Hackers claim 177K e-mails from Sony Pictures France

Sony's turn as the whipping boy for Internet hackers continued over the weekend. Two hackers posted a list of e-mails they say they took from the Sony Pictures France Web site.

The two hackers who claim responsibility are a Lebanese student who goes by the handle Idahc, and a French friend of his who goes by Auth3ntiq. The two say they copied 177,172 e-mails from the entertainment company's site, but posted only 70 of them on the code-sharing site Pastebin. They say they will not be posting all of the e-mails they found.

Jim Kennedy, Sony Pictures executive vice president of communications, said in a statement, "We are currently investigating this claim."

The brief Pastebin posting says the pair managed to lift the e-mail addresses through an SQL injection.

It's the same method that was used to extract personal data of customers from SonyPictures.com, Sony Pictures Russia, Sony Ericsson, and Sony Music Entertainment Japan in recent weeks.

Idahc isn't a stranger to attacking Sony's sites. He was the one who claimed to have taken data from a Sony Ericsson eShop Web site last month, leaked a database from Sony Europe, and compromised a Sony Portugal site.

Idahc said in an interview with Forbes last week he began hacking for "justice," but now says he's trying to prompt companies like Sony to improve their security.

Attrition.org has been keeping track of the spate of attacks on Sony. It says this is the 20th breach of a Web site or network related to the company in two months, starting with the PlayStation Network breach in April that put the gaming service out of commission for more than three weeks.

This story was updated at 2:28 p.m. PT with comment from Sony.

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Wordpress catches hackers red-handed - GMANews.TV

Open-source blog and publishing platform WordPress intercepted this week what could have been an attempt by hackers to break in to it by placing backdoors on three of its popular plug-ins.

In a blog post, WordPress said it has temporarily shut down access to the plug-in repository and forced users to reset their passwords as a security precaution.

"We?re still investigating what happened, but as a prophylactic measure we?ve decided to force-reset all passwords on WordPress.org. To use the forums, trac, or commit to a plugin or theme, you?ll need to reset your password to a new one. (Same for bbPress.org and BuddyPress.org.)," WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg said.

He said that the WordPress team noticed suspicious commits to popular plugins such as AddThis, WPtouch, and W3 Total Cache.

These plugins were found to contain "cleverly disguised backdoors," he said.

"We determined the commits were not from the authors, rolled them back, pushed updates to the plugins, and shut down access to the plugin repository while we looked for anything else unsavory," Mullenweg said.

He advised users to make sure to never use the same password for two different services, and encouraged them not to reset your passwords to be the same as their old ones.

"If you use AddThis, WPtouch, or W3 Total Cache and there?s a possibility you could have updated in the past day, make sure to visit your updates page and upgrade each to the latest version," he added.

Computer security firm Sophos said Web-based backdoors can be extremely dangerous.

"If you're a WordPress user, you'll know that the WordPress platform includes a complete and powerful administration interface, password-protected, via a URL such as 'site.example/wp-admin.' A WordPress backdoor might offer something with similar functionality, but using a different, unexpected, URL, and using a password known to the hacker, instead of to you," Sophos Asia Pacific head of technology in Asia PAcific Paul Ducklin said. ? TJD, GMA News

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Online brawls may be fractious hackers's downfall - Reuters

The website of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is unresponsive and unavailable after reports that the website had been attacked by internet hackers in Washington June 15, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jim Bourg

By Peter Apps and William Maclean

LONDON | Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:20pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - - The rogue hackers behind brazen cyber attacks are clever online technicians but have a critical human frailty -- petulant personalities prone to infighting that may spell disaster for their raids on spies, banks and companies.

At least that's the hope among state cyber sleuths racing to track down the Lulz Security (LulzSec) hackers responsible for a wave of attacks on Western governments and multinational companies.

Britain arrested a 19-year-old man on Tuesday as part of a joint investigation with the U.S. FBI into LulzSec, which claims responsibility for computer attacks on the U.S. CIA, Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) and Sony Corp.

Britain's top policeman called the arrest "very significant." LulzSec rejected suggestions the teenager was a leading figure.

The young cyber vandals are so technically accomplished that relying on intelligence and security agencies to beat them would be a mistake, experts say. The alternative is to turn them against each other -- a feat the Internet's anonymity and the hackers' self-absorption and competitiveness makes easier.

"Our best bet quite honestly is the fact that they are all attacking each other quite happily," said Tony Dyhouse, a security expert at Britain's ICT Knowledge Transfer Network.

He told Reuters that one tactic used by LulzSec's opponents had been to post misleading messages in its name, and then sit back and watch tempers flare online.

"Although LulzSec is growing hugely in numbers, it seems to be fighting to keep itself as a cohesive unit."

"This is our best hope, since groups like this, because they are all so ego-driven and want to remain anonymous, get different people (falsely) claiming to speak for them and so they lose control," he said.

Steve Watts of computer security firm SecurEnvoy said the hackers were driven by fame and success "so like rival businesses they will fight for the top."

