforcement and the FBI. At the same time, 14 suspected members of Anonymous appeared in a US court.
Authorities around the world have been rounding up suspects following a wave of attacks by both groups on major corporations and government institutions.
Amazon, PayPal, the CIA, US Senate and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency have all suffered either intrusions or denial of service attacks, designed to take their websites offline.


Mass arrests:-

In the latest round of British arrests, police detained 20-year-old Christopher Weatherhead from Northampton and 26-year-old Ashley Rhodes from Kennington, near London. The pair are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on 7 September. Detectives also arrested a 24-year-old man from Doncaster, and a 20-year-old from Wiltshire for conspiring to commit offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. In the United States, a mass court appearance saw 14 suspected Anonymous members appear before a judge in San Jose, California. All of them denied being involved in a denial of service attack on PayPal's website in December 2010. Anonymous had publicly declared its intent to target both PayPal and Amazon for, what the group perceived as, their complicity in isolating whistle blowing website Wikileaks. Following the leaking of confidential US State Department memos, PayPal stopped processing donations to Wikileaks, while Amazon kicked the site off its web hosting service.

-News Source (BBC)

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