Hackers vs. Government Archive

US government cyber-security database taken offline due to hacker attack

Posted March 22, 2013 By National Cyber Security

A federal government database that stores malicious viruses and cyber-attacks has been taken offline following the detection of a hacker attack on its servers. The database is meant to provide an early warning of Internet infiltration by new viruses.

Viewed as the Bible of virus and malware information, the National Vulnerability Database’s (NVD) website of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was taken down on March 8 following the discovery of malware on two of its servers.

Finnish security researcher Kim Halavakosk asked the NIST, via email, for an explanation as to why the database has gone offline.

NIST spokeswoman Gail Porter replied that the site was offline because “a NIST firewall detected suspicious activity and took steps to block unusual traffic from reaching the Internet,” Halavakosk said in a post to his Google+ account.

The malware that caused the shutdown took advantage of vulnerabilities in Adobe ColdFusion to infiltrate the NDV, the Register reports. Both servers were compromised for at least two months before a firewall detected them. A patch is now available from Adobe to fix the issue.

Porter elaborated on the investigation, saying, “currently there is no evidence that NVD or any other NIST public pages contained or were used to deliver malware to users of these NIST Web sites,” assuring Halavakosk that the servers would be back online as soon as possible, though she gave no specific timeframe.

The threat of hacker attacks on US industrial and government infrastructure has become a growing problem in recent months.

On Monday, White House national security adviser Tom Donilon implored Chinese officials to stop hackers within their borders from engaging in industrial espionage by breaking into American computer systems.

Washington’s reaction follows a threat assessment study by American computer security firm Mandiant, which concluded that an elite military group of Chinese hackers – the People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398 – has been engaged in ferocious cyber-espionage against the US. In the last seven years, it has allegedly hacked 141 companies across 20 major industries, including those vital to national security.

The Mandiant probe comes alongside revelations by dozens of American companies into illegal breaches of their servers. Facebook and Apple said hackers bypassed their systems while The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal hinted that Beijing had accessed their networks to keep tabs on journalists writing about China.

Source: http://rt.com/usa/us-federal-malware-database-hacked-291/

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Filipino hackers attack another Philippine government website

Posted March 22, 2013 By National Cyber Security

This handout photo shows President Benigno Aquino flanked by his cabinet members during a news conference at the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila

Filipino hackers defaced the Philippines’ government telecommunications website yesterday, accusing Philippine President Benigno Aquino III of being “pro-Malaysian” amid the Sabah armed conflict with Sulu militants, Philippine broadcaster ABS-CBN News reported.

Anonymous Philippines previously hacked the Philippine president’s official website last Tuesday, with the hacker group lambasting Aquino for doing nothing to stop the alleged human rights violations against Filipinos in Sabah.

“We do not know how you are able to relax while our Filipino brothers sacrifice their life to defend Sabah. It seems you are a Pro-Malaysian,” Anonymous Philippines was quoted by ABS-CBN News as writing on the Philippines National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) website, www.ntc.gov.ph.

“And now you are on the side of Malaysian Gov, many people knew that Sabah is part of the Philippines, We’re not encouraging the PH Gov to declare a war on Malaysia but Philippines must defend it’s (sic) sovereignty,” added the loose hacker group that pushes for internet freedom and free speech.

Philippines and Malaysia have, however, agreed that it was within Putrajaya’s rights to defend its borders after appeals for negotiations were met with stubborn refusal from the Kiram clan that is laying an ancestral claim on Sabah.

Anonymous Philippines also called the air strikesagainst Sulu militants holed-up in a Lahad Datu village last week a “provocative act”.

The NTC website was back to normal at press time.

Reports of abuse and alleged extrajudicial killings by Malaysia’s security forces hunting for Sulu invaders in Sabah have triggered Philippine’s concern of a brewing humanitarian emergency as Filipinos fled the state for fear of reprisals.

No evidence of the human rights violations reported in Philippine media has been produced to date, with Putrajaya calling the claims a “fabrication”.

The Ops Daulat operation to flush out the Sulu militants is nearing an end, but the southern Filipino militant group leader Agbimuddin Kiram has yet to be found, with the authorities saying that he was likely still holed-up in Lahad Datu.

Last Wednesday, Aquino reportedly ordered government officials to stock up on food supplies and step up humanitarian support to Filipinos including illegal emigrants seeking better jobs who have started to return to the republic by the hundreds since last week.

Philippine lawmakers are now pressuring the Aquino administration to file a formal complaint with Putrajaya as allegations of abuse of Filipinos flood the country in the wake of the Sabah armed conflict.

The Philippine senate has demanded its government to hold Malaysia accountable for possible human rights violations against the 800,000-strong Filipino migrant community in Sabah at the hands of local authorities, who are searching for a ragtag band of Sulu militants demanding ownership of the north Borneo state.