But there is no room for complacency -- an attitude cyber security specialists say remains prevalent in boardrooms.

"The reality is that the skills of many hackers - where they can code in multiple languages, trace and exploit any technological or insider vulnerability - will be a match for any trained security professional," John Suffolk, a former Chief Information Officer of the British government, told Reuters.

Peter Wood, CEO of security firm First Base Technologies, said it was "all too easy to be complacent about what is perceived as 'hacktivist culture'."

TEAMING UP

LulzSec's members are believed to be scattered around the world, working together by means of secret Internet chat rooms. Suspected leaders include hackers with the handles Kayla, Sabu and Topiary, security experts say. Hackers often use several personas to confuse sleuths.

LulzSec drew heightened attention when it said this week it was teaming up with the Anonymous hacker activist group to cause more serious trouble and obtain classified information.

But in addition to cooperating, hacker groups can also battle each other online.

A hacker group opposed to LulzSec called Team Web Ninjas started a blog this month to expose LulzSec, releasing what it said were logs of conversations from a private LulzSec chatroom and providing names of alleged leaders.

Then there are occasional tensions between LulzSec and the Anonymous group, of which it is believed to be an offshoot, despite their periodic collaboration in cyber raids.

LulzSec suffered what appeared to be a public rift within its own ranks on Tuesday evening, following news of the arrest.

In response to online statements that the group had hacked the results of Britain's latest census and was about to release it online, the group put out a message saying that unless such a release was preceded by the words "Tango Down," LulzSec would not have been the entity responsible.

Ryan Cleary, named by British media as the teenager arrested on Tuesday, was himself involved in a bustup with the broader Anonymous group in May, according to hacker websites, after which Anonymous retaliated by publishing his first name.

His mother, Rita, 44, told the Daily Mail her son suffered from agoraphobia and attention deficit disorder, and had not left his home for four years.

LulzSec wrote on its Twitter website: "Clearly the UK police are so desperate to catch us that they've gone and arrested someone who is, at best, mildly associated with us. Lame."

In a comment on a hacker chatroom on Tuesday, a participant wrote: "He hasn't gone to jail and won't. It's just the police trying to get information on LulzSec, which I should imagine is why they are hyping it up (60 years in jail) to get him to talk."

LulzSec has also published the names and personal details of two individuals it says were members, in retaliation for what it said was the disclosure of information about the group to law enforcement authorities.

Dyhouse said enmities were such that it appeared that sometimes "it doesn't need us to set them against each other.... There's no honor amongst thieves."

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas in Wickford; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Hackers target British anti-crime agency website

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hackers who have hit the websites of the CIA, US Senate, Sony and others during a month-long rampage claimed on Monday to have knocked the site of Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) offline.

"Tango down - soca.gov.uk - in the name of #AntiSec," the hacker group known as Lulz Security said in a message on their Twitter feed @lulzsec.

"Tango down" refers to the elimination of an enemy while "AntiSec" refers to "Operation Anti-Security," a campaign launched by Lulz Security against government websites.

Computer security firm Sophos said the SOCA website was sporadically inaccessible on Monday following the Lulz Security attack.

Sophos said it appeared to be a distributed denial of service attack in which a website is overwhelmed with traffic and becomes sluggish or unresponsive.

Lulz knocked the CIA's public website, cia.gov, out of commission for about two hours last week using a DDoS attack and also hacked into the US Senate's public website.

The group has also released tens of thousands of user names and passwords stolen from Sony and other sites.

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Hackers hit Sony Pictures France site, grab 177K e-mails - ZDNet (blog)

Sony Pictures France is the latest Sony Web site to suffer at the hands of hackers. This time two hackers have claimed credit and say they copied more than 177,000 e-mails from the site.

The two hackers are identified as a Lebanese student called “Idahc” and “Auth3ntiq,” a friend of his from France. They claim to have exploited a SQL flaw to get the information.

Idahc and Auth3ntic posted information about their feat, along with a sample of the e-mails they took, to the Web site Pastebin.com.

The hackers aren’t doing anything new. The same sort of exploit was used to break into SonyPictures.com, Sony Pictures Russion and other Sony-owned sites in recent weeks. In fact, Idahc seems to be on a crusade to teach Sony a lesson about bad security.

In a recent interview on Forbes.com, Idahc said that he’s attacking global Sony sites to demonstrate Sony’s lax attention to security. “I don’t hack for ‘lulz’ but for moral reasons,” he said.

It’s the latest in more than a dozen and a half attacks on Sony Web sites since Sony pulled its PlayStation Network offline in April, when the company discovered that as-yet unidentified hackers broke in and stole information about tens of millions of customers. Within days Sony discovered that its Sony Online Entertainment servers, which manage access to online PC games, had been similarly compromised. All told, more than 100 million customers had their names, addresses and other personal information taken.

In the wake of that failure, Sony executives pledged to improve security and to hire a new executive to head up security operations for the company. But hacker aren’t slowing down their attacks on the company. What’s causing the frequent attacks?

