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Since 2010, foreign state sponsored organizations have repeatedly compromised an unencrypted database maintained by the Veterans Affairs Department that contains personally identifiable information on roughly 26 million veterans. Including at least eight foreign-sponsored organizations, mostly connected to the Chinese military had successfully compromised VA networks and data.  Other than this, possibly Russia were identified as likely culprits in the attempts to steal VA data. Details regarding exactly what information has been compromised are sparse, but unencrypted data included names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of veterans that could be used to commit credit and identity fraud. Lack of basic security controls, such as encryption of data, make VA an easy target. The 2006 breach was caused by the theft of a VA employee's laptop, which contained personal information on about 26 million veterans and military personnel. From another report,...

Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday has ordered the Google to hand over customer details to FBI without a warrant. FBI counter terrorism agents began issuing the secret letters, which don't require a judge's approval, after Congress passed the Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The letters are used to collect unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information, such as financial and phone records and have prompted complaints of government privacy violations in the name of national security. Google had previously refused to give the agency access to personal data such as the search history of its users, claiming such demands were illegal without a warrant. Electronic Frontier Foundation has challenged the letters in court, said: " We are disappointed that the same judge who declared these letters unconstitutional is now requiring compliance with them ." The decision came...

A Russian hacker who goes by the handle " Barabus " on the GameDev.ru forums illegally crack Xbox Live Arcade game The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile , developed by Ska Studios and port it on PC. He claimed that he was justified in illegal cracking: " This is not piracy, this is restoration of justice. The authors are not very nice to publish the game exclusively for the Xbox 360, making it impossible for PC gamers to play in such a great game ."  The port is currently in beta and has no permissions from Ska Studios to even exist. But this isn't a problem, according to the developer, as they say they're not stealing anything from Ska Studios. In the same forum post, the game's creator Ska Studios founder James Silva said: " I guess you could say my reaction is mixed. I'm flattered that there's this much interest in Vampire Smile on PC. I'm not mad about the crack itself, in fact, I'm actually pretty impressed. But I'm bewildered by the cracker's attempt to jus...

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Recently Twitter has rolled out Vine app for Android, A new way to share video on twitter. The free app, which enables people to record and share clips of up to six seconds with other Vine users as well as on Twitter and Facebook. But on the very next day, Twitter's video-sharing application Vine was hacked by 16-year-old Will Smidlein , who uploaded the three-and-a-half minute video of Rick Astley's song " Never Gonna Give You Up ." This video violated Vine's usual code that only six second videos are posted. " I think I broke Vine ," Will Smidlein tweeted Monday night , where he described himself as a Web developer. What he did exactly? Smidlein decompile the app's code into a readable format, then modify few parts of the program that actually validate user to upload only 6 sec video. " Sorry, Twitter/Vine engineers, " he wrote. " I tried to keep it quiet, but the internet never forgets." ,  it could potentially embarrass a few of...

Syrian Electronic army appears to be taking part in ongoing operation against Turkey government website. Hackers collectively called Anonymous and SEA breached into Turkish Ministry of Interior website and the private information of staffers in PM Tayyip Erdogan's office. Hackers claimed that they gained access to staff email addresses, passwords and phone numbers. As exposed on internet, database include emails and plain text passwords of 90 users. In addition , Hackers also managed to take down the Turkey's Prime Minister (basbakanlik.gov.tr) website. Many other sites belongs to Turkish govt was defaced last night by various hackers around the world including the country's ruling party as operation #OpTurkey. The team also defaced the  dosya.icisleri.gov.tr/Dosyalar/  and placed their logo on site. " Rise against the injustice of Erdogan's Tyranny. Rise against the policies of hypocrisy perpetrated by the Erdogan Regime ." The defacement message read...