Bantilan Esmail II, a brother of Sulu “Sultan” Jamalul Kiram III, was quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer last Tuesday as saying that Malaysian authorities have allegedly been ill-treating Filipinos in Sabah long before the 200-strong Sulu incursion began last month.

A total of 67 people were reported killed in the Sulu incursion as of last Tuesday, including 56 Filipino militants, eight Malaysian policemen and two Malaysian soldiers, and an unidentified teenage boy.

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/filipino-hackers-attack-another-philippine-government-website

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Indian Hacker Causes Several Pakistani Government Sites to Become Inaccessible

Posted March 22, 2013 By National Cyber Security

Several websites of the Pakistani government have become unavailable to visitors after Indian hacker Godzilla managed to breach an important server.

According to The Hacker News, the sites of the Ministry of Minorities, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Internior, The Ministry of Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Environment, and many others have been disrupted.

In order to protect government networks, Pakistani authorities have deployed a proxy server. However, Godzilla has managed to breach a server that’s connected to 22 other local machines used for the proxy.

As a result, the Pakistani government’s IT team was forced to shut down the server, and implicitly cut access to most official websites.

The hacker accuses the government of funding terrorist activities.

Currently, most of the sites are still unavailable, except for the main web portal of the Government of Pakistan.

Update. E Hacking News reports that Godzilla has also managed to breach a website operated by the Pakistani Army.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Indian-Hacker-Causes-Several-Pakistani-Government-Sites-to-Become-Inaccessible-336159.shtml

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All Pakistani Ministry & other Pakistani government sites hacked by Indian hacker

Posted March 22, 2013 By National Cyber Security

After hacking the main Pakistani government and Army site, the Indian hacker “Godzilla” today notified EHN about another cyber attack against the Pakistani Government websites.

Yesterday, the hacker hacked the Pakistani main government website(pakistanarmy.gov.pk) by exploiting the proxy-misconfiguration vulnerability. Today he managed to hack more Pakistani website by gaining access to the Internal Networks.

“proxy was configured in such a way that the local ip 192.168.70.103 was running through that proxy” The hacker told EHN. “It is a local ip switched through the proxy”

“Pakistan Government Switches under control. Pakistan admins please dont disturb us when we are working. Your official website www.pakistan.gov.pk will be up as soon as we finish are work.” The hacker said.

“You tried to use proxy for your security and we used the same proxy to crush you.”

“IBM SERVER AND Layer 2-3 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module for IBM eServer BladeCenter and 22 local machines were used to build the proxy and secure the digital cyber space of Pakistan. which is owned badly.”

List of hacked sites:

Ministry of Information Technology of Pakistan
www.moitt.gov.pk

Ministry of Railways of Pakistan
www.railways.gov.pk

Ministry of Economic Affairs & Statistics of Pakistan
www.ead.gov.pk

Ministry of Interior of Pakistan
www.interior.gov.pk

Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination of Pakistan
www.ipc.gov.pk

Ministry of Religious Affairs Pakistan
www.mora.gov.pk

Establishment Division of Pakistan
www.establishment.gov.pk

Ministry of Housing & Works of Pakistan
www.housing.gov.pk

Ministry of Science and Technology of Pakistan
www.mosp.gov.pk

Planning Commission of Pakistan
www.planningcommission.gov.pk

Ministry of Minorites Affair of Pakistan
www.minorities.gov.pk

Local Government Division of Pakistan
www.lgrd.gov.pk

Ministry of Environment of Pakistan
www.moenv.gov.pk

*Update 1:
Pakistani Government under heavy cyber attack from hacker ‘Godzilla’
http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/03/pakistani-government-under-cyber-attack.html

*Update 2:
Indian Hacker Godzilla leaked Pakistan Government website’s Database details
http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/03/indian-hacker-godzilla-leaked-pakistan.html

Source: http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/03/all-pakistani-ministry-other-pakistani.html

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Pakistani Government under cyber attack from hacker ‘Godzilla’

Posted March 22, 2013 By National Cyber Security

It is third day since the Indian hacker “Godzilla” took control of the Proxy used by Pakistan Government websites, Pakistan temporarily lost access to their proxy network.

Today, the hacker claimed to have got access of the back up server and found the back up server is also saved in the same network.

He also found that the pakistan.gov.pk is not running but just pretending that they are up.

“One thing is true Pakistan is good at pretending like nothing happened, let it be a cyber attack or a TERRORIST attack. ” The hacker said.

We have also checked the Pakistan.gov.pk website by clicking the login button, it just redirects to an IP address(202.83.164.27/wps/portal) that was used by Pakistan government when they didn’t have proxy system.

The IP address is down now because the govt have made it down long time when they shifted to proxy network.

Hacker also said he is extracting the data from the Database. Once he finished the extracted the data, he will take down the rest of IPs .