Sony is, of course, a high-profile target, as they’ve already suffered substantial damages by having to shut down network operations on the PlayStation Network for almost a month.

But there’s more to it. Hackers’ hackles were raised earlier this year when Sony sought to sue George “Geohot” Hotz, a programmer who tried to restore the PlayStation 3’s “OtherOS” capability, which enables it to operate Linux. That’s a feature Sony originally supported on the PlayStation 3 but later removed in a firmware update. After that, the hacker collective that calls itself “Anonymous” declared open war on Sony, only backing off after gamers themselves made their displeasure known.

Hackers’ displeasure with Sony runs much deeper than that, however. Years after the fact, some harbor resentment about Sony BMG’s decision to put rootkit-based DRM software on some of its music CDs back in 2005.

Now hackers are going after Sony with a vengeance. Like sharks detecting blood in the water, they’re unlikely to let up any time soon, especially since Sony’s chronically lax security makes them an easy target.

A long-time veteran of the Apple news business, Peter has also spent more than fifteen years covering games and the game industry. A self-proclaimed Alpha Nerd, Peter also professes a love for anime, sci-fi cons, gadgets of all kinds and various geek subcultures.

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Hackers claim attack on FBI partner in Conn.

HARTFORD, Conn. – Hackers who claimed responsibility for online attacks of Sony Corp. and the CIA said they compromised the security of more than 1,000 accounts of a Connecticut-based FBI partner organization, hours before releasing a web manifesto calling for "war" on governments that control the Internet.

The online collective Lulz Security said it attacked a local section of InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and the private sector to share security information. Connecticut InfraGard's website was down Monday afternoon.

The FBI was aware of the attack and that the website had been shut down as a precaution, agency spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said. She declined to comment on the extent of any damage.

Lulz tweeted Sunday night that its Connecticut attack had "compromised 1000+ FBI-affiliated members." The group said it would not leak the user information but would embarrass the FBI with "simple hacks." It did not provide details on the information it said was compromised.

InfraGard is an association of businesses, academic institutions and law enforcement agencies dedicated to sharing information to prevent hostile acts against the United States, according to its website. Business representatives who participate get access to security information from government sources such as the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and can participate in discussions with others in the IT-security field.

This month, the Atlanta chapter of InfraGard said hackers stole 180 passwords from its members and leaked them online. Lulz also claimed responsibility for that attack, saying it was a response to a report that the Pentagon was considering whether to classify types of cyber-attacks as acts of war.

After announcing the Connecticut attack, the group issues its statement calling for a united hacker effort against governments and organizations that control the Internet.

"Our Lulz Lizard battle fleet is now declaring immediate and unremitting war on the freedom-snatching moderators of 2011," the group said in the statement, which was written in its characteristic rambling speech.

The group said it was teaming with another hacker collective, Anonymous, and encouraged others to fight corruption and attack any government or agency that "crosses their path" including banks and other "high-ranking establishments."

Anonymous is a group of online activists that has claimed responsibility for attacking companies online such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal over their severing of ties with WikiLeaks following that group's release of troves of sensitive documents. Anonymous also led a campaign against the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous and similar hacker organizations are notable for their leaderless, diffuse construction that maximizes secrecy but can lead to mixed or unclear messages.

Lulz has taken credit for hacking into the PlayStation Network of Sony Corp., where more than 100 million user accounts were compromised, and defacing the PBS website after it aired a documentary seen as critical of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The hackers also say they are responsible for attacks on the CIA webpage and the U.S. Senate computer system.

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British police arrest alleged hacker - Albany Times Union

LONDON -- The police in Britain arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with digital attacks on businesses and government agencies "by a single hacking group," the Metropolitan Police said Tuesday in a statement.

The police did not identify the man (Deutsche Presse-Agentur said his name was Ryan Cleary) or the hacking organization. Suspicion immediately fell on two groups: Anonymous, a shadowy international network of computer hackers, and Lulz Security, a group that has claimed responsibility in recent weeks for attacks on the websites of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Senate as well as Sony and, on Monday, the website of a British agency that combats organized crime.

The arrest resulted from a joint investigation by a British cybercrime unit, local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into attacks on "a number of international business and intelligence agencies," the police said, without naming specific targets.

The British police said man was being questioned in a London police station and was suspected of violating several British computer and fraud laws. After his arrest, they said, officers searched a home in Wickford, about 35 miles north of London, and turned up material that police said was under examination.

They said the search was conducted late Monday night.

Attacks this spring on the websites of several companies, including Sony and Bethesda Softworks, a gaming site, exploited holes in Internet security systems that are meant to protect hundreds of thousands of private user accounts. In a letter posted last week, Lulz Security said that it was now teaming with Anonymous. "Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments."

Lulz Security seemed to dismiss speculation that one of its hackers had been the target of the British arrest.

