Cyber Crime | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A Singaporean hacker calling himself the " The Messiah " was arrested in Kuala Lumpur last Monday for hacking into a Singaporean government website over two weeks ago - from a Kuala Lumpur apartment. James Raj (35) charged with hacking of  Ang Mo Kio town council  website and posting a symbol associated with international hacker group Anonymous. He was charged under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. If found guilty, he could be jailed for up to three years and fined S$10 , 000. Police said Raj was also linked to a series of hacking incidents, including penetrating the website of a charity group related to the ruling People's Action Party. Police declined to give details but suggested that Raj was not responsible for defacing the prime minister's office and presidential palace websites on November 7 and 8. Five other local men are being held for allegedly hacking the websites of Singapore's president and prime minister websites i.e.  Muhammad

We have a lot of information on Stuxnet virus, a powerful malware that for the first time has shown to governments the capabilities and efficiency of a cyber weapon. Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kasperky security firm revealed that Stuxnet had badly infected the internal network of a Russian nuclear plant, according to the information he obtained from an unnamed staffer at the Nuclear Plant. " So unfortunately these people who were responsible for offensive technologies, they recognize cyber weapons as an opportunity ." Kaspersky said. During a presentation given at the Canberra Press Club, Kaspersky provided an excellent overview on the security of cyberspace, in particular highlighting the effect of the activities of state-sponsored espionage and cyber crime. " All the data is stolen, " Kaspersky said. " At least twice ." The malware Stuxnet is widely considered to have been developed by the US Government in a joint work with Israel c

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has added five new hackers to its Cyber most wanted list and is seeking information from the public regarding their whereabouts. The men are wanted in connection with hacking and fraud crimes both within the US as well as internationally. Rewards ranging from up to $50,000 to $100,000 are being offered for information that leads to their arrest. Two of them are Pakistani, Farnhan Arshad and Noor Aziz Uddin , who caused the damage of over $50 million after hacking business telephone systems between 2008 and 2012. Arshad and Uddin are part of an international criminal ring that the FBI believes extends into Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Spain, Singapore, Italy, Malaysia, and other locations. Syrian national Andrey Nabilevich Taame , wanted for his alleged role in Operation Ghost Click , a malware scheme that compromised more than four million computers in more than 100 countries between 2007 and October 2011

12-year-old Canadian has pleaded guilty to breaking into multiple major government and police websites in the name of the hacker collective Anonymous . Surprisingly, this Fifth Grade student wreaked computer havoc during the Quebec student uprising in 2012, traded pirated information to Anonymous for video games. He had not just participated in  DDoS attacks , but also stole information belonging to users and administrators. The court estimates he did $60,000 worth of damage by attacking major government websites included those of Montreal police, the Quebec Institute of Public Health, the Chilean government and some non-public sites. His lawyer also described in the Court that buy saw it as a challenge, he was only 12 years old and was no political purpose. According to Montreal police, the boy also taught others how to hack. The 12 year old was among the several hackers arrested over the Anonymous protest. While others have been arrested in connection with t

Cybercrime , identity theft, and frauds are on the rise; and in most cases, the data breaches are associated with credit cards and cardholder data. The impact of data breach not only affects your organization, but also your customers. A common observation cites that organizations that are PCI compliant are 50% less likely to suffer a data breach . It is alarming to notice that most organizations have difficulty complying with the requirements necessary for processing cardholder data . PCI makes the process smooth Based on the feedback from the industry, PCI Security Council has introduced some changes in the compliance regulations and has come up with version 3.0 for PCI compliance whose final version is scheduled for release on November 7, 2013. And, it is expected to be effective from January 2014. So, how will the upgraded version of PCI Compliance impact your organization? Awareness :  Most security breaches happen due to lack of awareness in the following areas:

Ross Ulbricht , the recently arrested mastermind behind Silk Road , appeared in court yesterday where his lawyer begged for more time before the detention hearing. As the Protective Order states, The United States is further authorized to seize any and all Bitcoins contained in wallet files residing on silk road servers and can transfer the full account balance in each silk road wallet to a public Bitcoin address controlled by the United States. Right now the FBI must be feeling pretty good too, because a federally controlled Bitcoin account , renamed as " Silkroad Seized Coins " now contains over $3.5 million worth of the digital currency , seized from Silk Road over 26,000 Bitcoins. As of this writing, the FBI 's Bitcoin address has received 122 transactions, nearly 30 of which apparently come from pranksters and now the account holds 27,365.89919925 BTC. Forbes, Kashmir Hill asked FBI spokesperson that what the plan is for those seized Bitcoins. " W

A College 19-year-old college student and Hacker from Temecula, California has been arrested for hacking the webcams of Miss Teen USA ' Cassidy Wolf ' and other women to extort nude photos and videos from them. Earlier this year Cassidy Wolf received an anonymous email in which the sender claimed to have stolen images from the camera on her home computer. According to the complaint, he threatened to turn her " dream of being a model ... into a ..... " Jared James Abrahams , 19 years-old man forced several women to strip. Based on an investigation launched in March the FBI raided THE suspect's home in June, seizing computers, cell phones and hacking software. Abrahams is accused of hacking the computers of several young women and charged with extortion, that could send him to federal prison for up to two years. Abrahams used malicious software to disguise his identity in order to capture nude photos or videos of victims through remote operat

