#1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Platform Followed by 4.50+ million
The Hacker News Logo
Get the Free Newsletter
SaaS Security

Cyber Criminal | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

FBI Has Named Hacker allegedly responsible for The Fappening Leaks

FBI Has Named Hacker allegedly responsible for The Fappening Leaks

Jan 18, 2016
Remember The Fappening incident? Took place in mid-2014, in the incident, anonymous hackers flooded the Internet with private photographs of major celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence , Kim Kardashian , Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst. The Fappening was the result of the hack of thousands of Apple's iCloud accounts, including those belonging to Hollywood actresses, models and major celebrities. Main Culprit Behind The Fappening However, now two years later, new court documents reveal the name of the FBI's top suspected hacker: Ed Majerczyk . In October of 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the home of Ed Majerczyk, a Chicago man believed to be the chief culprit behind a series of 2014 leaked celebrity photos that came to be known as ' The Fappening ' or ' Celebgate '. The man allegedly suspected of illegally accessing iCloud accounts from his home in Chicago. Also, the FBI found some sexual photographs lifted from
26-Year-Old Hacker Sentenced to Record 334 Years in Prison

26-Year-Old Hacker Sentenced to Record 334 Years in Prison

Jan 11, 2016
A 26-year-old hacker has been sentenced to 334 years in prison for identity theft as well as mass bank fraud in Turkey, or in simple words, he has been sentenced to life in prison . Named Onur Kopçak , the hacker was arrested in 2013 for operating a phishing website that impersonated bank site, tricking victims into providing their bank details including credit card information. Kopçak's website was part of a big credit card fraud scheme in which he and other 11 operators were making use of the illegally obtained bank account details to carry out fraudulent operations. During his arrest in 2013, Turkish law authorities charged Kopçak with: Identity fraud Website forgery Access device fraud Wire fraud... ...and sentenced him to 199 years 7 months and 10 days in prison, following complaints from 43 bank customers. However, during the investigation, 11 other bank customers also filed complaints about their payment card fraud, thus triggering a new trial
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
Another ISIS Hacker Killed by U.S Drone Strike in Syria

Another ISIS Hacker Killed by U.S Drone Strike in Syria

Jan 04, 2016
A British-educated businessman who later joined Islamic State (ISIS) militant group in Syria has been killed in a US drone strike. Siful Haque Sujan , a Bangladesh-born man, was killed on 10 December 2015 by a US drone strike near Raqqa, Syria. Sujan has been described as one of the ISIS's top computer hackers who also coordinated anti-surveillance technology and weapons development by a senior United States Army official. A statement issued by Army Col. Steve Warren , a spokesman from Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, via CENTCOM (United States Central Command) reads : "Sujan was an external operations planner and a United Kingdom-educated computer systems engineer. Sujan supported ISIS hacking efforts, anti-surveillance technology and weapons development. Now that he is dead, ISIL has lost a key link between networks." The 31-year-old man not just suspected of running a global money-laundering ring for ISIS from his former base i
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
FBI Director Asks Tech Companies to At least Don't Offer End-to-End Encryption

FBI Director Asks Tech Companies to At least Don't Offer End-to-End Encryption

Dec 10, 2015
FBI declared War against Encryption. Encryption is defeating government intelligence agencies to detect terrorist activities and after the recent ISIS-linked terror attacks in Paris and California, the issue has once again become a political target in Washington. ...and meanwhile, Kazakhstan plans to make it Mandatory for its Citizens to Install Internet Backdoor , allowing the government to intercept users' traffic to any secure website and access everything from web browsing history to usernames and passwords. FBI: For God's Sake, Don't Use End-to-End Encryption At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, FBI's Director James Comey called for tech companies currently providing users with end-to-end encryption to reconsider "their business model" and simply stop doing that, reported The Intercept . Yes, instead of asking companies for a " backdoor " this time, Comey suggested them to adopt encryption techniques that help federal agencie
China — OPM Hack was not State-Sponsored; Blames Chinese Criminal Gangs

