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Did you ever try extracting any information from any website? Well, if you have then you have surely enacted web scraping functions without even knowing it! To put in simpler terms, Web scraping, or also known as web data extraction, is the process of recouping or sweeping data from web-pages. It is a much faster and easier process of retrieving data without undergoing the time-consuming hassle of manual data extraction methods. Web scraping uses advanced automatic tools to reclaim data from millions and billions of websites. The Basics of Web Scraping First, some common terms you'll need to know: The Crawler: The web crawler or popularly known as a 'spider,' is an automated website scraping tool that skims through the internet for information. The spider usually surfs the internet and follows links, and explores various web pages to gather or "scrape" up any information. The Scraper: A scraper or web scraper is a comprehensive website scraper ...

Immediately after revealing criminal charges against 5 Chinese and 2 Malaysian hackers , the United States government yesterday also made two separate announcements charging two Iranian and two Russian hackers and added them to the FBI's most-wanted list. The two Russian nationals—Danil Potekhin and Dmitrii Karasavidi—are accused of stealing $16.8 million worth of cryptocurrencies in a series of phishing attacks throughout 2017 and 2018. "This tactic used a combination of phishing and spoofing to exploit Internet users' trust in known companies and organizations to fraudulently obtain their login credentials, including email addresses, password information, and other personal information," the DoJ said . In addition to the criminal charges, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has also sanctioned both Russian hackers , freezing all their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and banning them from doing business with Americans. "Karasavidi laundered the proceeds ...

The United States government today announced charges against 5 alleged members of a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group and 2 Malaysian hackers that are responsible for hacking more than 100 companies throughout the world. Named as APT41 and also known as 'Barium,' 'Winnti, 'Wicked Panda,' and 'Wicked Spider,' the cyber-espionage group has been operating since at least 2012 and is not just involved in strategic intelligence collection from valuable targets in many sectors, but also behind financially motivated attacks against online gaming industry. According to a press release published by the U.S. Justice Department, two of the five Chinese hackers—Zhang Haoran (张浩然) and Tan Dailin (谭戴林)—were charged back in August 2019, and the other three of them—Jiang Lizhi (蒋立志), Qian Chuan (钱川) and Fu Qiang (付强)—and two Malaysian co-conspirators were in separate indictments in August 2020. The later indicted three Chinese hackers are associated with a netw...

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday indicted two hackers for their alleged involvement in defacing several websites in the country following the assassination of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani earlier this January. Behzad Mohammadzadeh (aka Mrb3hz4d), 19, and Marwan Abusrour (aka Mrwn007), 25, have been charged with conspiracy to commit intentional damage to a protected computer for a widespread "cyber-assault" that affected over 1,400 websites with pro-Iranian and pro-Palestinian messages. "The hackers victimized innocent third parties in a campaign to retaliate for the military action that killed Soleimani, a man behind countless acts of terror against Americans and others that the Iranian regime opposed," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers in a statement. The defendants, from Iran and Palestine, respectively, are now wanted by the US authorities and are no longer free to travel outside their countries wi...

Most cybersecurity professionals fully anticipated that cybercriminals would leverage the fear and confusion surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic in their cyberattacks. Of course, malicious emails would contain subjects relating to Covid-19, and malicious downloads would be Covid-19 related. This is how cybercriminals operate. Any opportunity to maximize effectiveness, no matter how contemptible, is taken. While many have anecdotally suggested ways in which Covid-19 related cyberattacks would unfold, we have little data supporting the actual impact of Covid-19 on cybersecurity. Several have reported that the number of malicious emails with the subject related to Covid-19 has grown several hundred percent and that the majority of Covid-19 related emails are now malicious. Beyond the anticipated increase in Covid-19 related malicious emails, videos, and an array of downloadable files, which we all anticipated, what else is going on behind the scenes? Interestingly, cybersecurity ...