Security

A 19-year-old man has pleaded guilty to blackmailing women after hacking their webcams and taking compromising pictures. Miss Teen USA winner Cassidy Wolf was among Jared James Abrahams' victims. According to prosecutors, Abrahams carried out his ... crimes over a two-year period, targeting women in the US and Europe. The youngest victim was just 16 years of age, with the others in their teens and early 20s. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) Abrahams used malicious software to infect the computers of his victims. This software allowed him to view the webcam video whenever the computer was switched on, even if ... (view more)

It's not uncommon for an employee to plug a USB stick into a computer and unwittingly install malware on a work network. Unfortunately, that appears to have happened on the International Space Station. Eugene Kaspersky, the man behind the Kaspersky ... antivirus software, claims Russian astronauts brought USB sticks onto the space station. At least one of the sticks turned out to contain malware that infected computers on the station. Exactly when this happened hasn't been revealed, though it was probably before May last year, when the station switched to using Linux-based computers. Before that ... (view more)

British security staff used bogus copies of the LinkedIn and Slashdot websites to install spyware on tech firm networks, according to leaked documents. They were able to pull off the hacker-like attacks with the help of the National Security Agency. ... The claims come from what appears to be a secret presentation from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent to the National Security Agency (NSA). It seems the documents were made available to the NSA and then leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden. (Source: spiegel.de ) Secretive Agency Targets Telecommunications ... (view more)

The newest and most frightening threat on the web is the 'CryptoLocker' ransomware, which allows cybercriminals to take control of your digital life and then offer it back to you for a fee. Thankfully, there are ways to prevent an infection. Like ... many other infections, CryptoLocker is most often spread through malicious email attachments. However, the malware can also be deployed through malicious pages on websites and compromised browser plugins. According to reports, a CryptoLocker infection allows cybercriminals to "scramble" all of you important files -- from images to Word documents to ... (view more)

Adobe has admitted that a recent breach of its servers was far more serious than first suspected. It's now believed that the personal information of roughly 38 million users may have been stolen. The high-profile security breach could hinder Adobe's ... plans to sell its software on a subscription basis. Earlier this month, Adobe confirmed that hackers had stolen credit card records for almost three million of its customers. It also said an unknown number of usernames and passwords had been taken. But this past weekend a website posted a file that contained more than 150 million usernames and ... (view more)

The Syrian Electronic Army has taken aim at United States President Barack Obama's Facebook and Twitter updates. The result: Obama's updates directed visitors to the Syrian Electronic Army's own websites for a limited time. The Syrian Electronic ... Army (SEA) is a loose collective of hackers who support besieged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. government's support of rebel forces in Syria has brought the SEA into conflict with the Obama administration and the American media. SEA Redirects Twitter Users to Terrorism Video This most recent hack took place on Monday, October 28, 2013, ... (view more)

The US government says it will pay $2 million to the winner of a network security contest. The winning system will have to be so advanced that it can spot and fix problems before any human can even think of exploiting them. The contest is the work ... of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a government agency that works on technology for military purposes. Previously it has run some outlandish projects, such as exploring the way flying snakes stay airborne and developing a robot that can outrun Olympic champion Usain Bolt. Now, it's unveiled the Cyber Grand Challenge, which ... (view more)

Google says it will continue offering security fixes for people running the Chrome browser on Windows XP until April 2015. That's a year after Microsoft's termination date for the aging operating system (OS). For its part, Microsoft has warned users ... not to rely on the Chrome protection and says that even with Google's efforts, users of Windows XP will still face a serious risk of malicious software infection. After launching Windows XP in 2001, Microsoft stopped selling the operating system in 2008. The firm no longer offers Windows XP users technical support, but it has continued to offer ... (view more)

Up to ten different router models, including some by popular manufacturer D-Link, are now vulnerable to hackers. It appears the code that runs the devices contains a master password that anyone could find and use. The problem was discovered by ... security researcher Craig Heffner, who admitted he had nothing more exciting to do on a Saturday than nose through code accompanying a recent firmware update for his D-Link DIR-100 router. Like most routers, the settings menu for the D-100 router is accessible through a web browser -- the idea being that the user can access the router through one of ... (view more)

Adobe has been the target of a major attack by hackers. The result: the personal information of roughly three million Adobe customers has been exposed. Adobe's senior director of security for products and services, Brad Arkin, says the attackers ... took aim at customer data and source codes for a wide range of Adobe products, including Acrobat, ColdFusion, and ColdFusion Builder. Adobe is less concerned about the latter, and says the source code leak does not mean there is an "increased risk to customers as a result of [the] incident." Adobe also says that their investigation of the hack has ... (view more)