Posted on Tuesday, 26th July 2011 by Nathan Thorpe

Sometimes theres just too much happening in the news cycle with regards to hackers, data breaches and identity theft. When this happens, we like to do a sort of mid-week news summary post, if you will.  Yes, it may feel like Monday morning, but fret notits Thursday and heres a special news round up.

Hackers Breach South Korean Database Hackers accessed computer databases of the company that runs South Koreas largest social network and may have obtained private details of 35 million people, the company said Thursday. SK Communications Co. operates a personal website system called Cyworld that is hugely popular in South Korea. Cyworld has 33 million users, a vast majority of adults in a country with a total population of 49 million. SK Communications said that intruders accessed systems containing its main databases on Tuesday, obtaining names, email addresses, phone numbers and resident registration numbers of its users.

Anonymous Urges PayPal boycott, condemns FBI Anonymous is lashing out today at the FBI and especially at PayPal, urging users of the electronic payments site to dump their accounts. In its latest official communique on behalf of itself and Lulz Security, the hactivist group condemned the FBI for its recent arrests of those charged in connection with hacking attacks by Anonymous in December against PayPal and a host of other companies. Complaining that the Anonymous suspects may face a fine of $500,000 and a possible 15 years of jail time, the group criticized the FBI for equating adding ones voice to a chorus with controlling a large botnet of infected computers and charging both as crimes subject to the same fines and sentences.

War Texting Attack Hacks Car Alarm System It took researcher Don Bailey a mere two hours to successfully hack into a popular car alarm system and start the car remotely by sending it a message. Bailey, a security consultant with iSec Partners, next week at Black Hat USA in Las Vegas plans to show a video of the car alarm attack he and fellow researcher Mat Solnik conducted. His Black Hat presentation is called War Texting: Identifying and Interacting with Devices on the Telephone Network. Physical security systems attached to the GSM and cellular networks, such as GPS tracking devices and car alarms, as well as traffic control systems, home control and automation systems, and SCADA sensors, are ripe for attack, according to Bailey.

Nasdaq to Strengthen Server Security to Prevent Hacker Attacks The operator of the Nasdaq Stock Market, Nasdaq OMX Group is planning to invest on strengthening its server security to prevent attack from hackers which is under constant attack, the CEO of Nasdaq said. Nasdaq OMX Group chief executive officer Robert Greifeld was quoted saying Reuters that there are people trying to slam into our system every day. Hackers entered into Nasdaqs server last year, leaving suspicious files on the exchanges servers which led to investigation by the FBI. The operator however said the trading platforms were not compromised, though some Internet-based client applications were vulnerable. The exchange operator has been facing serious attacks from hacker groups counts itself among those, including Citigroup that have had recent cyber breaches.

LulzSec, Anonymous Hacker Arrests Wont Solve Security Attacks The FBI and Scotland Yard should be praised in their ability to track down, identify and arrest members of the related hacking organizations Anonymous and LulzSec. The cyber-sleuthing they did is not easy. When you have to do it well enough for the arrest to hold up in court, it’s harder still. Unfortunately, it’s not going to solve the problem. While the arrest of 12 members of the Anonymous hacking group, as well as two of the reputed six-member LulzSec team, may have taken these specific people off the street, the fact remains there is a limitless supply of people who want to break into computer networks, the higher the profile the better. Anonymous has already threatened a retaliatory attack on the FBI for the arrests. Whether they go through with the threats and whether the attacks, if attempted, are successful remains a mystery until it happens. But it’s a virtual certainty there will be further attacks on the FBI.

Hackers Attack Web Apps Once Every Two Minutes Hackers attack Web-based applications once every two minutes on average, according to a new report by data security firm Imperva. Websites targeted by automatic cyber-attacks can be subject to even more assaults, including as many as 25,000 attacks every hour, or up to seven each second. Tracking over 10 million individual attacks from December 2010 to May 2011, the company’s Web App Attack Report reveals that strikes against business and government sites are increasing overall. Researchers further found that the majority of strikes come from domestic soil, with 61% of cyberattacks originating from “bots,” or remotely-operated PC drones, within the U.S. Countries such as China, Sweden and France also rank high in the list of sources from which attacks are launched. Per the report, the four most common types of online assaults against Web apps include directory traversal (37%), cross site scripting (36%), SQL injection (23%) and remote file inclusion (4%).

UNLV Notifies 2,000 Employees About Possible Breach of Personal Data The University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) has notified 2,000 current and former employees that their private information may have been compromised back in 2008. The possible data breach discovery was made by the UNLV Office of Information Technology during a maintenance check on a computer in the school’s Controller’s Office. The check revealed that an unauthorized person might have accessed names and social security numbers of employees in 2008. “Though unauthorized access has not been confirmed, the Office of Information Technology continuously works to ensure sensitive data are protected and has taken steps to notify those potentially affected”, UNLV said in a statement.

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