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Hackers claim attack on FBI partner in US

HARTFORD, Connecticut — Hackers who claimed responsibility for online attacks against Sony Corp. and the CIA said they compromised the security of more than 1,000 accounts of an FBI partner organization, hours before releasing a web manifesto calling for "war" on governments that control the Internet.

The online collective Lulz Security said it attacked a local section of InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and the private sector to share security information. InfraGard's website was down Monday afternoon.

The FBI was aware of the attack and that the website had been shut down as a precaution, agency spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said. She declined to comment on the extent of any damage.

Lulz tweeted Sunday night that its Connecticut attack had "compromised 1000 (plus) FBI-affiliated members." The group said it would not leak the user information but would embarrass the FBI with "simple hacks." It did not provide details on the information it said was compromised.

InfraGard is an association of businesses, academic institutions and law enforcement agencies dedicated to sharing information to prevent hostile acts against the United States, according to its website. Business representatives who participate get access to security information from government sources such as the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and can participate in discussions with others in the IT-security field.

This month, the Atlanta chapter of InfraGard said hackers stole 180 passwords from its members and leaked them online. Lulz also claimed responsibility for that attack, saying it was a response to a report that the Pentagon was considering whether to classify types of cyber-attacks as acts of war.

After announcing the Connecticut attack, the group issued its statement calling for a united hacker effort against governments and organizations that control the Internet.

"Our Lulz Lizard battle fleet is now declaring immediate and unremitting war on the freedom-snatching moderators of 2011," the group said in the statement, which was written in its characteristic rambling speech.

The group said it was teaming with another hacker collective, Anonymous, and encouraged others to fight corruption and attack any government or agency that "crosses their path" including banks and other "high-ranking establishments."

Anonymous is a group of online activists that has claimed responsibility for attacking companies online such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal over their severing of ties with WikiLeaks following that group's release of troves of sensitive documents. Anonymous also led a campaign against the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous and similar hacker organizations are notable for their leaderless, diffuse construction that maximizes secrecy but can lead to mixed or unclear messages.

Lulz has taken credit for hacking into the PlayStation Network of Sony Corp., where more than 100 million user accounts were compromised, and defacing the PBS website after it aired a documentary seen as critical of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The hackers also say they are responsible for attacks on the CIA webpage and the U.S. Senate computer system.

More LulzSec news from msnbc.com:

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Hackers nab data of over 1 million online game customers

Hackers steal Sega customers' dataNEW: SEGA says the affected service does not store credit card numbersSEGA says the data breach included e-mail addresses and passwords The company shut down operations and sent out apologiesEnglish language users saw messages that the SEGA Pass site was down for "maintenance"

Tokyo (CNN) -- Hackers have stolen personal information from over 1.2 million customers of the Japanese gaming company SEGA, according to a company statement.

The breach occurred Friday and targeted user data from subsidiary "SEGA Pass", which is operated by Britain-based SEGA Europe Limited (SEL).

The service was "illegally accessed from outside and personal information of all 1,290,755 customers of the service... were brought outside of the system," according to SEGA. The information included names, birth dates, e-mail addresses and "encoded passwords," the statement said.

But the company emphasized that it "does not hold any confidential information such as credit card information." SEGA says it shut down service as soon as it confirmed the illegal access and sent affected customers an e-mail apology.

The company says it is investigating the cyber break-in.

SEGA published the statement explaining the data hacking in Japanese on the Japanese website only. English language users were greeted only with messages that the SEGA Pass service was momentarily down.

"Sorry, the website is temporarily unavailable due to Maintenance work," one message says. "We will be up and running again soon!"

SEGA advertises its privacy measures on a banner at the bottom of its website, which reads "ESRB Privacy Certified". The banner links to a privacy statement, which touts user information safeguards including "the storage of data on secure servers or computers inaccessible by modem."

In April hackers stole personal user information from SONY's PlayStation Network, which had some 70 million subscribers at the time. Hackers later broke into Sony Pictures website, compromising the accounts of over 1 million users.

SEGA creates games that play on SONY's PlayStation as well as on other gaming systems.

Yoko Wakatsuki contributed to this report.

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Watch out, LulzSec – the CIA is adept at wiping lulz off faces - The Guardian

For the past few weeks, a hacker collective called LulzSec has been leading American and British authorities a merry dance. The group's targets are seemingly random – Sony, the CIA, contestants of a reality TV show, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) – but their stated motive has remained constant: "we're doing it for laughs", or, to put it in internet parlance, "lulz".

If one is to believe the media coverage – particularly here in the US‚ no one is safe from the ingenious hackers and their devilishly complex attacks. The truth is, there's almost nothing ingenious about what LulzSec is doing: CIA and Soca were not "hacked" in any meaningful sense, rather their public websites were brought down by an avalanche of traffic – a so-called "distributed denial-of-service" (DDoS) attack. Given enough internet-enabled typewriters, a monkey could launch a DDoS attack – except that mentally subnormal monkeys have better things to do with their time.

