Salon.com > Hacking

Dutch police may get right to hack into computers

Thu, 02 May 2013 19:23:00 +0000

The Dutch government has proposed a bill that would give police far-reaching powers to fight cybercrime, while creating a dangerous precedent for police hacking codified into law. Via the BBC:

Under a new bill, investigators would be able to hack into computers, install spyware, read emails and destroy files.

They could also break into servers located abroad, if they were being used to block services.

Critics say the proposed measures are unnecessary and could set a dangerous precedent for people living under oppressive governments.

Use of the powers would be subject to the approval of a judge, the government stresses.

The bill would also make it a crime for a suspect to refuse to decipher encrypted files during a police investigation.

Former Reuters employee pleads not guilty to Anonymous charges

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:34:00 +0000

Matthew Keys -- the social media editor fired from his position at Reuters Monday for reasons he believes could be political -- pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal charges that he conspired with members of Anonymous to attack websites of the Tribune Co., his former employer.

According to the government's indictment, Keys provided Anonymous hackers with information including usernames and passwords to access Tribune Co. sites in late 2010, after he was fired from his job at a Tribune-owned station in Sacramento, Calif. Keys has rejected a plea bargain and, if found guilty, could face up to 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000. His attorneys argue that although Keys had communicated with Anons via online chat rooms, it was someone posing as the journalist who provided the Tribune Co. access to information.

"There's an incongruity to all of this that we're hoping to get to the bottom of in the next couple months," Keys' attorney Jay Leiderman told HuffPo.

Anonymous hits Israel over Gaza strikes

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:17:00 +0000

During Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense against Palestinians in Gaza last November, Anonymous hackers launched a mass attack on Israeli government websites. In response to the eight day assault that killed 133 Palestinians, Anonymous' #OpIsrael defaced thousands of Israeli sites and provided information for Gazans facing Internet and communications blackouts. 60 million hacking attempts were reportedly made.

Last week, Israeli airstrikes once again hit targets in Gaza, officially breaking a ceasefire established last November (although cross-border clashes have informally breached the ceasefire in recent months, leaving four Palestinians dead). In retaliation, Anonymous relaunched #OpIsrael this weekend, and according to an Anonymous spokesperson offering a partial damage report, 60,000 websites, 40,000 Facebook pages, 5,000 twitter accounts and 30,000 Israeli bank accounts got hacked, causing an estimated $3-plus billion damage, the hacker collective claim. "Not bad for 24 hours," Anonymous noted.

Attorneys launch Whistleblower Defense League

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:22:00 +0000

Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond currently awaits trial in a federal prison cell and could receive life in prison; Bradley Manning saw his 1,000 day pretrial military detention last month; Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer has been handed a 41-month prison stint after his found and exploited a security flaw in an AT&T server; Aaron Swartz's federal trial over the downloading of millions of online academic articles would have begun this week, had the young technologist not hanged himself earlier this year. The legal challenges facing whistleblowers and free-data activists, crystallized in these high profile examples to name just a few, have risen to the fore in recent months.

Wisconsin man indicted over Anonymous attack on Kochs

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:32:00 +0000

A Wisconsin man has been arrested in relation to a cyberattack claimed by Anonymous against the Koch Industries website during protests over labor rights in the state's capital in 2011. As Matt Pearce reported for the Los Angeles Times, "Officials said Eric J. Rosol, 37, of Black Creek, Wis., participated in an Anonymous-organized shutdown of Koch websites www.kochind.com and www.quiltednorthern.com on Feb. 27 and 28 in 2011."

The Anonymous action, carried out in support of public sector unions fighting to save collective bargaining rights against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting efforts, was not a hack. Rather, the hacker collective orchestrated a denial-of-service attack, or a DDOS, encouraging users to repeatedly access the website until it's too overwhelmed to function. The Koch sites were successfully but only temporarily brought down. Rosol is the first and only defendant charged in the attack. Via Pearce:

Government uses video games to recruit teen hackers

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:30:00 +0000

It's no news that the U.S. government is targeting young hackers -- but their interest is not just prosecution. As the New York Times noted Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security -- following in the footsteps of the National Security Agency -- is using computer game competitions to scout high-school hackers as possible recruits to their cyberdefense ranks.

