This section is devoted to featuring late-breaking cyber security news stories.
Mar. 28, 2008 - Greg Sandoval, Cnet News Blog
Attackers Booby-Trap Searches at Top Web Sites
A million search queries have been "poisoned" at dozens of well-known Web sites over the past several weeks, according to security analyst Dancho Danchev.
Attackers are using programming errors to hijack keyword searches by automatically attaching malicious HTML code to specific search queries. Unwitting visitors who type in the selected key words while performing a search at the affected sites are then redirected to booby-trapped Web sites.
Mar. 27, 2008 - Paul McDougall, InformationWeek
Safari 3.1 for Windows Vulnerable to Hackers
Researchers at software security firm Secunia said they've found two "highly critical" vulnerabilities in Apple's Safari 3.1 For Windows browser.
In one instance, files with long names downloaded via the browser "can be exploited to cause memory corruption," according to Secunia. That could result in the host computer becoming vulnerable to arbitrary code execution -- a situation where intruders can remotely execute commands on the targeted machine.
Mar. 25, 2008 - Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
Engineer Gets 24 Year Sentence For Trying to Steal Navy Secrets
A Chinese-born engineer convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. military secrets to the People's Republic of China was sentenced Monday to 24 years and five months in federal prison.
Chi Mak, 65, of Downey, Calif., was formerly employed by defense contractor Power Paragon. He was found guilty last May of trying to obtain U.S. Navy submarine technology and to illegally export that information to China.
Mar. 24, 2008 - Rory Cellan-Jones' Blog
Tibet - the Cyber Wars
We know that YouTube has been blocked in China, as the authorities seek to control what they see as biased Western coverage of events in Tibet, but there is a wider battle being fought in cyberspace.
Tibet protest groups have been in touch to say they are under attack, with emails arriving containing attachments that are designed to infect or take over their computers. These attacks have been going on for months, but appear to have grown in intensity in recent days.
Mar. 22, 2008 - Stiennon's Blog
China Takes Off Cyber Gloves
I have a picture in my head of a huge building just outside of the Forbidden City in Beijing... Inside there are vast rooms with desks and computers. Sitting at those desks are uniform wearing Red Army Hackers. There are large overhead screens reminiscent of Japanese KanBan systems with attack targets and progress charts depicting the daily activity. One floor might be dedicated to censors. Most of them are busy identifying pornography sites but special groups are dedicated to finding and blocking Chinese access to information on Tibet, Taiwan, and Falun Gong.
Mar. 21, 2008 - Ellen Nakashima and Colum Lynch
FBI Opens Probe of China-Based Hackers
The FBI has opened a preliminary investigation of a report that China-based hackers have penetrated the e-mail accounts of leaders and members of the Save Darfur Coalition, a national advocacy group pushing to end the six-year-old conflict in Sudan.
The accounts of 10 members were hacked into between early February and last week, and the intruders also gained access to the group's Web server and viewed pages from the inside, the group said yesterday.
Mar. 18, 2008 - Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker
U.S. Adapts Cold-War Idea to Fight Terrorists
Cyberspace Has Become Prime Focus
WASHINGTON — In the days immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, members of President Bush’s war cabinet declared that it would be impossible to deter the most fervent extremists from carrying out even more deadly terrorist missions with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
Since then, however, administration, military and intelligence officials assigned to counterterrorism have begun to change their view. After piecing together a more nuanced portrait of terrorist organizations, they say there is reason to believe that a combination of efforts could in fact establish something akin to the posture of deterrence, the strategy that helped protect the United States from a Soviet nuclear attack during the cold war.
Mar. 18, 2008 - Danielle Camilli, Burlington County Times
Indictment Charges 2 Men with Hacking Into Evesham Company's Web Site
A New Jersey grand jury indicted two Florida men today on charges that they hacked into an Evesham-based company’s Web sites, causing nearly $900,000 in losses.
Rory Edward Tringali, 36, and Matthew Justin Willner, 34, both of Miami Beach, were indicted on first-degree charges of computer criminal activity and conspiracy to commit computer criminal activity.
Mar. 15, 2008 - Bill Bowen, Star-Telegram
Hacking's Impact Spreads
FORT WORTH -- The apparent ATM hacking of local bank accounts has spread to Naval Air Station Fort Worth, where as many as 200 service members have had money surreptitiously withdrawn from their accounts.
The scam may be a continuation of an ATM breach at OmniAmerican Bank, investigators said. Last week, employees at Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopter with accounts at Fort Worth Community Credit Union saw their accounts tapped.
Mar. 13, 2008 - Larry Seltzer, eWeek.com
The Secret U.S.-China Hacking War
Numerous hacks from the Far East sure look like concerted attacks against U.S. military installations, but nobody's saying for sure.
Is the United States under attack again?
Mar. 11, 2008 - ZDNet.co.uk
Corporate Espionage: Not If, But When
When it comes to business-to-business theft of information, experts agree — it's best to assume it will happen to your company.
Mar. 10, 2008 - John Robb, Global Guerrillas
Journal: Extortion Through Systems Disruption
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, a form of online systems disruption, are getting extremely powerful. They can now top 17 Gbps in flow from a dedicated botnet (particularly infected computers located in countries with high speed consumer broadband). Additionally, global geographic diversity of these botnets means that the low and slow approach, a method that aims for partial disruption that forces companies to spend more on hardware/bandwith rather than spikes that force total shutdown, can be used to effect. In short, DDoS has become a supurb way to extort money from corporations.
Mar. 6, 2008 - Bob Brewin, govexec.com
U.S. Unprepared for Cyberwar, Say Top Military and Intelligence Officials
The United States is in the midst of a cyberwar and is not prepared to deal with it, top Defense Department and intelligence officials acknowledged this week.
"Cyberwarfare is already here.... It's one of our major challenges," said Defense Deputy Secretary Gordon England on Monday at the annual National Community Service and Legislative Conference of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
"I think cyberattacks are probably analogous to the first time, way back when people had bows and arrows and spears," he said. "And somebody showed up with gunpowder and everybody said, 'Wow. What was that?'"
Mar. 6, 2008 - Fox News Video
Hack Attack
Homeland security simulation turns up holes in U.S. online security
(Click here to watch video.) Scroll down to "Hack Attack" on Fox News Channel
Mar. 5, 2008 - Associated Press
Bush Spending Plan Focuses Attention on Preventing Computer Hacks
WASHINGTON — Preventing terrorists from hacking into computer systems that run the nation's power grid and other vital networks gets a new emphasis in President Bush's proposed budget for homeland security.
The president would spend at least $294 million for the Department of Homeland Security to protect federal networks from hackers, including $83 million to deploy a program that monitors intrusions on federal networks.
Mar. 4, 2008 - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times
China's Computer Hacking Worries Pentagon
A Report Says Country Now Has Ability to Get Into Networks Around the World
WASHINGTON -- China in the last year has developed ways to infiltrate and manipulate computer networks around the world in what U.S. defense officials conclude is a new and potentially dangerous military capability, according to a Pentagon report issued Monday.
Mar. 3, 2008 - Bob Brewin, govexec.com
Pentagon: Cyberattacks Appear to Come From China
The Defense Department said Monday that cyberattacks in 2007 against computer networks operated by governments and commercial institutions around the world "appear" to have originated within China -- marking the first time the Pentagon has so visibly pinned the blame against China for cyberattacks.
Defense made its cyber warfare charge against China in its annual report to Congress on China's military power.