*Update*:

Pakistan Datatbase dumped :

http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/03/indian-hacker-godzilla-leaked-pakistan.html

Source: http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/03/pakistani-government-under-cyber-attack.html

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Pakistan Government servers messed up after security breach

Posted March 22, 2013 By National Cyber Security

Today a cyber attack on Pakistan Government servers crash many Government departments’s official websites including Ministry of Information Technology, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Economic Affairs & Statistics, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Environment and many more.

Indian Hacker ‘Godzilla’ continue to strike Pakistan Government because of their support to terrorism activities. Hacker said,”all network owned including switches because they deserve it, I have not touched any innocent website because target is only Government”

While Pakistani official are already aware about the risk from the newest viruses, worms and cyber attacks, so they having their servers running through a proxy server located at http://202.83.164.6/ ,but flawed cyber security practices once again results to messed up whole setup and hacker successfully breach into centralized local server located at 192.168.70.103 b/w website hosting server & proxy server at machine.

Hacker claimed to breach this centralized IBM server with Layer 2-3 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module for IBM eServer, BladeCenter. This IBM server further connected to 22 local machines that were used to build the proxy server, that was securing the digital cyber space of Pakistan.

“They are running it through a local system 192.168.70.103 which is been shut down as we have access of the switch” he said.

Source: http://thehackernews.com/2013/03/pakistan-government-servers-messed-up.html

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Top Government Spy Agency Seeks High School Computer Hackers

Posted March 20, 2013 By National Cyber Security

Computer Hackers Meet For Annual Congress

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Bored with classes? Carnegie Mellon University and one of the government’s top spy agencies want to interest high school students in a game of computer hacking.

Their goal with “Toaster Wars” is to cultivate the nation’s next generation of cyber warriors in offensive and defensive strategies. The free, online “high school hacking competition” is scheduled to run from April 26 to May 6, and any U.S. student or team in grades six through 12 can apply and participate.

David Brumley, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, said the game is designed to be fun and challenging, but he hopes participants come to see computer security as an excellent career choice.

At a glance of its webpage, the contest seems lightweight.

“When a robot from space crash lands in your backyard, it’s up to your hacking skills to fix him and uncover the secrets he carries,” the webpage says. But, it adds, students “will learn how to identify security vulnerabilities and perform real-world attacks” on computer. And there is the small tag that reads: “Sponsorship provided by the NSA.”

National Security Agency representative Vanee Vines said the U.S. has a great need for cyber security professionals.

“America increasingly needs professionals with highly technical cyber skills to help keep the country safe today — and to help the country meet future challenges and adapt with greater agility,” Vines said in an email to The Associated Press. “When it comes to national security, there is no substitute for a dedicated, immensely talented workforce. We need the best and brightest to help us outthink and defeat our adversaries’ new ideas.”

The NSA, based in Maryland and part of the Defense Department, is responsible for code breaking, monitoring overseas communications, and protecting the U.S. from cyberattack. Last month, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said cyber attacks are “the battlefield of the future,” and security experts said massive amounts of data and corporate trade secrets, likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were being stolen from government and corporate computers.

“The government has a huge number of concerns,” Brumley said. “Computer security isn’t growing fast enough to keep up with all the threats. If you call any business, they’re going to say we can’t hire enough security people.”

Carnegie Mellon released news of the hacker contest just days after the Obama administration’s national security adviser called for China to take “serious steps” to stop cyber theft and after a top officer at the U.S. Cyber Command warned that the federal government and the private sector need to be more aggressive in building the country’s cyber defenses.

“Toaster Wars” organizers acknowledge that world-class computer hackers don’t get such skills just by going to class, but they also note that getting such know-how on one’s own carries some legal concerns.

“Computer security is a difficult field to get into,” the webpage says. “Those who are interested may find it hard to hone their skills legally.”

Brumley described the contest as a capture-the-flag-type game. Pieces of information, called flags, are encrypted or hidden somewhere difficult to find. The game includes computer forensics, cryptography, web exploitation and binary exploitation, described as “the art of bending a computer program to your will.”

Organizers say aspiring young hackers probably don’t want to sit around and protect a server from outside attacks so the contest was developed to keep their interest.

“We do both offense and defense. We think that brings an additional level of excitement,” Brumley said. “That’s how you get intuition on how to solve problems.”

Brumley said he is seeking corporate sponsors and hopes to offer a cash prize to the winners.
Source: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/03/16/top-government-spy-agency-seeks-high-school-computer-hackers/

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Filipino hackers attack another Philippine government website

Posted March 19, 2013 By National Cyber Security

Anonymous Philippines also called the air strikesagainst Sulu militants holed-up in a Lahad Datu village last week a “provocative act”.

The NTC website was back to normal at press time.

