Police group members react to Anonymous hacking

news10.net
SACRAMENTO, CA - A day after Anonymous hacked into California Statewide Law Enforcement Association's website, CSLEA members are still learning about the security breach.

Plus, the CSLEA homepage is still down.

RELATED STORY: Thousands affected after Anonymous hacks police union website

The well-known international hacking group released the names, home addresses, and phone numbers of public safety professionals, many of them police officers. It also exposed credit card information on purchases made in their online gift shop.

Anonymous claimed on their post that they have 2,500 names and passwords, and in some cases, credit card numbers. The hacker group justified releasing the information asserting, "California law enforcement officers are notorious for brutality."

Union president Alan Barcelona said CSLEA had information taken in November. All members who had their information breached then were contacted by phone or letter. The letter, dated Nov. 10, "confirms that credit card information of customers of the CSLEA online store had been compromised"

It stated, "Fortunately, most of the credit cards that were compromised had expired." And, it went on to state, "Additionally, all of the information which was previously maintained on the site has been purged."

Teresa Dobbins, an employee of the Department of Justice, never got word of the breach in November. And she wasn't informed that her personal information, including her email address, phone number, and home address, were leaked onto the web New Year's Day, until News 10 contacted her.

"If they were aware of it, they should have tried to notify me before the media did," Dobbins said.

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Fox-IT and TNO to Work on System for Detecting Digital Espionage

digitaljournal.com

Delft, The Netherlands (PRWEB) November 16, 2011

The threat of targeted cyber attacks, especially digital espionage is increasing rapidly. The current security measures against cybercrime focus primarily on the detection of massive and indiscriminate attacks. To protect businesses and governments against cyber espionage Fox-IT and TNO are developing the Cyber Attack Detector (CAD).

Analyzing a large number of digital espionage indicators will allow users to be instantly alerted when there are activities that indicate fraud or espionage. The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation in The Netherlands has granted €800,000 via the “Innovation for Public Security” program for the development of this joint solution.

Digital espionage threat is increasing, protection lagging
The social and economic impact of cybercrime is increasing, as is the demand for an effective protection against cybercrime. The attack methods of the digital spy have become more sophisticated, with increasing reports of very specific and targeted attacks. Traditional protective equipment such as intrusion detection systems, firewalls, virus scanners, and log analyzers offer inadequate protection.

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Expert says UK government is too preoccupied with launching cyber attacks

computing.co.uk

A security expert has claimed that the UK is devoting most of its cyber crime fighting efforts to cyber attack, leaving limited resources for defence.

Speaking exclusively to Computing, Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the Cambridge University computer laboratory, stated that 90 per cent of the government's recent funding injection into cyber security was going to the UK's offensive capability.

"The spooks - GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters, pictured] - are getting 90 per cent of this new £650m for cyber security [they are responsible for cyber attacks]. The rest, about £65m, is going to the police."

Anderson blamed the imbalance on the fact that the UK's cyber defence capabilities are organisationally placed within GCHQ, the body responsible for electronic espionage, or cyber attack.

"Like the US, the UK has unfortunately got the government's offensive and defensive arms linked together.

"CESG [Communications-Electronic Security Group], which is supposedly defending the core functions of government against for example cyber espionage by the Chinese, is a small subsidiary of GCHQ whose job is exploiting those sources abroad.

"This mixed mission is very bad policy, because it means defensive interests are always less important than an offensive approach."

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Chinese Military TV Show Reveals More Than Intended

theepochtimes.com



A standard, even boring, piece of Chinese military propaganda screened in mid-July included what must have been an unintended but nevertheless damaging revelation: shots from a computer screen showing a Chinese military university is engaged in cyberwarfare against entities in the United States.



The documentary itself was otherwise meant as praise to the wisdom and judgment of Chinese military strategists, and a typical condemnation of the United States as an implacable aggressor in the cyber-realm. But the fleeting shots of an apparent China-based cyber-attack somehow made their way into the final cut.



The screenshots appear as B-roll footage in the documentary for six seconds—between 11:04 and 11:10 minutes—showing custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university. As of Aug. 22 at 1:30pm EDT, in addition to Youtube, the whole documentary is available on the CCTV website.



