Cyber Threat | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The cyber war between Pakistani and Indian hackers is intensifying. A group called the Indian Cyber Army (ICA) has claimed access to scripts from more than 375 Pakistani websites, including those belonging to the government, high-level organizations, and notable individuals. Hackers from both countries are targeting significant public and private websites. Last week, a group named Pak Cyber Army (PCA) hacked approximately 300 Indian websites. The ICA has warned it could hack another 375 Pakistani websites by December 31, 2010. In response to these threats, the government has taken serious measures. A special cell under the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), known as the National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes (NR3C), has been established to monitor Pakistani websites, particularly government sites, according to Inam Ghani, Project Director NR3C. He added that the cybercrime wing of the FIA has already recovered 36 hacked websites. To prevent further attacks on public websites, a...

The computer virus Stuxnet, which some experts believe was created specifically to target Iran's nuclear facilities, could also threaten U.S. infrastructure, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official. "That virus focused on specific software implementations, and those software implementations did exist in some U.S. infrastructure," Greg Schaffer, the department's assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, told reporters at a breakfast Monday morning. "So, there was the potential for some U.S. infrastructure to be impacted at some level." Schaffer described Stuxnet as a "very tiered, complex, and sophisticated virus" that has attracted worldwide attention because it specifically targeted supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems at Siemens plants, including those in Iran. Experts have suggested that the cost and manpower required to create such a virus indicate that a government, rather than a rog...

According to a report from Sky News, the Stuxnet worm has already been traded on the black market. The report does not specify whether this refers to the source code or binary samples. British security specialists now fear that terrorists could use the worm to attack critical infrastructure. The report quotes an IT security consultant to the UK government as saying, "You could shut down power stations, you could shut down the transport network across the United Kingdom." There is hard evidence that Stuxnet is in the hands of highly motivated, well-trained, and well-financed criminals. Sky News' source declined to provide more precise information. Audun Lødemel, VP of Marketing and Business Development at German IT service provider Norman, believes that "It was just a matter of time before the Stuxnet code was made available for anyone, with even the most basic knowledge of coding, to alter and potentially wreak havoc on the UK infrastructure. This is serious stuff,...