No evidence of the human rights violations reported in Philippine media has been produced to date, with Putrajaya calling the claims a “fabrication”.

Source: http://my.news.yahoo.com/filipino-hackers-attack-another-philippine-government-website-014638678.html

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Infamous Hacker Heading Chinese Antivirus Firm?

Posted December 1, 2012 By NewsRoom

Infamous Hacker Heading Chinese Antivirus Firm?

315tweetsretweet

What does a young Chinese hacker do once he’s achieved legendary status for developing Microsoft Office zero-day exploits and using them to hoover up piles of sensitive data from U.S. Defense Department contractors? Would you believe: Start an antivirus firm?

That appears to be what’s happened at Anvisoft, a Chinese antivirus startup that is being somewhat cagey about its origins and leadership. I stumbled across a discussion on the informative Malwarebytes user forum, in which forum regulars were scratching their heads over whether this was a legitimate antivirus vendor. Anvisoft had already been whitelisted by several other antivirus and security products (including Comodo), but the discussion thread on Malwarebytes about who was running this company was inconclusive, prompting me to dig deeper.

I turned to Anvisoft’s own user forum, and found that I wasn’t the only one hungry for answers. This guy asked a similar question back in April 2012, and was answered by an Anvisoft staff member named “Ivy,” who said Anvisoft was “a new company with no past records, and we located in Canada.” Follow-up questions to the Anvisoft forum admins about the names of company executives produced this response, again from Ivy:

“The person who runs anvisoft company is not worth mentioning because he is unknown to you. Yes, the company is located at Canada. 5334 Yonge Street, Suite 141, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6V1, Canada.”

A quick review of the Web site registration records for anvisoft.com indicated the company was located in Freemont, Calif. And a search on the company’s brand name turned up trademark registration records that put Anvisoft in the high-tech zone of Chengdu, a city in the Sichuan Province of China.

Urged on by these apparent inconsistencies, I decided to take a look back at the site’s original WHOIS records, using the historical WHOIS database maintained by domaintools.com. For many months, the domain’s registration records were hidden behind paid WHOIS record privacy protection services. But in late November 2011 — just prior to Anvisoft’s official launch — that WHOIS privacy veil was briefly lowered, revealing this record:

Registrant:
   wth rose
   Moor Building  ST Fremont. U.S.A
   Fremont, California 94538
   United States

Administrative Contact:
      rose, wth  wthrose@gmail.com
      Moor Building  ST Fremont. U.S.A
      Fremont, California 94538
      United States
      (510) 783-9288

A few days later, the “wth rose” registrant name was replaced with “Anvisoft Technology,” and the wthrose@gmail.com address usurped by “anvisoftceo@gmail.com” (emails to both addresses went unanswered). But this only made me more curious, so I had a look at the Web server where anvisoft.com is hosted.

The current Internet address of anvisoft.com is 184.173.181.194, and a reverse DNS lookup on this IP address tells me that there are at least three other domain names hosted at this address: nxee.com, oyeah.com, and coversite.com. The latter forwards to a domain parking service and its WHOIS information is shielded.

But both oyeah.com and nxee.com also were originally registered to wth rose and wthrose@gmail.com. And their WHOIS records history went back even further, revealing a more fascinating detail: Prior to being updated with Anvisoft’s corporate information, they also were registered to a user named “tandailin” in Gaoxingu, China, with the email address tandailin@163.com.

Image: iDefense

When I saw that record, I was instantly reminded of an infamous Chinese hacker who went by the name Wicked Rose (a.k.a. “Withered Rose“). In 2007, Verisign’s iDefense released a report (PDF) on Rose’s hacking exploits, which detailed his alleged role as the leader of a state-sponsored, four-man hacking team called NCPH (short for Network Crack Program Hacker). According to iDefense, in 2006 the group was responsible for crafting a rootkit that took advantage of a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Word, and was used in attacks on “a large DoD entity” within the USA.

“Wicked Rose and the NCPH hacking group are implicated in multiple Office based attacks over a two year period,” the report stated.

iDefense analysts also include a section with pictures of Wicked Rose, explaining that Rose’s real name is Tan Dailin, and that he is a now-28-year-old who cut his teeth at the Sichuan University of Science and Engineering in Zigong, a city in the Sichuan Province of China.

The report said that at the time, Rose administered his hacking team’s Web site at ncph.net, and ran his own personal blog at mghacker.com. According to historic WHOIS records, the email address used to register mghacker.com was tandailin@163.com, the same email address in the historic WHOIS records for Anvisoft’s online properties.

Some more tantalizing clues: According to iDefense, one of Dailin’s buddies in NCPH — a hacker nicknamed “Rodag” — also ran his own blog. Rodag appears to still be blogging there, so I had Google Translate show me his latest postings: Turns out, earlier this year Rodag urged readers to download and install Anvisoft Smart Defender, calling it a “security aid from abroad” that offers “superior performance” and is “very simple and beautiful.”