The Times noted that , "the idea of using competitions came, in part, from China, where the People’s Liberation Army runs challenges every spring to identify its next generation of digital warriors." This is just another arena in which the cat-and-mouse cyberwar between the U.S. and China (usually with the U.S. intelligence community at the forefront) is taking shape.

Via the Times:

Twitter co-founder: Hacking not necessarily a crime

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:41:00 +0000

TechCrunch reported Thursday on an interchange between Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Lara Logan in which the former boy hacker delineates the difference between "criminal hacking" and the sort of activity that has fallen under "criminal" designations owing to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He recounted to Logan how he was hired by a software firm after he found a security flaw in its security system through hacking. TechCrunch reprinting the dialogue:

Jack Dorsey: I found a way into the website. I found a hole. I found a security hole.

Lara Logan: Is that– are you– is that the same thing as hacking?

Jack Dorsey: It’s– ha– yes. Hacking– hacking is– hacking is– is–

Lara Logan: A crime.

Jack Dorsey: Well, no. Criminal hacking is a crime. Hacking is actually a–

Lara Logan: Hacking for a job application is not a crime?

Jack Dorsey: No, no, no, no, no. No, not a crime at all. And I emailed them and I said, “You have a security hole. Here’s how to fix it. And I write dispatch software.” And–

Lara Logan: And they hired you.

Jack Dorsey: And they hired me a week later. And it was a dream come true, which is a weird dream for a kid.

Hacker Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer was this week sentenced to 41 months in prison for finding a security flaw in AT&T's server, and leaking information to Gawker. As Weev told Salon, “The government asserted that after the fact, they can declare a given access to data anyone makes public ‘unauthorized’ and have you thrown in prison." Therein lies the risks of the dangerously broad CFAA.

MIT agrees to release redacted Aaron Swartz files

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:09:00 +0000

The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced on Tuesday that the school will voluntarily release public documents related to the prosecution of the free-information activist Aaron Swartz, who killed himself in January as he faced trial on hacking charges.

The email announcement by MIT president L Rafael Reif came in response to a request on Friday by lawyers for Swartz's estate to have the US district court in Boston make the documents public. The university has come under fire for what critics say is its compliance with federal prosecutors in the legal case against Swartz. Supporters of Swartz have painted him as a zealous advocate of public online access, a martyred hero hounded to his death by the government he antagonized.

To prosecutors, the 26-year-old Swartz was a thief whose aims to make information available didn't excuse the illegal acts he was charged with: breaking into a wiring closet at MIT and tapping into its computer network to download millions of paid-access scholarly articles, which he planned to share publicly. Swartz was facing possibly decades in prison after being indicted in Boston in 2011 when he hanged himself in his Brooklyn, New York, apartment.

The documents will be released at the same time as an internal analysis of MIT's role in the Swartz case is made public. No date has been set for the release of that analysis, which is being conducted by professor Hal Abelson. The documents will have MIT employees' names blacked out in order to protect their safety, Reif wrote. The university will also black out information that might open it to further hacking attacks.

"In the time since Aaron Swartz's suicide, we have seen a pattern of harassment and personal threats," Reif wrote. "In this volatile atmosphere, I have the responsibility to protect the privacy and safety of those members of our community who have become involved in this matter in the course of doing their jobs for MIT, and to ensure a safe environment for all of us who call MIT home."

Swartz's family said his death was "the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach". Federal prosecutors have defended their pursuit of the case and say Swartz was offered a deal under which he would have spent just four to six months in prison. Charges were dropped after Swartz's death.

A lawyer for Swartz's estate welcomed Reif's decision, but questioned MIT's need for secrecy and worried that documents with names blacked out would be "incomprehensible and impossible to follow". "It's long overdue that they've agreed to release something," San Francisco-based attorney Elliot Peters said. "But I don't see the reason to redact. I am not aware of any threats having been made to anybody at MIT. I don't know why that's a concern."

Lawyers for Swartz's estate said in their filing on Friday that "the public has an important and clearly established interest in receiving the information necessary to understand the events that led to Aaron Swartz's arrest and indictment."

Peters said: "It would show what happened and show the role MIT had in this."

The lawyers asked that names remain in the documents if released. "Redaction of these individuals' names would merely add a layer of confusion and opacity to the documents without any additional privacy benefit," they wrote.

MIT's computer system has been hacked a number times since Swartz's death. The campus was placed into lockdown last month when someone called to report a gunman in a university building. MIT later said the gunman report was a hoax apparently prompted by Swartz's death.