Even the genuine hacks are barely worthy of the word. Many large organisations use databases with known security holes that can easily be exploited by anyone who has recently completed the first year of a computer science degree: it's no coincidence that so many of these hacker collectives appear towards the end of the academic year.

Still, what LulzSec might lack in technical prowess, it certainly makes up for in its ability to grab attention. Hackers have always boasted of their work – leaving messages on their victims' servers, posting proof of their exploits on bulletin boards‚ so in a world where every criminal and his dog has a YouTube channel and a Facebook fan-page it's hardly surprising that LulzSec is obsessed with online publicity. The group has been particularly smart in their use of Twitter: in less than two months it has amassed over 240,000 followers which, amusingly, means it can launch a DDoS attack simply by tweeting the web address of its next target and waiting for the tsunami of clicks to have the desired effect.

Given the group's modus operandi – boasting on social networks, sticking it to the man – it was entirely unshocking when, on Tuesday morning, the police arrested their first suspect: a teenager who, according to his mum, suffers from agoraphobia and "lives his life online". Ryan Cleary may, of course, be found completely innocent but when the group's leaders are rounded up it's a fairly safe bet that none of them will turn out to be attractive, outgoing 30-year-old women.

It was ever thus, of course: awkward teenagers entering adulthood, convinced that they know better than the stupid old grownups who control their world. In previous generations those kids would organise protest marches or start angry magazines or accidentally blow themselves up trying to make a pipe-bomb from The Anarchist Cookbook. Only a very tiny number, though, had the resources or the opportunity to even slightly inconvenience The Man. Today, however, the internet has lowered the barriers to everything: international protests can be co-ordinated through Facebook groups, blogs have removed the printing and distribution barriers from publishing, and a growing suite of online hacking tools have made it possible for a 19-year-old kid to embarrass the CIA.

Unfortunately the video game-like simplicity with which even serious crimes can be committed online makes it easy to underestimate their real world consequences. Earlier this week, the Obama administration proposed new anti-hacking laws which would provide 20-year prison terms for hackers who "endanger national security" – and, under the Extradition Act, British hackers should be in no doubt that the government will gift-wrap them and deliver them to Washington.

For that reason, the members of LulzSec are either modern-day versions of Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc's fearless gentleman thief for whom the risk of capture was part of the thrill, or they're absolute, grade A imbeciles (spoiler alert: it's the second one). We've all seen enough movies – which is to say, the first 10 minutes of Sneakers – to know what happens when you mess with the UK government. Any day now, in Wales or Warsaw or Wasilla, a spotty kid in a V for Vendetta T-shirt will be dragged from his parents' house at gunpoint and bundled – sobbing and pleading that it was all a joke – into the back of a van.

The CIA: doing it for the lulz since 1947.

• This article was amended at 12:07 on 22 June after complaints about the language used

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FBI Takes Down Servers in Quest for LulzSec Hackers - Storage (blog)

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by Jeff James

The New York Times broke the story yesterday that the FBI had seized a number of servers from a datacenter located in Reston, VA owned by web hosting provider DigitalOne (offline at press time). According to the New York Times story, the FBI reportedly had information that some of the servers at DigitalOne were used by the hacker group LulzSec, so the agency raided the facility in the early morning hours of Tuesday, June 21st.

I find this news interesting for three reasons: To begin with, this raid signifies that LulzSec has managed to finally draw the ire of the likes of the FBI, CIA, Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), and a number of other government agencies throughout Europe. All the aforementioned groups are reportedly working together to bring down LulzSec.

Secondly, initial reports surfacing about the DigitalOne raid raises some disturbing questions about the apparently destructive methods used by the FBI to confiscate servers used by LulzSec. While the data and information the FBI sought was located on a specific server, the agents involved reportedly pulled three entire enclosures of hardware from the data center, impacting dozens of DigitalOne clients who are unaffiliated with LulzSec and innocent of any wrongdoing.

Finally, that overly aggressive seizure of datacenter hardware by the FBI begins to cast further doubt on companies that are considering moving parts of their IT infrastructure into the cloud. What happens if you have critical business information co-located at a hosting provider, and the FBI or other government agency decides to seize the hardware? Windows IT Pro contributor David Chernicoff has a excellent post on this topic over at ZDNet, and any IT administrator considering the cloud for their IT resources would be wise to read it.

So what are your thoughts on the FBI raid of DigitalOne? Does the FBI's desire to stop LulzSec trump the rights of innocent parties who suffered due to their seizure of DigitalOne hardware? And what does this mean for cloud computing adoption? Let me know what you think by adding a comment to this blog post or by starting up a conversation on Twitter.

Follow Jeff James on Twitter at @jeffjames3
Follow Windows IT Pro on Twitter at @windowsitpro

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Hackers break into computer system at Conor O'Neills Irish pub in Ann Arbor ... - Detroit Free Press

Ann Arbor police say hackers broke into the computer system of a popular Irish restaurant, stealing numerous credit card and debit card numbers to make purchases.