Until recently, another site registered to tandailin@163.com — the now-defunct ww4g.com — featured on its home page a long review of Anvisoft, explaining to readers “why you need a good antivirus.”

This may all be a strange coincidence or hoax. Anvisoft may in fact be a legitimate company, with a legitimate product; and for all I know, it is. But until it starts to answer some basic questions about who’s running the company, this firm is going to have a tough time gaining any kind of credibility or market share.

Source: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/11/infamous-hacker-heading-chinese-antivirus-firm/
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A history of hacking: Documentary captures essence of Def Con

Posted November 26, 2012 By NewsRoom

A history of hacking: Documentary captures essence of Def Con

November 13, 2012 8:00 AM

Meghan Kelly

1 Comment

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Def Con recently celebrated its 20th birthday, and to mark the occasion, the famed hacker conference welcomed something it had strictly policed in prior years: A film crew.

This year, Def Con creator Jeff Moss decided that someone needed to preserve the con’s history while it is still in its heyday. Def Con brings in tens of thousands of people to Las Vegas each summer to talk about hacker culture, new exploits, current security policy, and the computer underground. Indeed, Def Con is now a staple event for the most unlikely of groups: press, law enforcement, and hackers.

So Moss chose a film crew headed up by Jason Scott Sadofsky (pictured above), who is known in the industry for his documentary on the old bulletin board systems (the predecessor to today’s social networks) as well as his website Textfiles, which archives content from those systems.

“On the 20th anniversary, [Jeff Moss] wanted to do special things,” said Eli, who is otherwise known as “Dead Addict” in hacker circles and helped Moss create Def Con. “One of those special things was to try to capture the spirit of the event and the history of the event while it was still possible.”

A history worth preserving

Jeff Moss Def Con

Jeff Moss, the founder of Def Con.

Def Con began in 1992 as a small get-together that Moss, otherwise known as The Dark Tangent, helped coordinate after an online friend suggested they create a real-life gathering for people in their “bulletin board.” His friend, however, disappeared from the network after his father moved their family for a new job before the event ever happened (yes, people were actually disconnected from their friends due to a move back then), leaving Moss to put on the whole party by himself.

“Back in the day, back when Def Con started, people learned everything they knew about hacking and the computer underground by … searching out all these documents — which were hard to find, hidden in places — and trying to distinguish between bullshit and truth,” said Dead Addict.

Moss set the event in Las Vegas and invited all types of people connected to the “computer underground,” such as hackers, phreakers, police, and government officials. Thus was born one of the most unique characteristics of Def Con: its openness toward all people in the security industry. It even accepts us lowly security reporters.

But because of this, it needed rules.

“There’s a lot at Def Con that’s on the record. Every speech is on the record, things people say are on the record, but there’s also a lot of private conversations and a lot of people hooking up with the people that they know,” Dead Addict said. “[But] there are tourists here, as it were.”

The tourists are the Feds and the media. Hackers don’t love it when someone identifies them. At Def Con, they obscure their identities, sometimes wearing masks to panels, hoping to not get caught by the undercover cops who show up each year. Moss and some of the co-creators of Def Con, such as Dead Addict, decided that cameras and videotaping should be outright banned. You’d get thrown out for snapping a quick picture of the crowd because it disrupted the flow, because it made people feel uncomfortable. But the photography rules are starting to relax.

“To pretend there’s actual anonymity here was always delusional,” Dead Addict said. “We invited the Feds from day one to just highlight that, you know, you’re being watched. Don’t do stupid shit while you’re here.”

He went on to say, “Don’t commit large felonies with witnesses you can’t trust, which should be an obvious thing.”

A director, a Segway, and a whole lot of hackers

Def Con Documentary

The documentary crew wore bright orange jackets to make their presence known.

Flash forward 20 years to the latest Def Con, which took place in July at the Rio in Las Vegas. Sadofsky was milling around on a Segway, wearing a bright orange construction vest that said “DOCUMENTARY” on the back and with a hoard of cameras running around him.

“We worked very hard to make it so the film crew was totally obvious. We would travel in packs. That was on purpose,” said Sadofsky in an interview with VentureBeat. “When we came into a room, people saw us.”

This is not Sadofsky’s first go around at Def Con either. He has attended Def Con for 10 years, and the attendees and organizers alike know of him.

“Jason’s one of us, so there’s a deep level of trust that the entire community has for Jason,” said Dead Addict. “People that didn’t know him know his work.”

Dead Addict is directly involved in changing the photography and film rules. He says it doesn’t make sense to keep up the practice. This is especially important now that phones, tablets, and laptops can snap a picture fairly stealthily. But it also means the media will have an easier time capturing the essence of Def Con, its busyness, and the action.