Five things we know about “Guccifer”

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:00:00 +0000

As we noted earlier Tuesday, the hacker known as "Guccifer" has struck again, disseminating via playful emails memos from Hillary Clinton (hacked from the email account of Sid Blumenthal). But what do we know about this political prankster?

1. "Guccifer" hits high profile targets from both sides of the aisle:

The hacker first rose to prominence with an audacious hack on Bush family email accounts. It was through this hack on several accounts that Guccifer obtained the now-infamous George W. Bush self-portrait of himself in the shower.

According to the Smoking Gun, Guccifer's victim list also includes a "U.S. Senator, a senior United Nations official, security contractors in Iraq, two former FBI agents, and a Department of Defense supervisor."

Guccifer also infiltrated Colin Powell’s email account and defaced his Facebook page, uploading posts including a message that read “You will burn in hell, Bush!”

Cyberwar manual: Civilian hackers can be targets

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:10:00 +0000

With the support of NATO, legal experts have released a manual as a first broad attempt to codify how international law applies to state-sponsored hacking. The handbook, authored by legal experts working in conjunction with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the U.S. Cyber Command, details what is or is not a legitimate target in cyberwarfare.

It states not only that full-scale conventional wars may be triggered by cyberattacks, but that civilian "hacktivists" can be targeted with conventional weapons if their cyberattacks seriously damage property or cause deaths. The handbook, titled "The Tallinn manual," is primarily advisory and is not an official NATO document; the rules of cyberwarfare remain hotly debated. As the HuffPo U.K. pointed out, experts were divided on exactly when a civilian hacker might be a target. The manual explicitly notes that consensus has not been reached on this issue:

Hacker “Guccifer” distributes Hillary Clinton’s Libya memos

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:10:00 +0000

Update – March 19, 11:33 a.m.: This post is updated to reflect the fact that Sidney Blumenthal was formerly a Washington bureau chief for Salon.

From earlier:

Last week it was reported that a hacker going by "Guccifer" had gained access to the personal email account of former Clinton White House aide (and confidant to Hillary) Sidney Blumenthal. On Tuesday, according to The Smoking Gun, Guccifer began sharing contents found in Blumenthal AOL account (yes, Sidney Blumenthal still uses AOL mail).

In playful emails, the hacker disseminated four recent memos on Libya sent by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a "wide array of congressional aides, political figures, and journalists worldwide." The Smoking Gun reported that, "most of the e-mail recipients were sent four separate memos that were e-mailed to Clinton by Blumenthal during the past five months. Each memo dealt with assorted developments in Libya, including the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. One memo marked “Confidential” was sent to Clinton on September 12."

Hacker “Weev” gets three years for accessing AT&T data

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:48:00 +0000

Before Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer entered the Newark courtroom Monday to receive his sentence and begin a 41-month stint in prison, the loudmouthed hacker stood before gathered supporters and read from Keats' "The Fall of Hyperion - A Dream."

"Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave/ A paradise for a sect; the savage too/ From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep/ Guesses at Heaven ..." So begins the epic -- an appropriately grandiose reading for the hacker-cum-troll to choose. Keats' poem tells a story of transcendence, in which poets and dreamers are challenged, persecuted and deified. And Auernheimer (his tongue ever wedged in his cheek) is asking for a little deification too. He is the latest victim in the government's harsh crackdown on hackers -- and he wants you to know it.

Reuters’ Matthew Keys indicted for aiding Anonymous

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:20:00 +0000

Updated, March 15.: According to the AP, Reuters has suspended Matthew Keys with pay. Keys took to Twitter to reassure friends that he is "fine." He noted, "I found out the same way most of you did: From Twitter. Tonight I'm going to take a break. Tomorrow, business as usual."

Original post: Matthew Keys, a deputy social media editor for Reuters, could face up to 25 years in prison. According to a Justice Department announcement Keys has been indicted for allegedly providing members of Anonymous with log-in credentials for a computer server belonging to the Tribune Company (where Keys formerly worked), according to the DoJ's press release.

Via the DoJ:

U.S. database on cyber-vulnerabilities is hacked

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:06:00 +0000

A government database on computer vulnerability has a vulnerability problem of its own. According to reports Thursday, the National Vulnerability Database website -- which includes databases of security checklists and security-related software flaws -- was among sites taken down for two weeks after malware was discovered on their servers.

