Anonymous Strikes Back!

Posted on January 21, 2012 by computeradvisor

Famous Anonymous hacking group strikes a retaliatory attack on different government websites as a revenge after top sharing website Megaupload was shut down by the Feds.

DoJ and other government websites are universally nuked as reported by DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com. Anonymous hacking group boasted their success in twitter. Other websites that have been inflicted are FBI, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), among others.

In reports said “Megaupload was taken down w/out SOPA being law. Now imagine what will happen if it passes. The Internet as we know it will end. FIGHT BACK,” referencing to the ongoing battle in Congress over the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Mozilla, Wikepedia, Facebook, Twitter, Google and other biggest websites in the US are againsts SOPA.

In a statement releaseb by Mozilla

“The fact is that this legislation as written won’t stop piracy. But it would pose a serious threat to social media and user generated content sites (like YouTube) across the internet. It could also undermine some of the core technical systems underlying the internet, creating new cybersecurity risks.

“As a non-profit committed to keeping the web open and accessible to all, Mozilla wants to ensure that this legislation does not jeopardize the foundational structure of the Internet.”

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600,000 Facebook Accounts Compromised

Posted on October 30, 2011 by computeradvisor

In a blog entry on Thursday, Facebook stated that about 600,000 log-ins every day are compromised.

The factoid, first noted by security site Sophos, was in the context of an entry introducing new security features for the social network. The figure was extrapolated by a stat showing 0.06% of 1 billion logins per day are compromised. Less than 0.5% of Facebook users experience spam on any given day.

Facebook’s proposed solution for such breaches is to find three to five “trusted friends”. That way, if you’re locked out of your account, Facebook will send codes to your friends to give to you. Facebook is also testing app passwords that the company will generate on your behalf and you won’t need to remember.

source: Mashable.com

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Microsoft YouTube Channel Hacked

Posted on October 24, 2011 by computeradvisor

Microsoft’s official YouTube channel have been hacked and all the uploaded videos of the company have been removed. The hacker replaced the videos with solicitations for sponsorships, apparently expecting an influx of traffic as the news becomes viral.

The background on the channel has been replaced and all of the company’s archived videos, including those for its newly launched advertising campaign, have been removed.

A message on the channel reads, “I DID NOTHING WRONG I SIMPLY SIGNED INTO MY ACCOUNT THAT I MADE IN 2006 :/”

Microsoft Youtube Channel Hack

In a latest statement by Microsoft Corporation says “We are aware that someone has altered the YouTube channel devoted to Microsoft videos. We are working with YouTube to rectify the situation.”
[news source: GeekWire.com]

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Anonymous Declares Sept 24 “Day Of Vengence”

Posted on September 23, 2011 by computeradvisor

Hacktivist group Anonymous have been busy bees this year, and they’re not planning to cool down any time soon. Earlier this morning, Anonymous (or some 12-year old kid labeling himself Anonymous, who knows) issued a press release announcing that the collective and “other cyber liberation groups” will “peacefully yet forcefully” protest all over the United States.

Anonymous announced that a nationwide “Day Of Vengence” will take place in dozens of cities across the USA on September 24, 2011 at high noon. See horribly designed poster above.

In conjunction with the protests, the statement says, a “series of cyber attacks against various targets including Wall Street, Corrupt Banking Institutions – and the NYC Police Department” will be launched.

The group suggests following Twitter account @PLF2012, which it says will publish “ongoing reports” throughout the day.

Read the rest of the story at TECHCRUNCH.

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DNS Attacks on Symantec, Microsoft, Apple Claimed By Anonymous

Posted on September 16, 2011 by computeradvisor

The Sri Lankan branch of Anonymous claims to have hacked into the DNS servers of Symantec, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and several other large organizations over the past few days.

Posting the news and records of its exploits on Pastebin, the group is taking credit for launching “DNS Cache Snoop Poisoning” attacks against its victims.

DNS cache snooping is the process whereby hackers can query a DNS server to find out which domain names are being resolved into IP addresses.

DNS cache poisoning is a method through which hackers are able to insert malicious and fake records into the cache of DNS servers. As a result, the hackers can then spoof a response to a DNS query, forcing users to go to a phony Web site instead of the real one.

Since DNS, or domain name system, servers maintain the records that assign domain names to IP addresses, attacks against them are especially alarming since they can compromise part of the very foundation of the Internet.

The information posted on Pastebin by Anonymous Sri Lanka shows that the group was able to scan and in some cases expose the DNS information of the companies it targeted, according to Cyber War News. But there’s no indication that the hackers were able to modify any of the DNS records that they touched.

In the record of its DNS attack against Symantec, Anonymous Sri Lanka boasts that it breached the “world’s second-largest software (antivirus) leader/giant” and says that it captured almost the entire DNS pool, including the company’s corporate customers, production servers, and testbeds. The group touted the same DNS Cache Snoop Poisoning attacks against Facebook, Skype, Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, and Novell.

Beyond its attacks against several major tech companies, Anonymous Sri Lanka has also claimed DNS hacks against several groups and agencies in Sri Lanka, including the nation’s Parliament, military, and largest telecom provider.

The group tried to justify its actions in some of its comments.

Lashing out at Facebook, Anonymous Sri Lanka said that the way the social network controls and treats its members is not acceptable under any circumstances. Explaining its attack against Skype, the group claimed that the online video service is “eavesdropping the entire VoIP traffic at several nodes for sure.”

The attacks appear to have started on August 22 against the Sri Lankan telecom provider and continued on into yesterday with the attack against Skype.

Read the rest of the story at CNET

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