“It was starting to seem ridiculous to have a much more restrictive rule for press than we have for our attendees because the distinction between bloggers and people that use interactive media and the official sanctioned press is very, very blurred,” Dead Addict said.”It seems a little absurd to not let the good photographers take photographs and to let everyone else take photographs.”

Over the course of Def Con 20, Sadofsky and his film crew interviewed over 200 people, 15 to 30 of which were sit-down interviews with Moss himself. In total, they recorded around 280 hours of footage. The crew itself was made up of Sadofsky, a few trusted friends — including Eddit Codel of Boing Boing TV — and some of his Kickstarter backers. He referred to Codel as his “ringer” and said he was “comfortable in a chaotic environment.” Those are good qualities to have, as Def Con is an inescapable organized chaos, with up to 12,000 people pushing through hallways to hear the next revered speaker show off their latest exploit.

The documentary’s debut

When I caught up with Sadofsky last week, he said he was still “editing like crazy.”

“The plan is still to provide the documentary for free for Christmas, with a for-sale version with bonus material coming in the new year — early 2013, if I can make it happen,” he said.

Once the editing is complete, the feature film goes to Moss for the final cut. As Sadofsky mentioned, Moss plans to give it away for free, though Sadofsky hopes the con can make a buck off of its story. He sees no reason why Def Con’s organizers would “turn away from a TV network or film festival-type deal.”

Def Con registration

The non-human (e.g. press) registration line at Def Con.

The film itself is not meant to be a yearbook and has no narration. Instead, Sadofsky wants the people to speak for themselves. Some of his favorite moments thus far include a couple of attendees who brought their children, and the sweet moments (yes, hackers can have sweet moments) when long-time attendees looked back on all their Def Con memories. Part of his inspiration for the documentary was The Dark Tangent himself. He describes Moss as a “mysterious figure who [attendees] see for a few seconds in the hallway.” Indeed, Moss told Sadofsky that he doesn’t actually know what happens at Def Con. He’s busy in the back, making sure the gears are turning, and misses out on much of the core of his own event: the people.

“The fact is that people are not ashamed to be at Def Con. It’s not a crime to be at Def Con. It’s not a black mark on your record,” Sadofsky said. “I would have been fine walking without a camera.”

Filed in Featured Stories, Hackers vs. Government, Hacking | Tagged: cyber hacking, cyber security jobs, cyber security policy, cyber security threats, government cyber security, government hacker, government hacker jobs, government hackers, government hacking, what is cyber security

Xtreme RAT cyberespionage targeted U.S., U.K. governments

Posted November 24, 2012 By NewsRoom

Xtreme RAT cyberespionage targeted U.S., U.K. governments

The recent malware attack against the Israeli police also targeted government institutions in other countries, researchers say

By Lucian Constantin

IDG News Service – The hacker group that recently infected Israeli police computers with the Xtreme RAT malware has also targeted government institutions from the U.S., U.K. and other countries, according to researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro.

The attackers sent rogue messages with a .RAR attachment to email addresses within the targeted government agencies. The archive contained a malicious executable masquerading as a Word document that, when run, installed the Xtreme RAT malware and opened a decoy document with a news report about a Palestinian missile attack.

The attack came to light at the end of October when the Israeli police shut down its computer network in order to clean the malware from its systems. Like most remote access Trojan programs (RATs), Xtreme RAT gives attackers control over the infected machine and allows them to upload documents and other files back to their servers.

After analyzing malware samples used in the Israeli police attack, security researchers from Norway-based antivirus vendor Norman uncovered a series of older attacks from earlier this year and late 2011 that targeted organizations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Their findings painted the picture of an year-long cyberespionage operation performed by the same group of attackers in the region.

However, according to new data uncovered by researchers from Trend Micro, the campaign’s scope appears to be much larger.

“We discovered two emails sent from {BLOCKED}a.2011@gmail.com on Nov 11 and Nov 8 that primarily targeted the Government of Israel,” Trend Micro senior threat researcher Nart Villeneuve, said in a blog post earlier this week. “One of the emails was sent to 294 email addresses.”

“While the vast majority of the emails were sent to the Government of Israel at ‘mfa.gov.il’ [Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs], ‘idf.gov.il’ [Israel Defense Forces], and ‘mod.gov.il’ [Israeli Ministry of Defense], a significant amount were also sent to the U.S. Government at ‘state.gov’ [U.S. Department of State] email addresses,” Villeneuve said. “Other U.S. government targets also included ‘senate.gov’ [U.S. Senate] and ‘house.gov’ [U.S. House of Representatives] email addresses. The email was also sent to ‘usaid.gov’ [U.S. Agency for International Development] email addresses.”