A number of other sites also belonging to the National Institute of Standards and Technology were also affected. The government agency released the following statement:

NIST began investigating the cause of the unusual activity and the servers were taken offline. Malware was discovered on two NIST Web servers and was then traced to a software vulnerability.

No “cyber Pearl Harbor” on the horizon

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:19:00 +0000

Contrary to former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's ominous warning last year that the U.S. could be vulnerable to a "cyber Pearl Harbor," director of national intelligence James Clapper said there were no current cyberthreats of this scale to U.S. infrastructure.

As Wired's Kim Zetter reported on Clapper's comments to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday, he said "that lack of skills on the part of most attackers and the ability to override attacks on critical infrastructure with manual controls would make such attacks unfeasible in the near future. He also said that nation states that might have the skills to pull off such an attack lack the motive at this point."

Clapper stated (via Wired):

China says U.S. hackers target its military websites

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

While the Obama administration has condemned ongoing cyberattacks against U.S. institutions believed to originate with the Chinese military, China Thursday claimed it was a two-way street. China's defense minister said Thursday that of the approximately 1.7 million cyberattacks launched against two of its military websites last year, two-thirds came from the U.S..

"The defence ministry and China military online websites have faced a serious threat from hacking attacks since they were established, and the number of hacks has risen steadily in recent years," said a ministry spokesman, Geng Yansheng, on Thursday according to Reuters."According to the IP addresses, the websites were, in 2012, hacked on average from overseas 144,000 times a month, of which attacks from the US accounted for 62.9 percent."

China has called "groundless" claims that one of its military is responsible for hacks against U.S. corporations, newspapers and government sites, but evidence gathered by security firm Mandiant reportedly points strongly to one People’s Liberation Army unit based in the outskirts of Shanghai.

Anonymous group claims to show BofA monitored hackers, activists

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:10:00 +0000

An Anonymous group, identifying itself as Par:AnoIA (aka Anonymous Intelligence Agency) has released 14 Gigabytes of data, code and software that it claims shows how Bank of America employed security firms to monitor hackers and activists.

In a Wednesday press release, Par:AnoIA stated that the data "shows that Bank of America and others are contracting other companies to spy and collect information on private citizens." The release also notes, however, that the "overall quality of the research is poor and potentially false."

The data was not obtained through any hack, but was "stored on a misconfigured server and basically open for grabs."

Leaked documents reveal that TEKSystems assembled reports on both Occupy Wall Street online activity and hackers throughout 2012. But the hackers group called such "intelligence" "sloppy, random and valueless":

Trump lawyer: Twitter, cops investigating hack

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:36:00 +0000

"I just got done talking to the precinct," Donald Trump's executive vice president and special counsel, Michael Cohen, told Salon this afternoon. Donald Trump's often-inflammatory Twitter feed had taken an unusual turn this morning, with a single instance of a Lil Wayne lyric getting sent out, then promptly deleted.

"The police and Twitter are both investigating," said the special counsel. He noted that he had just become aware "this has been happening a lot, with McDonald's and Ford" (in actuality, Burger King and Jeep) getting hacked on Twitter. Cohen noted that Trump had been giving a speech in Florida at the time the Tweet was sent.

One possible explanation closed off? The notion that someone else has been writing Trump's tweets and inadvertently posted a personal update to the wrong account; Cohen said that Trump writes all his Tweets himself.

Donald Trump claims Lil Wayne “hoes” tweet was a hack

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:30:00 +0000

Donald Trump's Twitter account posted and then quickly deleted a tweet that quoted a Lil Wayne rap lyric, which Trump claims was the result of a hack.

The original tweet said: "These hoes think they classy, well that's the class I'm skippen."

Trump then tweeted:

[embedtweet id="304636780903288834"]

Chinese army unit tied to hacks on U.S.

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, when the New York Times reported that it had been the target of hacks from China, the paper noted that the attacks were likely connected to the Chinese military. On Tuesday, the Times reported that, based on evidence confirmed by U.S. intelligence officials, there is "little doubt" that "an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies" originate from one People’s Liberation Army unit based in the outskirts of Shanghai.

A study released Tuesday by U.S. security firm Mandiant identified PLA Unit 61398 as the most likely perpetrators of the hacks. Mandiant had been tracking hacks perpetrated by the so-called "Comment Crew" for over six years before concluding that the hackers were part of Unit 61398. Via the Times: