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Let's forget the political mumbo jumbo and posturing going on between countries about the release of Julian Assange. It is time to approach this in a "Sho-Gun" switch-a-roo style and get this over with. If not, we are going to be reading endless editorials and opinions about who is doing what, and what is doing who. Ugggh. With the help of the Ecuadorian Administration and some well planned orchestration with the group Anonymous, we can do this. Let's let the Guy Fawkes mask slide us into victory with my new handy dandy plan that is sure to get the by now, haggard and worried Assange, into Ecuadorian freedom and fame. It is simple really. We need a call to arms, a ready army of Anons that can be recruited at a moments notice to storm the embassy. Just stop for a minute and picture it. Hundreds, no thousands, of masked Anons, wearing black, storming the embassy at night and throwing a wig on Assange and, of course, a mask (I am sure he has one) and moving him out into the crowd...

Many malware and viruses can be identified by detection software because of known bits of malicious code. But what if there was a virus compiled from little bits of programs you already had installed? That's just what two security researchers are looking into. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus is a classic story in which a doctor creates life through technology in the form of a creature assembled from the parts of dead men. While this biological idea exists only in fiction, researchers have recently used it to craft a very ingenious piece of malware. Vishwath Mohan and Kevin Hamlen at the University of Texas at Dallas are interested in how malware disguises itself in order to propagate more widely. In Windows Explorer alone, Frankenstein found nearly 90,000 gadgets in just over 40 seconds, which means that malware created by the system would have a huge number of possible variations, work quickly, and be very difficult to detect. Frankenstein follows pre-written blueprints ...

Turkish hackers recently hacked the Web site of soccer team FC Spartak Moscow after the Russian team's fans burned Turkish flags and pictures of Atatürk during a Champions League playoff match against Turkish team Fenerbahce on August 21. A portrait of Atatürk next to a Turkish flag was also posted on the website. The group replaced the website's original content with a statement that called on the team to "immediately apologize." " You will immediately apologize to the Turkish Republic and the Turkish people. No crime goes without punishment, and FIFA may forgive you, but we won't ," The Spartak site was running again by Thursday afternoon after the club used its Twitter account to blame the incident on 'Turkish hackers. Spartak Moscow fans burned flags and posters of modern Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, during their team's 2-1 victory over the Istanbul giants in the first leg of their Champions League playoff.

NetWeirdRC is a commercial backdoor tool targeting Mac OS X 10.6 and later, as well as Windows, Linux and Solaris, according to Intego . The product is sold for US$60 in the malware world, relatively cheap in comparison to the OSX/Crisis malware that was being sold for €200,000 ($240,000). It's a commercial remote access tool, that after installation, calls home to the IP address 212.7.208.65 on port 4141 and awaits instructions. Then it carries out functions including installing files, gathering system information, stealing browser passwords and grabbing screen shots. In addition, it said, the malware can " harvest stored and encrypted usernames and passwords from Opera, Firefox, SeaMonkey, and Thunderbird browsers and mail clients ." It's able to infect Apple OS X (versions 10.6 and newer), Linux, Solaris, and Windows systems.

Note : This Article Cross posted from our Magazine's 13th Issue - August 2012 called "BOTNET | The Hacker News Magazine", Written by Ann Smith (Executive Editor, The Hacker News Magazine). You can Download full magazine free here . Shame on me.  When someone mentioned Lulzsec I would slightly bristle and turn a mighty heel towards the "real" movement.  You know, the Anons that are taking down corruption and terror, targeting the real enemies of the world.  If you were doing it for the LULZ of it, well, you were playing in the proverbial sand box and I thought you were hindering, instead of helping.  I even wrote an editorial spanking them for releasing the emails of servicemen who had signed up for a porn site.   Then, I read the book, WE ARE ANONYMOUS by Parmy Olson. Every person who considers themselves Anonymous or who  sympathizes and rallies for the cause, must read this book.  You will not only get a good education from this history ...

Today was the day that Hector Xavier Monsegur, a.k.a. Sabu, Xavier DeLeon, and Leon, was supposed to be sentenced for the 12 counts of computer hacking conspiracies and other crimes he pleaded guilty to, including the infamous hacks of HBGary Federal, HBGary, Sony, Fox, and PBS, but he has had his sentencing delayed, perhaps as a reward for assisting the US police with their enquiries and investigations. Monsegur allegedly rooted out the vulnerabilities used in the hacks conducted by LulzSec, which went on a high-profile tear in 2011 that exposed emails, documents, and other information of its victim organizations. Sabu is the hacker nom de plume of 28-year-old New Yorker Hector Monsegur, an unemployed father of two who allegedly commanded a loosely organized, international team of perhaps thousands of hackers from his nerve center in a public housing project on New York's Lower East Side. According to the FBI, he could face a maximum sentence of 124 years and six months for 12 offe...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued an alert warning that hackers could exploit code in Siemens-owned technology to attack power plants and other national critical infrastructure. Justin W. Clarke, an expert in securing industrial control systems, disclosed at a conference in Los Angeles on Friday that he had figured out a way to spy on traffic moving through networking equipment manufactured by Siemens' RuggedCom division. RuggedCom, a Canadian subsidiary of Siemens that sells networking equipment for use in harsh environments such as areas with extreme weather, said it was investigating Clarke's findings, but declined to elaborate. Clarke said that the discovery of the flaw is disturbing because hackers who can spy on communications of infrastructure operators could gain credentials to access computer systems that control power plants and other critical systems. According to security researcher Justin W. Clarke, Rugged OS contains the same private key used...