Tuesday, July 19, 2011
LulzSec comes back to hack The Sun web site
After having stated at the end of June its intention to disband, the hacker group LulzSec has claimed responsibility for hacking the web site of The Sun newspaper, owned by News International. Visitors to the site late on 18 July were redirected to a fake page carrying a news story stating that Rupert Murdoch’s body had been discovered after he had apparently committed suicide.
According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, the hackers managed to change the code on The Sun site for the breaking news banner so that a banner refresh took the reader to the fake page, at http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage This site is hosted on a “retired” News International server and is mainly used for minor stories. After News International became aware of the hack, and tried to regain control, the hackers then redirected The Sun’s homepage to the LulzSec Twitter account, where the address of new-times.co.uk/sun was given, together with the claim that this was only the beginning. The Sun web site was quickly taken offline for a few hours, as was that of The Times, as a precautionary measure.
The Guardian report states that having found a weakness in the old server, the hackers had extensive control over the server and thereby gained access to “large parts of the News International network, possibly including the archived emails”. In other tweets, LulzSec and others from Anonymous have published what are claimed to be the login email details and phone numbers of various highly-placed individuals associated with News International and the recent phone “hacking” scandal, most notably former News of the World Editor and former CEO of News International Rebekah Brooks. This suggests that the hackers have gained access to the News International email archive and may well release some of the contents.
Monday, July 18, 2011
tned.uscourts.gov Exploited By p0keu
tned.uscourts.gov Exploited By p0keu
United States District Court Eastern Districts of Tennesee Website Host- UserName- Password Exploited By p0keu
Contrary To Reports, 33% of Google+ Users Are Actually Female
33% of total user base on Google plus is actually female – so says Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen. Couple of days ago, news outlets reported skewed male-female ratio on Google plus, a conclusion derived from two statistical sites SocialStatistics and FindPeopleOnPlus.
Data on these sites reveal that the number of males on Google plus far exceeds the number of females. SocialStatistics says Google plus is made up of 86% males while its counterpart FindPeopleOnPlus says it’s about 73%.
But both these sites track only a handful of profiles and any conclusion from their data can be as good as a wild guess. SociaStatistics tracks 31,904 profiles while FindPeopleOnPlus,on a better side, tracks 947,996 profiles.
Paul Allen, who had earlier predicted that Google plus would reach 20 million by this weekend has a more accurate set of data. According to his estimations, which he arrived after hours of calculations, Google plus is made up of 66.4% Males and 33.6% Females. He also notes that the when compared to previous weeks, the female population on Google plus has dramatically increased.
Facebook on the other hand had more women than men in first few years. At one point women contributed two-thirds of its total user base. The fact that Facebook started in colleges while Google plus started in the Silicon Valley may be the reason why there is a stark difference in their gender ratios.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Google+ Hits 10 Million Users, Expected To Reach 20 Million By Weekend
Whoa! Did Google just surpass the 10 million figure mark? Yes says founder of Ancestry.com and serial entrepreneur Paul Allen. Paul spent hours last weekend analyzing data from US Census Bureau to come up with a rough estimate of the number of users on Google+.
His surname-based analysis shows that the number of Google+ users worldwide reached 7.3 million yesterday – up from 1.7 million users on July 4th – a 350% increase in six days. He says he is finding it tough to keep up with the exponential growth of the site.
His latest figure put the number of users at 9.5 million and by the time the article is published, I expect it to cross 10 million. He notes that the Invite button will push that figure to 20 million by the weekend.
He writes,”My model is simple. I start with US Census Bureau data about surname popularity in the U.S., and compare it to the number of Google+ users with each surname. I split the U.S. users from the non-U.S. users. By using a sample of 100-200 surnames, I am able to accurately estimate the total percentage of the U.S. population that has signed up for Google+. Then I use that number and a calculated ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to generate my worldwide estimates. My ratio is 1 US user for every 2.12 non-U.S. users. That ratio was calculated on July 4th through a laborious effort, and I haven’t updated it since. That is definitely a weakness in my model that I hope to address soon. The ratio will likely change over time.”
Earlier in the day, Bill Gross wrote on his Google+ account, “I predict that Google+ will go from 0 to 100,000,000 users faster than any other service in history.”
The initial euphoria around the site and impressive set of features appear to have triggered mass adoption. Remember, Google+ is still in infancy and we can expect it to fire all its cylinders in coming days.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Pentagon Admits to Biggest ever Data Breach ! !
SHANE MCLEOD: The Pentagon has admitted that a foreign intelligence service stole 24,000 files from a US defence contractor earlier this year.
TIMOTHY MCDONALD:The US military has a massive budget and the world's most powerful arsenal at its disposal. But brute force isn't everything.
WILLIAM LYNN : Keystrokes originating in one country can impact the other side of the globe in the blink of an eye. In the 21st century bits and bytes can be as threatening as bullets and bombs.
TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The deputy defence secretary William J Lynn has announced a new cyber defence strategy.
It's aimed at bolstering network security by layering defences and improving cooperation with other network operators.
The Pentagon will introduce sensors, software and signatures to its networks to detect and stop attacks before they affect US operations.
The strategy also calls for cooperation with other government agencies, defence contractors and allies including Australia.
WILLIAM LYNN: Although no network will ever be perfectly secure our military networks today are better defended and our cyber hygiene more effective than before.
On the international front we are partnered with Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and NATO. And under the president's international strategy we will seek greater cooperation with more nations in the coming months.
TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright says the Pentagon might adopt a more aggressive posture towards cyber attacks.
He says it's important to deter hacking activity by increasing the consequences for the hackers.
But not everyone is impressed with the new strategy.
Stewart Baker is a cyber security expert. He says the new measures are not enough.
STEWART BAKER: This unfortunately is a little minimalist in terms of its likelihood of changing the nature of the struggle we're engaged in.
TIMOTHY MCDONALD: William Lynn says one of the main concerns at the moment is the role of military contractors who hold significant amounts of sensitive data on their servers.
He says they're often the target of intruders.
WILLIAM LYNN: It is therefore of significant concern that over the past decade terabytes of data have been extracted by foreign intruders from corporate networks of defence companies. Indeed in a single intrusion this past March 24,000 files were taken.
TIMOTHY MCDONALD: He says it's not the only attack. Contractors in the past have lost significant amounts of sensitive data.
WILLIAM LYNN: A great deal of it concerns our most sensitive systems including aircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite communication systems and network security protocols.
The cyber exploitation being perpetrated against defence industry cuts across a wide swath of crucial military hardware extending from missile tracking systems and satellite navigation devices to UAVs and the joint strike fighter.
Current countermeasures have not stopped this outflow of sensitive information. We need to do more to guard our digital storehouse of design innovation.
TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The admission came just two days after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have stolen 90,000 files from government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
In a statement on its website the company confirmed the attack but downplayed its significance.
EXTRACT FROM STATEMENT BY BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON: Booz Allen Hamilton has confirmed today that the posting of certain data files on the internet yesterday was the result of an illegal attack.
We are conducting a full review of the nature and the extent of the attack. At this time we do not believe that the attack extended beyond data pertaining to a learning management system for a government agency.
TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The company says it's communicating with clients and analysing the nature of the attack and the files affected.