The screenshots show the name of the software and the Chinese university that built it, the Electrical Engineering University of China's People's Liberation Army—direct evidence that the PLA is involved in coding cyber-attack software directed against a Chinese dissident group.



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Cyber attack shows constant threat to key intel

cbsnews.com
(CBS/AP)

The attempted hacking of defense contractor Lockheed Martin once again shined the spotlight on the security of the high-tech infrastructure guarding the United States' most closely held secrets.

The threat of attacks by enemies of the United States on the country's cyber security is one that has been known about for years, officials and experts in the field of national security have said.

(Last year, a former chief of U.S. intelligence told "60 Minutes" that the United States was unprepared for cyber attacks.)

Cyber war: Sabotaging the system
Video: Full "60 Minutes" segment
Video: Hacking the D.O.D.

Joel Brenner, who held the title of national counterintelligence executive from 2006 to 2009, told the Reuters news agency Tuesday that not just Lockheed Martin but most large defense contractors, if not all of them, have had their networks breached.

"This has been happening since the late '90s," he told Reuters before referring to China, Iran and Russia, three countries he said are the American government's main suspects of cyber espionage. "They're after our weapons systems and R&D."

That research and development is of interest to the more than 100 intelligence groups the Defense Department says have tried to crack American cyber security, Reuters reported.

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Lockheed attack highlights rise in cyber espionage

forbes

NEW YORK -- Lockheed Martin Corp. has admitted it was the recent target of a "significant and tenacious" cyber attack, although the defense contractor and the Department of Homeland Security insist the hack was thwarted before any critical data was stolen.

But what about next time? With top-secret military programs at stake, staying a step ahead of ever-evolving cyber spies is not just a task for corporate IT departments, it's a matter of national security. Information security experts say the rash of cyber attacks this year - including a massive security breach at Sony Corp. ( SNE - news - people ) last month that affected millions of PlayStation users - has emboldened hackers and made them more willing to pursue sensitive information.

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Cyber-Hackers: Faster, Better Equipped Than You...

registeredrep.com

Mark Clancy is intimately familiar with the in’s and out’s of cyber hacking attacks. As managing director and Corporate Information Security Officer at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Clancy’s job is to pay attention to how crooks use virtual highways to steal data and assets — and stay a step ahead. Today that means much more than loading up some anti-virus software and patching an operating system.

“Mass attacks still continue, but the more sophisticated ones are targeted attacks,” says Clancy. “This style uses social engineering where they collect information they can find on the Internet about a broker or a client, and then send an email so the conversation seems more plausible. And in the broker/dealer world, bad guys are going after more high-net-worth clients. You go where the money is.”

Cyber attacks are not just the territory of large Wall Street firms—independents too have chinks in their armor. And while an 8-man advisory may not have seemed like the prime target for a hack a few years ago, that’s no longer true as criminals have gotten more specific about who they target, in an effort to maximize their return on investment.

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Industrial espionage has a new bogeyman

businesstimes.com.sg
Former cyber-security adviser to White House accuses China of systematically stealing trade secrets; detractors say he's just trying to sell his book on the subject.

THE man who once advised the White House on cyber security has accused the Chinese government of condoning and probably helping to fund the stealing of trade secrets and research from other countries.

This startling assertion, which could invite a sharp response from China, has divided experts in the field. Some accuse Richard A Clarke of deliberate sensationalism while others say there could be some truth in his allegations.

Mr Clarke, who is currently chairman of corporate risk management firm Good Harbor Consulting, resigned in 2003 after 30 years in the US government.

Notably, he spent 11 years in the White House holding posts including special adviser to the president for cyber security and national coordinator for security and counterterrorism.

During a stopover in Singapore last week to speak at an Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) seminar, Mr Clarke said: 'There is evidence that the government of China is complicit in systematic international industrial espionage on a very large scale.'

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Top Spy Agency Has Been Brought In To Investigate The NASDAQ Cyber-Attack

businessinsider.com
Remember the cyber attack on Nasdaq that happened last October?

Now, the country's top electronic intelligence -- aka spying -- agency, the National Security Agency (NSA, is getting involved the investigation, because it turns out that attack "was more severe than first disclosed," Bloomberg reports.