The case came to light after the credit and debit cards were fraudulently used in the state of Texas between April 22 and June 10, police said.

Local banks traced the fraud back to Conor O?Neills Restaurant at 318 S. Main St. in Ann Arbor, and management there contacted police.

?The banks were receiving information about these fraudulent transactions and did a little digging and discovered the common point of purchase between the cases was Conor O?Neills,? Ann Arbor Police Det. Sgt. Pat Hughes said.

According to police, the restaurants? credit card processing computer was vulnerable to computer hackers, possibly from Europe, allowing them to infiltrate the system and gain access to all of the credit/debit card numbers that had been used at the business.

Police say it?s not yet known how many customers? credit and debit cards were accessed. Because the charges have taken place in other states, Ann Arbor police don?t know the total number of fraudulent credit card purchases involved, Hughes said.

Hughes said police have tracked some of the fraud to Europe and Texas and are working with authorities in other jurisdictions on the case. But, he said, these types of cases are typically complex and difficult to solve.

According to police, Conor O?Neill?s has taken the necessary measures to protect and ensure the security of its customers? credit and debit card account numbers from any future hacking attempts.

Among the numbers stolen were credit and debit cards issued by the Bank of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan Credit Union, police said.

Ann Arbor police say the investigation is continuing.

Hughes said people should be vigilant in checking their monthly credit card statements for suspicious charges. If they discover any charges they didn?t make, they should contact the bank or credit card company, he said.

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Hackers say attacks are entertainment

Computer hackers who have hit the websites of the CIA, US Senate, Sony and others during a month-long rampage say they stage the attacks for their own entertainment.

'You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and we find it funny to cause it,' the hacker group known as Lulz Security said in a 750-word online 'manifesto' on Friday.

'For the past month and a bit, we've been causing mayhem and chaos throughout the internet, attacking several targets including PBS, Sony, Fox, porn websites, FBI, CIA, the US government, Sony some more, online gaming servers,' Lulz said.

'While we've gained many, many supporters, we do have a mass of enemies, albeit mainly gamers,' Lulz said, adding that they were not concerned.

'This is the lulz lizard era, where we do things just because we find it entertaining,' said Lulz, whose name is a derivative of the text shorthand for LOL, or 'laugh out loud.'

'This is the internet, where we screw each other over for a jolt of satisfaction,' the group said.

'We release personal data so that equally evil people can entertain us with what they do with it,' Lulz said. 'And that's all there is to it, that's what appeals to our internet generation.

'We're attracted to fast-changing scenarios, we can't stand repetitiveness, and we want our shot of entertainment or we just go and browse something else, like an unimpressed zombie,' Lulz said.

The group said it will 'continue creating things that are exciting and new until we're brought to justice, which we might well be.'

Lulz has released tens of thousands of user names and passwords in recent weeks but the group said Friday they were 'sitting on' the personal information of 200,000 users of the Brink videogame.

'It might make you feel safe knowing we told you, so that Brink users may change their passwords,' Lulz said.

On Wednesday, Lulz knocked the CIA's public website, cia.gov, out of commission for about two hours.

Lulz, in a message on their Twitter feed LulzSec on Friday, also denied reports that they were in conflict with the hacker group Anonymous, from which Lulz is believed to have formed.

'To confirm, we aren't going after Anonymous,' Lulz said.

Anonymous has been staging cyberattacks for years on companies cracking down on music and movie piracy and gained notoriety last year with cyberattacks in support of controversial website WikiLeaks.

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Hackers bring down British police Website

WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) – Hackers temporarily knocked offline a Website run by the British police Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which targets organized crime in Britain and overseas.

Lulz Security, a loosely aligned hacker group which said it brought down the SOCA Website on Monday, has gone after a long list of government and corporate Websites in the past month. Like the others, it was likely a denial-of-service attack where Lulz hackers bombarded the site with so many messages that it went offline.

"We are aware of claims that the SOCA Website has been attacked. The picture is not clear at this time but we are investigating the matter with our service provider," said SOCA spokesman Richard Sellors.

Lulz also hacked into a U.S. Senate server, and claimed responsibility for temporarily knocking offline the CIA's public Website.

In a posting on Sunday, Lulz Security declared that the "Lulz Lizard battle fleet is now declaring immediate and unremitting war" on government and whitehat security.

As part of that, Lulz, which derives its name from the plural variant of Internet slang for "laugh out loud," urged its followers to hack into and deface government Websites.

"Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including e-mail spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments," Lulz said in the statement on Sunday.

Lulz said it was working with Anonymous, a second international group of hackers.

The groups' stated goals have been murky. In the past, Anonymous has sought to support Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, who face charges after releasing U.S. government documents as part of Wikileaks.

Lulz has also sought to punish Sony Corp for failing to secure data but did so by releasing the data of Sony customers, exposing them to potential identity theft.

Meanwhile, a less public and more damaging series of hackers have targeted the International Monetary Fund and RSA, the security division of EMC Corp.