The list of targets also included ‘fco.gov.uk’ (British Foreign & Commonwealth Office) and ‘mfa.gov.tr’ (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs) email addresses, as well as addresses from government institutions in Slovenia, Macedonia, New Zealand, and Latvia, the researcher said. Some non-governmental organizations like the BBC and the Office of the Quartet Representative, were also targeted.

The Trend Micro researchers used metadata from the decoy documents to track down some of their authors to an online forum. One of them used the alias “aert” to talk about various malware applications including DarkComet and Xtreme RAT or to exchange goods and services with other forum members, Villeneuve said.

However, the motivations of the attackers remain unclear. If, after the Norman report, one might have speculated that the attackers have a political agenda tied to Israel and the Palestinian territories, after Trend Micro’s latest findings. it’s harder to guess what drives them.

“Their motivations are quite unclear at this point after discovering this latest development of targeting other state organizations,” said Ivan Macalintal, senior threat researcher and security evangelist at Trend Micro, Friday via email.

Trend Micro has not taken control of any command and control (C&C) servers used by the attackers in order to determine what data is being stolen from the infected computers, the researcher said, adding that there are no plans to do so at this time.

Security companies sometimes work with domain providers to point C&C domain names used by attackers to IP addresses under their control. This process is known as “sinkholing” and is used to determine how many computers were infected with a particular threat and what kind of information those computers are sending back to the control servers.

“We’ve contacted and are working with the CERTs [computer emergency response teams] for the particular states affected and we’ll see if there was indeed any damage done,” Macalintal said. “We are still actively monitoring the campaign as of now and will post updates accordingly.”

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9233758/Xtreme_RAT_cyberespionage_targeted_U.S._U.K._governments?taxonomyId=85&pageNumber=2
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Filed in Featured Stories, Government Security Watch, Hackers vs. Government | Tagged: cyber hacking, cyber security jobs, cyber security policy, cyber security threats, government cyber security, government hacker, government hacker jobs, government hackers, government hacking, what is cyber security

#OpArgentina8N: Anonymous hackers targets Argentina Government sites

Posted November 23, 2012 By NewsRoom

#OpArgentina8N: Anonymous hackers targets Argentina Government sites

Anonymous Argentina targets the Argentina Government websites under the operation called “#OpArgentina8N”. Today , they have sent a warning message to the government.Hackers has listed their demands to the government in the message.

” The national government must comply with the law, respecting the basic principles of the Republican and democratic system. Framing all of their acts within the Constitution, respecting the separation of powers and freedom of expression.” The first demand reads(translated).

The rest of the demands can be found here:
http://pastebin.com/LvJVy4rR

According to the hacker statement, they will start the attack on November 8(today).

As part of the operation, they have hacked into edeaweb.com.ar and dumped the stolen data. The dump contains 146 passwords and some other information.

*Update* AnonymousTjTeam has tweet that the Argentina Ministry of Defence(mindef.gov.ar) is down. At the time of writing, the site is still down.

Source: http://www.ehackingnews.com/2012/11/opargentina8n-anonymous-hackers-targets.html

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Filed in Featured Stories, Hackers vs. Government | Tagged: cyber hacking, cyber security jobs, cyber security policy, cyber security threats, government cyber security, government hacker, government hacker jobs, government hackers, government hacking, what is cyber security

Anonymous attacks Israeli government sites

Posted November 23, 2012 By NewsRoom

Anonymous attacks Israeli government sites

By Juha Saarinen

Gaza conflict spills over onto the Internet.

Hacker collective Anonymous appear to have joined forces with Palestinian combatants and has attacked several Israeli government sites in what it terms Operation Israel.

A press release posted on the Anonymous affliated Anonpaste website deplores what the hacking group says is “the barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of Palestinian people in the so-called Occupied Territories by the Israeli Defence Force”.

The Israeli military strikes aren’t what prodded Anonymous into action however, according to the press release.

Instead, it was Israel’s threat to isolate the Gaza strip from the Internet that “crossed the line in the sand.”

The hackers threaten Israel that it must not shut down the Internet or it “will know the full and unbridled wrath of Anonymous.”

According to a statement made by Anonymous Press on Twitter yesterday, over forty Israeli government and military websites had been taken down in three hours.

A list of data captured from breached sites, including a claimed list of personal information and credit card numbers for 35,000 Israelis, was published on the Oz Data Centa site.

The Times of Israel reported that Anonymous managed to take down the site of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC and the official blog of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) but doesn’t appear to have had much success otherwise with its campaign.

A list of 658 Israeli civilian sites said to be defaced was published on Pastebin on Thursday but a check of twenty of them revealed that they are operating normally. No government sites are on the Pastebin list.

On Saturday, Anonymous claimed to have deleted the database for Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs website, mashav.mfa.gov.il.

iTnews was able to confirm that the MFA site is down and displays a database connection error, but there has been no official confirmation of the attack.