China — OPM Hack was not State-Sponsored; Blames Chinese Criminal Gangs

Dec 03, 2015
In the most surprising manner, the Chinese government said it arrested criminal hackers behind the massive cyber attack on US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) earlier this year, dismissing its involvement. Three months back, we reported that China arrested a handful of hackers within its borders who were suspected of allegedly stealing commercial secrets from US companies. The arrests took place shortly before China President Xi Jinping visited the United States in September 2015 when both heads of states agreed that neither side will participate in commercial espionage against one another. China: Cyber Criminals Hacked OPM, Not Government Spies Now, those suspected hackers have turned out to be the ones in connection with the OPM hack that resulted in the theft of personal details of more than 21 Million United States federal employees, including 5.6 Million federal employees' fingerprints . Citing an " investigation ", the Chinese governme
Mr. Grey Hacker (Wanted by FBI) Steals 1.2 BILLION Login Passwords

Mr. Grey Hacker (Wanted by FBI) Steals 1.2 BILLION Login Passwords

Nov 26, 2015
That's a lot of Login credentials fetch by a single hacker. The FBI believes a single hacker who goes by the moniker Mr.Grey has stolen login credentials for over 1.2 Billion online accounts – apparently the biggest heist of log-in credentials the FBI has investigated thus far. Yeah, that's not Fifty, but 1.2 Billion Shades of Grey . The information came from the court documents the federal agents submitted to support its search warrant request in 2014, Reuters reported . The cyber security firm ' Hold Security ' initially reported the theft of the credentials last year. It found out that Russian hacking group CyberVor has stolen 1.2 Billion login details and an additional 500 Million email accounts. Botnet Breach These data were said to have been harvested from over 420,000 websites via botnets looking for SQL injection flaws ; the same technique recently used to hack TalkTalk . Botnets are usually employed to attack an individual targ
Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm, aka Anakata, Released from Prison

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm, aka Anakata, Released from Prison

Sep 29, 2015
Gottfrid Svartholm Warg , the co-founder of the notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay , has been released from a Sweden prison following three years behind bars for hacking and copyright offenses. Yes, Svartholm Warg, also known as Anakata , is a free man again. Svartholm was convicted on both Swedish copyright offences and Danish hacking conspiracy connected to The Pirate Bay. The news comes just a few months after the third and last founder of Pirate Bay Fredrik Neij (also known as  TiAMO ) was released from a Swedish prison after serving his 10-month prison sentence. Svartholm has not yet made any public statements following his release from a Swedish prison on Saturday. His release was reported by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter . However, the release was confirmed by Warg's mother Kristina Svartholm on Twitter . "Yes, #anakata is free now. No more need to call for #freeanakata. Thank you everyone for your important support during thes
These Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Prove 'No One is Immune to Hacking' — Part II

These Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Prove 'No One is Immune to Hacking' — Part II

Sep 08, 2015
In Part I of this  two-part series from The Hacker News , the First Four list of Top Brutal Cyber Attacks shows that whoever you are, Security can never be perfect. As attackers employ innovative hacking techniques and zero-day exploits, the demand for increased threat protection grows. In this article, I have listed another three cyber attacks, as following: #5 Car Hacking Driving a car is a network's game now! ' Everything is hackable ,' but is your car also vulnerable to Hackers ? General Motors' OnStar application and cars like Jeep Cherokee, Cadillac Escalade, Toyota Prius, Dodge Viper, Audi A8 and many more come equipped with more advanced technology features. These cars are now part of the technology very well known as the " Internet of Things ". Recently two Security researchers, Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller demonstrated that Jeep Cherokee could be hacked wirelessly over the internet to hijack its steering, brakes, and transmi
These Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Prove 'No One is Immune to Hacking' — Part I

These Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Prove 'No One is Immune to Hacking' — Part I