(Additional reporting by Georgina Prodhan in London; Editing by Gunna Dickson)

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Sega says 1.29 mln customers' data stolen by hackers

TOKYO (AFP) – Hackers have stolen the personal data of some 1.29 million customers of the Japanese game maker Sega, the company said on Sunday, in a theft via a website of its European unit.

The Sega Pass website, operated by London-based Sega Europe, did not contain credit card information, the Japanese firm said.

But names, dates of birth, email addresses and encrypted passwords were stolen by intruders to the site, Sega said in a Japanese-language statement, adding the theft had been confirmed on Friday.

"We sincerely apologise for troubles this incident has caused to our customers," it said.

The service, which has been suspended, was mainly to announce new product information to registered customers, Sega said.

"An investigation has been launched to find the cause and channels used for the leakage," it said.

No other websites managed by Sega have come under attack, it said.

Sega pledged to strengthen its network security and to release information about the case as it becomes available.

The incident follows a series of hacker attacks on Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony in April which forced it suspend online services for weeks.

Sony suffered one of the biggest data breaches since the advent of the Internet, with personal data from 100 million accounts compromised.

The attacks forced the company to halt its Qriocity online music and video distribution services and PlayStation Network online gaming for more than a month.

Sony also suffered attacks on websites including in Greece, Thailand and Indonesia, and on the Canadian site of mobile phone company Sony Ericsson.

This month, a group of hackers known as Lulz Security claimed to have attacked the Sony Computer Entertainment Developer Network and stolen technical information, after stealing customer data from SonyPictures.com.

Websites of major media, game makers, banks and the US government have been constant targets of international hackers.

Nintendo, Citigroup, the CIA and the Malaysian government have recently come under hacker attacks.

Sega, known for "Sonic the Hedgehog", produces games for a range of consoles, including the PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's motion-control Wii.

It became a household name with popular arcade games such as "UFO Catchers" and in 1998 won a fan base with its Dreamcast machine. But it stopped producing the Dreamcast in 2001 under fierce competition from Sony and Nintendo.

The company has since focused on arcade machines and software. It saw a new lease on life after merging in 2004 with Sammy Corp., Japan's top maker of pinball slot machines.

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Teen hacker's arrest just the tip of the iceberg - Herald Sun

The dire analysis from Australian computer security experts came as UK police arrested a teenager believed responsible for a string of recent hacking attacks. Source: Getty Images

THE world is in the grip of a "techno arms race" between computer hackers and authorities.

The dire analysis from Australian computer security experts came as UK police arrested a teenager believed responsible for a string of recent hacking attacks, including the highly publicised strike on Sony's online games network.

Ryan Cleary, 19, is believed to have masterminded a global computer hacking plot from his suburban bedroom.

The alleged cyber saboteur was nabbed yesterday in a combined operation by the FBI and Scotland Yard.

The teen is believed to be a "major player" with computer hacking group Lulz Security, wanted for attacks on targets ranging from the CIA and US Senate to Nintendo and Sony.

The attacks on Sony, which began in April, forced it to shut down its online games network.

It later revealed hackers had stolen the personal details of millions of members.

A tug of war has developed between British and US prosecutors, who both want a piece of the university student described by neighbours as "very bright".

Robert McAdam, chief of security firm Pure Hacking, said the arrest was a significant victory for authorities in the escalating battle against increasingly sophisticated hackers intent on causing global mayhem.

"When you are the focus of investigators, you will get done," he said.

Limited resources meant computer security experts could not be everywhere at once and hackers were not only getter better, but bolder as a result.

"This really is a techno arms race," he said. "Except this time instead of graduating from throwing rocks to bullets and bombs, technology is the weapon and it's growing exponentially."

Mr McAdam, a former NSW policeman, said there was only one motive to explain the activities of hackers once money was taken out of the equation.

"Significance," he said.

"What you have is someone who desperately wants to demonstrate a level of importance to their peers. It's as simple as that."

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Hackers hit Sony Pictures France

PARIS, June 21 (UPI) -- Two hackers said they copied 177,172 e-mails from the Sony Pictures France Web site and posted 70 of them on the code-sharing site Pastebin.

The hackers claiming responsibility for the incident identify themselves as a Lebanese student who goes by the handle Idahc and his French friend Auth3ntiq, the technology news site CNET reported.

The hackers said they managed to lift the e-mail addresses through an SQL (structured query language) injection, a technique that exploits a security vulnerability occurring in the database layer of an application.

It's the same method that was used to extract personal data of customers from SonyPictures.com, Sony Pictures Russia, Sony Ericsson and Sony Music Entertainment Japan in recent weeks.

Jim Kennedy, executive vice president of communications for Sony Pictures, said the company is investigating the hackers' claim.

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Brazil government latest victim of hacker attack - Reuters

BRASILIA | Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:15am EDT

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Hackers briefly disabled three websites belonging to the Brazilian government early on Wednesday in the latest of an international wave of cyber attacks on companies and organizations.