A former counter-intelligence agent said that, "By bringing in the NSA, that means they think they’re either dealing with a state-sponsored attack or it’s an extraordinarily capable criminal organization."

Foreign intelligence agencies are also reportedly helping out the in the probe. Initially investigators thought the hacking intrusion originated in Russia, but that report was wrong.

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Government cyber-crime report just sales puffery

techwatch.co.uk

You might recall that last week, consultant firm Detica produced a report on the overall cost of cyber-crime in the UK, in conjunction with the government Office of Cyber Security.

The damage of which was calculated to be £27 billion per year lopped off the British economy, a rather staggering figure to claim. Of course, it’s very difficult to quantify these sort of measurements.

A professor from the London School of Economics was certainly unimpressed with this estimation, and pointed out an interesting fact – that Detica is owned by BAE Systems, and the whole report was a “sales promotion exercise” on behalf of the latter.

Peter Sommer told ComputerWeekly: “The whole report has been orientated to areas in which BAE can offer its facilities and services.”

He noted that entire swathes of cyber-crime offences were discarded by the report, with child pornography perhaps the biggest problem area which was ignored.

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Utah's $1.5 billion cyber-security "Spy" center underway

deseretnews.com

CAMP WILLIAMS — Today's groundbreaking for a $1.5 billion National Security Administration data center is being billed as important in the short term for construction jobs and important in the long term for Utah's reputation as a technology center.

"This will bring 5,000 to 10,000 new jobs during its construction and development phase," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said on Wednesday. "Once completed, it will support 100 to 200 permanent high-paid employees."

Officially named the Utah Data Center, the facility's role in aggregating and verifying dizzying volumes of data for the intelligence community has already earned it the nickname "Spy Center." Its really long moniker is the Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center — the first in the nation's intelligence community.

A White House document identifies the Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative as addressing "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation, but one that we as a government or as a country are not adequately prepared to counter." The document details a number of technology-related countermeasures to the security threat.

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Cyberespionage At A Crossroads

darkreading.com
Aurora and Stuxnet-type attacks are here to stay, so organizations need a new defense strategy

It has been a milestone week in cyberespionage developments that smacked of a spy movie, with a confession, a killing, and a leaked intelligence cable: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a statement that "enemies" of Iran had successfully used software to disrupt centrifuges in Iran's nuclear facility, Iran's top nuclear scientist was assassinated, and a U.S. State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks suggested the Chinese government had ordered the Aurora attack against Google.

While these events and disclosures fell short of providing actual proof about the success or even who was really behind these high-profile breaches, they punctuated what has been a game-changer of a year for cyberattacks.

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The 7 worst cyberattacks in history (that we know about)

dvice.com
We get a little taste of cyber attacks all the time — look no further than this week's Twitter virus — but what about full-on cyber warfare? Recently the true destructive potential of a cyber attack became frighteningly clear: whole government, banking and military networks overloaded and shut down, vital data and money stolen, and even physical damage if the right components are targeted. The worst part? We usually only find out after the fact.

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Smoke, mirrors, cloaks and daggers

jpost.com

Journalists Nissim Mishal and Michael Bar-Zohar delve into the shadowy world of Israel’s secret espionage wars in new book on Mossad, which turns out to be a uniquely Zionist organization.

"As night fell, an unidentified yacht approached in the dark. Two frogmen, carrying sniper rifles, swam underwater and took up position in front of Suleiman’s house. A wireless signal alerted them. They stood up in the shallow water and fired one bullet each. The bullets hit Suleiman in the forehead and he fell forward, his head coming to rest in the plate in front of him. Nobody heard the shots. Nobody saw the sharpshooters, who quietly slipped away under the cover of darkness".

That, according to Mossad – The Great Operations, a book by Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal which was published in Hebrew last month, is how Suleiman met his end.

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THE U.S. CONNECTION

mirror.co.uk

EXCLUSIVE: Chiefs mourn loss of 'genius'

The full extent of murdered spy Gareth Williams' role in the world of espionage slowly began to emerge last night.

He was rated as one of the best codebreakers in the business - an elite agent who fought in secret to thwart al-Qaeda terror attacks at home and abroad.

