US Charges Two Russian Spies & Two Hackers For Hacking 500 Million Yahoo Accounts

The 2014 Yahoo hack disclosed late last year that compromised over 500 million Yahoo user accounts was believed to be carried out by a state-sponsored hacking group. Now, two Russian intelligence officers and two criminal hackers have been charged by the US government in connection with the 2014...

Mirai Vulnerability Disclosed, But Exploits May Constitute Hacking Back

The Mirai botnet apparently has a weakness that could shut down its ability to flood targets with HTTP requests. But exploiting that vulnerability puts defenders in a gray area with regard to hacking back. Researchers at Invincea Labs discovered three vulnerabilities in Mirai, one of which is the...

Former Cardinals Scout Christopher Correa Sentenced Four Years for Houston Astros Hack

The Federal Court came down hard on a former scouting director for the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday, sentencing Christopher Correa to almost four years in prison for hacking into a computer system that belongs to the Houston Astros. Correa, who until last summer served as Director of Baseball...

Second 'Fappening' Hacker Pleads Guilty; Facing up to 5 years in Prison

A second man has pleaded guilty for his role in 'The Fappening' breach of 2014, in which the Internet was flooded with thousands of photographs of popular celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst. Edward Majerczyk 28 of Chicago, Illinois agreed to ple...

LinkedIn Slams Breach Data Reseller With Cease and Desist Order

LinkedIn is striking back against a website attempting to monetize the 117 million usernames and passwords stolen from the company as part of a 2012 data breach. Website LeakedSource is reporting lawyers representing LinkedIn have served the company a cease and desist order on Wednesday alleging...

Samy Kamkar's ProxyGambit Picks Up for Defunct ProxyHam

Without fail in the weeks leading up to Black Hat and DEF CON, there are inevitably talks that are either pulled by organizers, cancelled by presenters, or strong suggestions are made that the talks don’t happen. This year’s first casualty, Ben Caudill’s scheduled DEF CON demonstration of ProxyHa...

Researchers Wary of Wassenaar Arrangement Proposed Rules

Professional security researchers concerned about proposed changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA that include stiff penalties for what today is considered legitimate offensive research, are worried about another impending punch to the gut. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry a...

Legal Line Between Security Research, Cybercrime Murky

LAS VEGAS — In his keynote address at Black Hat Wednesday, Dan Geer, the CISO of In-Q-Tel and a respected security luminary noted that the industry has never been closer to the forefront of corporate and government policy decision making. Despite this, security research remains a dangerous busine...

Hack or attempt to Hack, you may face 20 years in prison

The Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman 'Patrick Leahy' reintroduced a revamped version of the "Personal Data Privacy and Security Act" for tough criminal penalties for hackers, that he originally authored in 2005. During last Christmas Holidays, a massive data breach had occurred at the shopping...

Anonymous Hacker 'Kahuna' sentenced to 3 years in prison for hacking Police websites

An Anonymous Hacker and Online hacktivist who was responsible for hacking into the City of Springfield’s website and others Police websites has been sentenced to 3 years in federal prison. John Anthony Borell III, a 22-year-old man from Ohio with the online handle @ItsKahuna started advertising h...

Weaknesses in CFAA language exposed at Black Hat

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA can be unsettling even to the most stalwart security researcher. The law, enacted in 1986 and revisited several times since, is still littered with loopholes and nuances that can be leveraged by a prosecutor in a criminal case, or turned against a white hat i...

LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond pleads guilty to Stratfor attack, could face 10 years in prison

A computer hacker linked to the group known as Anonymous and LulzSec pleaded guilty on Tuesday to breaking into Stratfor, a global intelligence company. Hammond, 28, was arrested last March and charged with hacking into the computers of Stratfor. Jeremy Hammond and other members of AntiSec, stole...

LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond pleads guilty to Stratfor attack, could face 10 years in prison

A computer hacker linked to the group known as Anonymous and LulzSec pleaded guilty on Tuesday to breaking into Stratfor, a global intelligence company. Hammond, 28, was arrested last March and charged with hacking into the computers of Stratfor. Jeremy Hammond and other members of AntiSec, stole...

Reporters legally threatened after revealing vulnerability that exposes sensitive data of 170,000 customers

For millions of low income families, the federal government's Lifeline program offers affordable phone service. But an online security lapse has exposed tens of thousands of them to an increased risk of identity theft, after their Social Security numbers, birth dates and other pieces of highly...

Algerian Hacker linked to SpyEye virus extradited to US

The Algerian hacker linked with the SpyEye computer virus, designed to steal financial and personal information was extradited by Thailand to the United States to face charges that he hijacked customer accounts at more than 200 banks and financial institutions and have been used to steal more tha...

Romanian POS Hackers Plead Guilty, Net $10 M from Scam

Two Romanian men pled guilty this week to charges they hacked into the point of sale systems of more than 200 restaurants, compromising the payment cards of 146,000 customers and amassing more than $10 million over the last few years. Included in those 200 stores were more than 150 Subway sandwic...

Hacker charged for hacking into U.S. Energy Department

Hacker charged for hacking into U.S. Energy Department Andrew James Miller, a 23-year-old resident of Devon, Pennsylvania, was arrested on Thursday and charged with one count of conspiracy, two counts of computer fraud, and one count of access device fraud, according to a statement issued by the...

Pennsylvania Man Indicted For Hack of Department of Energy Network

A Pennsylvania man was arrested yesterday after a Massachusetts grand jury issued a four-count indictment alleging that he hacked into computer networks belonging to the U.S. Department of Energy DoE and the University of Massachusetts and tried to sell access to a DoE supercomputer for $50,000 t...

Stealing Corporate Data Doesn't Violate Federal Computer Fraud Law

In a ruling that could be felt throughout the business world, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California ruled that a man did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA after pilfering contacts from the client database of his former employer to help jumpstart his competi...

FBI Investigating Election Tampering Following Arrest of CSUSM Student

The FBI is investigating whether federal law violations took place following allegations a candidate for student body president at California State University San Marcos stole some 700 student identities in an attempt to alter election results. Third-year business student Mark Weaver was arrested...