The sites for Brazil's federal government, presidency, and tax collection agency were inaccessible to the public for about two and a half hours overnight but their operation has since been restored, Gilberto Paganotto, the head of Brazil's computer data agency, told Reuters.

Paganotto said the hackers did not access sensitive information from the sites. He said he was unaware of the source of the attack.

However, the website for Brazil's Estado de S.Paulo newspaper said that the Lulz Security group of hackers had taken credit for the attack.

LulzSec has made widely publicized assaults on Sony Corp, the CIA, News Corp's Fox TV, the British police Serious Organized Crime Agency and other targets. The attacks have mostly resulted in temporary disruptions to websites and the release of user credentials.

LulzSec said on Monday in a Twitter message that it was seeking to hack government websites to leak "classified government information."

(Reporting by Jeferson Ribeiro and Brian Winter; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Online brawls may be fractious hackers' downfall

LONDON (Reuters) - – The rogue hackers behind brazen cyber attacks are clever online technicians but have a critical human frailty -- petulant personalities prone to infighting that may spell disaster for their raids on spies, banks and companies.

At least that's the hope among state cyber sleuths racing to track down the Lulz Security (LulzSec) hackers responsible for a wave of attacks on Western governments and multinational companies.

Britain arrested a 19-year-old man on Tuesday as part of a joint investigation with the U.S. FBI into LulzSec, which claims responsibility for computer attacks on the U.S. CIA, Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) and Sony Corp.

Britain's top policeman called the arrest "very significant." LulzSec rejected suggestions the teenager was a leading figure.

The young cyber vandals are so technically accomplished that relying on intelligence and security agencies to beat them would be a mistake, experts say. The alternative is to turn them against each other -- a feat the Internet's anonymity and the hackers' self-absorption and competitiveness makes easier.

"Our best bet quite honestly is the fact that they are all attacking each other quite happily," said Tony Dyhouse, a security expert at Britain's ICT Knowledge Transfer Network.

He told Reuters that one tactic used by LulzSec's opponents had been to post misleading messages in its name, and then sit back and watch tempers flare online.

"Although LulzSec is growing hugely in numbers, it seems to be fighting to keep itself as a cohesive unit."

"This is our best hope, since groups like this, because they are all so ego-driven and want to remain anonymous, get different people (falsely) claiming to speak for them and so they lose control," he said.

Steve Watts of computer security firm SecurEnvoy said the hackers were driven by fame and success "so like rival businesses they will fight for the top."

But there is no room for complacency -- an attitude cyber security specialists say remains prevalent in boardrooms.

"The reality is that the skills of many hackers - where they can code in multiple languages, trace and exploit any technological or insider vulnerability - will be a match for any trained security professional," John Suffolk, a former Chief Information Officer of the British government, told Reuters.

Peter Wood, CEO of security firm First Base Technologies, said it was "all too easy to be complacent about what is perceived as 'hacktivist culture'."

TEAMING UP

LulzSec's members are believed to be scattered around the world, working together by means of secret Internet chat rooms. Suspected leaders include hackers with the handles Kayla, Sabu and Topiary, security experts say. Hackers often use several personas to confuse sleuths.

LulzSec drew heightened attention when it said this week it was teaming up with the Anonymous hacker activist group to cause more serious trouble and obtain classified information.

But in addition to cooperating, hacker groups can also battle each other online.

A hacker group opposed to LulzSec called Team Web Ninjas started a blog this month to expose LulzSec, releasing what it said were logs of conversations from a private LulzSec chatroom and providing names of alleged leaders.

Then there are occasional tensions between LulzSec and the Anonymous group, of which it is believed to be an offshoot, despite their periodic collaboration in cyber raids.

LulzSec suffered what appeared to be a public rift within its own ranks on Tuesday evening, following news of the arrest.

In response to online statements that the group had hacked the results of Britain's latest census and was about to release it online, the group put out a message saying that unless such a release was preceded by the words "Tango Down," LulzSec would not have been the entity responsible.

Ryan Cleary, named by British media as the teenager arrested on Tuesday, was himself involved in a bustup with the broader Anonymous group in May, according to hacker websites, after which Anonymous retaliated by publishing his first name.

His mother, Rita, 44, told the Daily Mail her son suffered from agoraphobia and attention deficit disorder, and had not left his home for four years.

LulzSec wrote on its Twitter website: "Clearly the UK police are so desperate to catch us that they've gone and arrested someone who is, at best, mildly associated with us. Lame."

In a comment on a hacker chatroom on Tuesday, a participant wrote: "He hasn't gone to jail and won't. It's just the police trying to get information on LulzSec, which I should imagine is why they are hyping it up (60 years in jail) to get him to talk."

LulzSec has also published the names and personal details of two individuals it says were members, in retaliation for what it said was the disclosure of information about the group to law enforcement authorities.

Dyhouse said enmities were such that it appeared that sometimes "it doesn't need us to set them against each other.... There's no honor amongst thieves."

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas in Wickford; Editing by Peter Graff)

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