And the 31-year-old maths genius's unique skills were also recognized by spy chiefs across the Atlantic.

Despite a dislike of flying, he regularly traveled from London to Baltimore to meet US National Security Agency officials at their Fort Meade HQ - dubbed the Puzzle Palace.

He made the trip up to four times a year "on business" for the Government's GCHQ listening post.

Last night his uncle told how he would mysteriously disappear for up to three or four weeks at a time.

Speaking at his farmhouse at Anglesey, North Wales, Michael Hughes said: "The trips were very hush-hush. They were so secret that I only recently found out about them - and we're a very close family. It had become part of his job in the past few years. His last trip out there was a few weeks ago, but he was regularly back and forth."

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DoD Publicly Cites Chinese Cyberespionage Against U.S.

darkreading.com

The Defense Department this week called out China for waging cyberattacks on U.S. companies and government agencies.

The "Annual Report To Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2010" report this week marks the Pentagon's most public statements yet about China's alleged cyberespionage efforts. The DoD report says in 2009, "numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be the target of intrusions that appear to have originated within" China, according to an Associated Press article on the DoD's report.

DoD maintains that China was "focused on exfiltrating information, some of which could be of strategic or military utility" in those attacks. It stopped short of confirming that the People's Liberation Army in China either executed or endorsed the attacks, but noted that "developing capabilities for cyberwarfare is consistent with PLA military writings."

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Cybercriminals having easy time cracking corporate networks

usatoday.com
Verizon today issued its annual Data Breach Investigation Report, timed for the opening day of the giant Black Hat cybersecurity convention in Las Vegas.

It's not widely known that the telecom giant is home to a crack cybersecurity forensics team. Over the past half dozen or so years, Verizon's cybersleuths have been retained by large organizations to probe more than 900 separate cases of data theft in which some 900 million records were compromised. Based on direct evidence from those hands-on probes of real hacks, Verizon's annual breach report stands apart from other cybersecurity studies, many of which are based on subjective, anecdotal opinions of survey respondents.

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Cyberattack Drill Shows U.S. Unprepared

informationweek.com
A group of high-ranking former federal officials scramble to react to mobile phone malware and the failure of the electricity grid in a staged exercise.

"Cyber Shockwave," conceived and executed by the Bipartisan Policy Center along with experts in cybersecurity, simulated such an attack on Tuesday -- and discovered that the U.S. is ill-prepared to handle a large scale cyberattack.

In an effort to spur U.S. officials to take cybersecurity more seriously, Cyber Shockwave brought together a group of former high-ranking White House, Cabinet, and national security officials to see how they would deal with such a crisis in realtime. Imagine what would happen if a massive cyberattack hit the U.S., crippling mobile phones and overwhelming both telephone infrastructure and the electricity grid.

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Companies unprepared for cybercrime

news.cnet.com
Many organizations are focused on stopping random hackers and blocking pornography when they should be concerned with bigger threats from professional cybercriminals, according to a new cybersecurity report.

In a survey conducted last year of 523 IT and security managers, top-level executives, and law enforcement personnel, hackers were rated the biggest threat, followed by insiders and foreign entities--probably because hackers are the "noisiest and easiest to detect," the 2010 CyberSecurity Watch Survey concluded.

However, attackers from nation-states and organized crime syndicates use more sophisticated techniques that can do more economic damage and go undiscovered, said the report, sponsored by Deloitte and conducted in collaboration with CSO Magazine, the U.S. Secret Service, and the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon.

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Botnets: "The Democratization of Espionage"

csoonline.com

The cyber attacks against Google, Adobe and a raft of other top U.S. corporations late last year were by most accounts sophisticated and targeted attempts to steal proprietary data. But lost in all of the resulting media hoopla over who the remaining victims were and whether Chinese hackers or indeed the Chinese government itself were responsible is the simple, terrifying truth that individual hackers now have access to the same arsenal of cyber weapons once reserved only for nation states.

The weapons at issue are, of course, botnets -- agglomerations of remotely controlled, hacked computers that are used for a variety of criminal purposes, from spam, to high-powered, distributed online attacks against virtual targets. In these attacks, the botnets acted as a sort of "cloud" data collection and storage network.

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