Sep 08, 2015
If you believe that your organization is not at real risk of cyber attack, then you are absolutely wrong. Incidents of massive data breaches, advanced cyber attacks coming from China , groups like Syrian Electronic Army , Hacking Point of Sale machines at retailers such as Target have splashed across the news in the last one year. Whether a Government Agency or Private Company, Small or a Large Tech Company.... ...It's no secret that No one is Immune to Cyber Attacks . This article is the first in a two-part series from The Hacker News , listing first four out of  Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks. And here we go... #1 "Hacking Team" Data Breach Hacking Team , the controversial spyware company, recently been hacked by some unidentified hackers that exposed over 400 gigabytes of its internal sensitive data on the Internet. Milan (Italy) based IT firm 'Hacking Team' sells intrusion and surveillance software solutions to Governments and Law Enforcement agen
Hacking Team: We're Victim of a Criminal Cyber Attack

Hacking Team: We're Victim of a Criminal Cyber Attack

Jul 22, 2015
Hacking Team , the Italy-based spyware company that sells spying software to law enforcement agencies worldwide, says the company has always operated with the law and regulation in an ethical manner. However, there was only one Violation of Law in this entire event, and that is – " the massive cyber attack on the Hacking Team. " company stated. The recent hack on Hacking Team exposed nearly 500GB of massive internal documents including internal emails, hacking tools, zero-day exploits , surveillance tools, source code for Spyware and a spreadsheet listing every government client with date of purchase and amount paid. Hacking Team Hack and Media Reports: The attack on Hacking Team was really huge in every sense. The team finally shows its disappointment with media on its hacking incident saying, the company that helps government fight crimes is being treated as the culprits, and the criminals who attacked the company are not. " Had a media company
These Are The FBI's Most Wanted Hackers — Total $4.2 Million Reward

These Are The FBI's Most Wanted Hackers — Total $4.2 Million Reward

Jul 01, 2015
The US State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are willing to pay a total $4.2 Million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of top 5 most wanted cyber criminals accused of conducting frauds of hundreds of millions of dollars. Evgeniy Bogachev,30; Nicolae Popescu, 34; Alexsey Belan, 28; Peteris Sahurovs, 26; and Shailesh Kumar Jain, 45; are in the list of FBI's Top 5 most-wanted hackers. 1. Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev | Reward - $3 MILLION Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev , also known under the aliases "lucky12345," "Slavik," and "Pollingsoon," is the mastermind behind the GameOver Zeus botnet , which was allegedly used by criminals to infect more than 1 Million computers, resulting in up to $100 Million in losses since 2009. Besides GameOver Zeus botnet, Bogachev is also accused of developing CryptoLocker Ransomware , which was designed to extort money from computer victims by holding their system
Europol Arrests Gang Behind Zeus And SpyEye Banking Malware

Europol Arrests Gang Behind Zeus And SpyEye Banking Malware

Jun 27, 2015
The Law enforcement agencies from six different European countries have taken down a major Ukrainian-based cyber criminals gang suspected of developing, distributing and deploying Zeus and SpyEye banking malware . According to the report on the official website of Europol, authorities have arrested five suspects between June 18 and 19. All the five suspects are the members of an alleged gang that has been accused of infecting tens of thousands of computers worldwide with malware and banking Trojans. The alleged cybercriminal group distributed and used Zeus and SpyEye malware to steal money from several major banks in Europe and outside. The gang constantly modified its malware Trojans to defeat the security protocols of banks and used " mule networks " to launder money. "On the underground digital forums, they actively traded stolen credentials, compromised bank account information and malware," Europol said in a statement on Thursday, "
Silk Road Mastermind Ross Ulbricht Sentenced To Life In Prison