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on Saturday

Israeli hackers meanwhile are counter-attacking, aiming to bring down Internet Relay Chat (IRC) networks used by Anons to communicate and coordinate attacks. The Jewish nation is also heavily employing social media, with the Israeli Defence Force providing up to date tweets on the Gaza conflict on Twitter for instance.

Anonymous has also published what it calls a Gaza Care Package, to help Palestinians communicate.

The hacker group suggests measures such as using dial-up, Nintendo DS, satellite access and wireless networks, to stay connected if Israel isolates Gaza from the Internet.

Update 19/11, 8.37am AEDT: A report by news service Reuters claimed over 44 million attempts had been made to hack Israeli government websites since the conflict escalated.

Anonymous also claims to have d0xed 5000 Israeli officials, though a paste of the details was down at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, the IDF is asking people not to tweet or Instagram photos of rocketed locations in Israel, for fear that it will help Hamas to target them better

Hi Tech Crime Solutions

SDF seeks white-hat hackers / Cyberdefense skills hard to cultivate, especially at SDF wages

Posted November 23, 2012 By NewsRoom

SDF seeks white-hat hackers / Cyberdefense skills hard to cultivate, especially at SDF wages

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Defense Ministry is having trouble finding enough qualified personnel to staff its 100-member cyberdefense unit planned to be launched in fiscal 2013.

The new unit needs experts in computer viruses and hacking techniques, but developing qualified personnel within the ministry has been slow going, and outside recruitment has faced difficulties in terms of pay and security.

At a meeting of the House of Representatives Security Committee on Nov. 8, a committee member asked: “The militaries of the United States and Europe have hired [outside] hackers, but the Japanese people consider hackers to be the bad guys. Will the Defense Ministry hire them?”

Daisuke Miyajima, parliamentary vice defense minister, declined to comment, but another senior ministry official informally confirmed that they are indeed looking to hire hackers.

“We cannot defend our computer systems without knowing how they will be attacked,” he said. “We are looking to hire talents who cannot be developed by the Self-Defense Forces under the defense-only policy.”

However, the ministry said it is not looking to hire “bad” hackers who access computers illegally. The ministry said it wants “good” hackers who are gifted engineers with deep knowledge of how computers and networks operate.

Currently, the SDF has four units comprising 360 members total, including the command communication unit, that are responsible for protecting its computer system.

The ministry has been unable to find enough qualified staff to run the new 100-member unit among its existing teams.

Although the SDF has sent personnel to Carnegie Mellon University in the United States to study computer virus analysis since 2000, only 30 people have so far completed the program.

The senior official said the ministry must hire outside experts if it wants to launch the new unit in time, but the salaries the SDF is offering have hindered recruiting.

SDF members who serve in particular ways, such as on combat aircraft or submarines, are paid relatively well. For example, a captain who pilots a jet receives a flight allowance of about 200,000 yen a month in addition to a basic monthly salary of about 300,000 yen.

SDF computer engineers, however, are not eligible for special pay.

The ministry can opt to hire experts from private companies through special contracts with the firms, but this method creates problems in terms of how to protect classified information after the contracts expire.

Militaries around the world are already recruiting private-sector IT experts.

The commander of a U.S. cyberdefense unit attracted attention in July by calling for hackers to join the military.

At a hacker conference in Las Vegas, the commander said that while the pay was low, they would have a great time in the military.

It has also been reported that the Chinese military hires outside experts to help run its cyberwarfare unit.

“It is difficult for military education, which aims to institutionalize its members, to develop geniuses,” said Motohiro Tsuchiya, Keio University professor and member of a government information security panel. “In cyberspace, just having one gifted hacker can make a huge difference. Japan should modernize its human resource development system to keep up with other militaries.”

Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121116004875.htm

High Tech Crime Solutions

Filed in Featured Stories, Government Cyber Wars, Hackers vs. Government | Tagged: cyber hacking, cyber security jobs, cyber security policy, cyber security threats, government cyber security, government hacker, government hacker jobs, government hackers, government hacking, what is cyber security

Intelligence Report: The Curious Case of Jeremy Hammond

Posted November 14, 2012 By NewsRoom

Chuck Goudie

November 12, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — A suburban Chicago man, who the government claims is the world’s greatest computer hacker, has been in a federal lockup for nearly eight months. Now The I-Team has an idea of the scope of the case against Jeremy Hammond.

Intelligence Report: Who is Jeremy Hammond?

Check Out NCS Super Spy Store On Menu

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Xtreme RAT cyberespionage targeted U.S., U.K. governments

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#OpArgentina8N: Anonymous hackers targets Argentina Government sites

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Anonymous attacks Israeli government sites

By Juha Saarinen

Gaza conflict spills over onto the Internet.

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