Sentencing for former LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur , better known as " Sabu " , has again been delayed. Monsegur pleaded guilty to a dozen criminal counts two years prior and stands to face more a maximum sentence of more than 124 years. Another Lulzsec Hacker Jeremy Hammond has claimed that the FBI used Sabu to coordinate attacks against foreign governments, by  Anonymous hackers and Others. The delays indicate that the FBI is not extracting information from Monsegur and this could mean that the hacker may be helping FBI with other covert operations as Jeremy Hammond claims. Jeremy Hammond, released a statement on Thursday accusing the US government of asking Monsegur to encourage fellow hacktivists to infiltrate foreign government entities. " What many do not know is that Sabu was also used by his handlers to facilitate the hacking of the targets of the government's choosing including numerous websites belonging to foreign governments" , Ham

What would you do if a European Cybercrime Agency locked your PC until you paid a fine? A new Police Ransomware  family dubbed Trojan : HTML/Browlock by F-secure Antivirus firm, known as Browlock , which spreads by tricking unsuspecting web surfers into believing the police are after them. Ransomware is malware that, when installed on a device, can be locked down from remote locations by cyber criminals . Usually, ransomware appears to be an official warning telling the user that the computer has to be locked because it showed illegal activities and payment is necessary to access files. Ransomware is a global phenomenon, but the criminals have learned to localize and customize their software to make the threat seem scarier so that victims act quickly before they have time to think. Researchers said they are tracking this Malware from a while ago and now crooks behind the malware ate targeting users from some new countries including the United States, Canada and th

A second member of hacking group LulzSec - Raynaldo Rivera, 21, of Tempe, Arizona, has been sentenced to 1 year in prison, 13 months of house arrest, and 1,000 hours of community service for hacking into the computers of Sony Pictures Entertainment . Raynaldo who went by Internet names " neuron " was member of LulzSec Hacking Team in an attack on Sony Pictures which saw personal data belonging to 138,000 customers leaked. He's also been ordered to pay $605,663 in restitution.  The attackers distributed the stolen data on the Internet, information that included names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses for tens of thousands of Sony customers. Raynaldo also pleaded guilty to obtaining confidential information from various companies and posting it publicly. Another member of LulzSec ' Cody Andrew Kretsinger ' was given a one-year jail sentence back in April. Rivera and Kretsinger both studied at the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe

The Bitcoin Foundation has received a cease-and-desist letter from the California Department of Financial Institutions, which oversees banks, credit unions, and other financial organizations operating in the state. Jon Matonis, who is a board member at the Foundation, revealed the letter on Forbes. The agency charges Bitcoin Foundation with allegedly " engaging in the business of money transmission without a license or proper authorization ." If they found to be in violation of the California Financial Code, the foundation could be fined up to $2,500 a day per violation, in addition to criminal prosecution. Convictions under the federal statute are punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Bitcoin doesn't have any kind of central regulatory authority, and trading takes place through Mt. Gox or other exchange floors. So, California's decision to send a money transmitter warning to the Bitcoin Foundation is a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, makes no sense

US Cloud hosting providers are constantly targeted by cyber crime according the revelations of two malware researchers Mary Landesman, a senior security researcher at Cisco Systems, and Dave Monnier security expert at Team Cymru explained during the 2013 Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit. The hackers are exploiting with a meaningful increase these architecture to organize financially motivated attacks. Landesman and Monnier explained in two distinct sessions that cyber criminals are exploiting US cloud hosting providers to deploy Command and Control servers for their malicious activities despite the great effort in monitoring activities operated by hosting cloud providers. US is one of privileged countries to host malicious architecture due high availability of its infrastructures and cyber criminals know it. " You can move your command and control servers to Kazakhstan, but that's not a very good business decision," "The U.S. has re

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 confidential information, defaced websites and temporarily put some victims out of business. Authorities say their crimes affected more than 1 million people. Hammond was charged under the controversial 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the same law used to charge the late Aaron Swartz and other cyber-activists. The plea agreement could carry a sentence of as much as 10 years in prison, as well as millions of dollars in restitution payments, though Hammond's official sentence won't be handed down until September. Beyond Stratfor, Hammond took responsibility for eight other hacks, all of which involved either law enforcement, intelligence firms or defense contractor webs

Liberty Reserve , a payment processor similar to Paypal was down on Saturday after the founder of Liberty Reserve, Arthur Budovsky Belanchuk , 39, on Friday was reportedly arrested in Spain by Costa Rican authorities after his they raided suspect´s home and offices in San José and Heredia. Mr. Belanchuk, a Costa Rican citizen of Ukrainian origin, was under investigation since 2011 after authorities flagged his firm for money laundering . Investigators say that Budovsky's businesses in Costa Rica , including Liberty Reserve , were used to launder money for child pornography websites and drug trafficking. Liberty Reserve is a largely unregulated money transfer business that allows customers to open accounts using little more than a valid email address, and this relative anonymity has attracted a huge number of customers from underground economies, particularly cyber crime . It allowing users to nearly anonymously open accounts with limited documentation of identity. Dep