By ADuch -

In the case of the hacked call, the FBI confirmed that the recent recording of their conversation with Scotland Yard was indeed authentic. An investigation is now taking place, but Anonymous does not seem to be worried. In response to this, the group continues to put things out to the public. This time around they posted an email that displayed all of the email addresses of the people who participated in the call.

Now what exactly happened? Investigators believe that someone on the secure email network sent out an email to his or her private email account. This email held the password and location number of the conference call and was ultimately hacked by Anonymous once it founds its way to the private email account.

If this is the case, security experts believe “that the weakest links in cyber security systems are the humans who use it.” According to VP of KNOS Project, “If there’s any blame to be placed for the compromise,” he says, “it has to be laid at the feet of those who configured the teleconferencing systems that answered the phone without screening the calls first.”

To read more about this story, please click here.

By ADuch -

2011 was a record breaking year for data breaches. Will 2012 be the same? If companies do not tighten up their security, it may just be.

In recent news, another popular website fell victim to a cyber-attack.  Zappos.com, an online shoe and clothing retailer, was hacked by an unknown criminal who was able to tap into their internal network/systems through one of the company’s servers in Kentucky. So what exactly was stolen?

According to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, the unknown criminal genius was able to nab customer names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, the last four digits on their credit card number, and a “cryptographically scrambled” version of their website password. In response to this, Zappos immediately emailed its 24 million customers explaining the situation at hand. They also advised their customers to reset their current Zappos passwords and to change their passwords on any other website that uses the same email address.

At this moment, Zappos does not know when they were attacked. Nor do they know how long the attacker had access to their internal networks. What they do know is that they will be temporarily closing their phone lines and answering all questions through email.

Although this was not a heavy breach, the attack still hurts the company. It disrupts the company’s activity, performance, and it ultimately affects their customers.

For more on the attack on Zappos, click here.

By ADuch -

In the past, hackers such as LulzSec have become responsible for high profile attacks. Although some of these hackers have called it quits, their work has become an inspiration to many other hackers. Today, a new hacker has made his mark.

Comodohacker, a 21 year old Iranian student, tapped into roughly 300,000 Iranian Gmail accounts this summer, prompting Google to warn the entire country. Unlike LulzSec and many other hackers, he’s not doing it for kicks and giggles. He’s doing it for his country and the Iranian government.

In an email exchange with The New York Times, Comodohacker explains his motives for the hack:

“My country should have control over Google, Skype, Yahoo, etc.,” he said by e-mail. “I’m breaking all encryption algorithms and giving power to my country to control all of them.”

With motives like these, Comodohacker is definitely dangerous. This should be a wake-up call for many individuals and major internet firms.

The 21 year old software engineer also claimed he was responsible for the breach of Comodo, the attack on Dutch company DigiNotar and an intrusion in GlobalSign’s website.

Read the full story at NYTImes.com and learn more about Comodohacker:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/technology/hacker-rattles-internet-security-circles.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

By Erik Small -

If you haven’t already heard, email marketing firm Epsilon fell victim to a security breach. The company manages millions of email addresses and campaigns for a long list of clients…like Walgreens, Target, Best Buy, Brookstone and many other big names. We don’t have details on the exact method or failure point of the security breach, but this sort of news perks our ears at FileTransferPlanet.
Read the latest post regarding the Epsilon security breach from Ipswitch’s Hugh Garber.