Silk Road Mastermind Ross Ulbricht Sentenced To Life In Prison

May 30, 2015
Ross Ulbricht , the alleged founder and mastermind of the infamous online black marketplace Silk Road, has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of narcotics conspiracy, money laundering and other criminal charges. This means the 31-year-old San Francisco man will die behind bars . With all the seven charges stemming from the creation and operation of the once the Internet's largest online illegal-drug marketplace, Ulbricht was facing 20 years at a minimum sentence, but making life in prison is the harshest possible sentence. Ulbricht's Life in Prison without any possibility of Parole: The sentence was made by Judge Katherine B. Forrest in a Federal District Court in Manhattan, though Forrest admitted it was a "very, very difficult" call to make , leaving Ulbricht without any hope of parole. Operating online as " Dread Pirate Roberts ," Ulbricht ran the $1.2 billion Empire from the year 2011 to 2013, armed just
Got a Smartphone with Android 4.3 or earlier? No WebView Vulnerability Patch for You

Got a Smartphone with Android 4.3 or earlier? No WebView Vulnerability Patch for You

Jan 14, 2015
Owning a smartphone running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean or an earlier versions of Android operating system ?? Then you are at a great risk, and may be this will never end. Yes, you heard right. If you are also one of millions of users still running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean or earlier versions of the operating system, you will not get any security updates for WebView as Google has decided to end support for older versions of Android WebView – a default web browser on Android devices. WebView is the core component used to render web pages on an Android device, but it was replaced on Android 4.4 KitKat with a more recent Chromium-based version of WebView that is also used in the Chrome web browser. Just a day after Google publicized a bug in Windows 8.1 before Microsoft could do anything about it, Tod Beardsley, a security analyst from Rapid7 who oversees the Metasploit project, discovered a serious bug in the WebView component of Android 4.3 and earlier that possibly left m
FBI Seize Silk Road 2.0 Servers; Admin Arrested

FBI Seize Silk Road 2.0 Servers; Admin Arrested

Nov 07, 2014
The authorities of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation have announced that they have arrested " Silk Road 2.0 " operator Blake Benthall , used the alias " Defcon " in California on Wednesday and charged him with conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering and other crimes. Silk Road 2, an alternative to the notorious online illegal-drug marketplace that went dark in October of 2013, has been seized in a joint action involving the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and European law enforcement. " As alleged, Blake Benthall attempted to resurrect Silk Road, a secret website that law enforcement seized last year, by running Silk Road 2.0, a nearly identical criminal enterprise, " Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement . " Let's be clear—this Silk Road, in whatever form, is the road to prison. Those looking to follow in the footsteps of alleged cybercriminals should understand that we will r
Malicious Google DoubleClick Advertisements Distributed Malware to Millions of Computers

Malicious Google DoubleClick Advertisements Distributed Malware to Millions of Computers

Sep 21, 2014
Cyber criminals have exploited the power of two online advertising networks, Google's DoubleClick and popular Zedo advertising agency , to deliver malicious advertisements to millions of internet users that could install malware on a user's computer. A recent report published by the researcher of the security vendor Malwarebytes suggests that the cyber criminals are exploiting a number of websites, including The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post and the Last.fm music streaming website, to serve malicious advertisements designed to spread the recently identified Zemot malware . Malvertising is not any new tactic used by cybercriminals, but Jerome Segura, a senior security researcher with Malwarebytes, wrote in a blog post that his company " rarely see attacks on a large scale like this. " "It was active but not too visible for a number of weeks until we started seeing popular sites getting flagged in our honeypots," Segura wrote. "That's
Harkonnen Operation — Malware Campaign that Went Undetected for 12 Years

Harkonnen Operation — Malware Campaign that Went Undetected for 12 Years

Sep 16, 2014
A huge data-stealing cyber espionage campaign that targeted Banks, Corporations and Governments in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria for 12 years, has finally come for probably the longest-lived online malware operation in history. The campaign is dubbed as ' Harkonnen Operation ' and involved more than 800 registered front companies in the UK — all using the same IP address – that helped intruder installs malware on victims' servers and network equipments from different organizations, mainly banks, large corporations and government agencies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In total, the cyber criminals made approximately 300 corporations and organisations victims of this well-organised and executed cyber-espionage campaign . CyberTinel , an Israel-based developer of a signature-less endpoint security platform, uncovered this international cyber-espionage campaign hitting Government institutions, Research Laboratories and critical infrastructure facilit
Cybersecurity Resources