Hacking

‘Self-Proclaimed’ Leader Of LulzSec Arrested

The Australian Federal Police have confirmed that they have arrested the alleged leader of notorious hacking group Lulzsec in Sydney. The alleged leader of the group, which spent its time breaching the CIA, Sony and News Corporation lives in Point Claire, NSW. He was arrested yesterday and is being charged with hacking offenses. Federal Police…

Whoops, CBS Got Twitter-Hacked And Spat Out Virus-y Links (Update: There’s More!)

Twitter hacks are an unfortunate reality of everyday social media life. Today, it was CBS’s 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, and CBS Denver accounts that took the hit and started dishing out some linkbait-y tweets with a virus-laiden garnish. Careful what you click. https://gizmodo.com/burger-king-twitter-hacked-into-mcdonalds-update-acco-5985058 Unlike other Twitter hacks of late, this one wasn’t particularly funny, and…

Cody Kretsinger, one of the LulzSec hackers behind 2011’s Sony breach, has just been sentenced to a year behind bars.

Pirate Bay Co-Founder Charged With Hacking and Fraud in Sweden

Pirate Bay cofounder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg has been charged on suspicion that he hacked into a variety of companies, as well as fraudulently withdrawing money from the Swedish Nordea bank. Prosecutors claim he—along with three others—hacked IBM mainframes belonging to tax firm Logica and the bank. The crimes are said to have occurred between 2010…

FAA: No, You Can’t Take Down a Plane With an Android App

Remember how the internet got itself all riled up a few days ago when it found out that it would only take one rogue Android user to hack and take over an entire plane? Yeah, about that—it’s not true. https://gizmodo.com/how-a-single-android-phone-can-hack-an-entire-plane-5994356 When Hugo Teso gave his demonstration at the Hack In The Box security conference, he…

How a Single Android Phone Can Hack an Entire Plane

If airlines were already keen to keep your phone switched off, things could soon get even more militant. According to a talk by Hugo Teso at the Hack In The Box security conference, it’s possible to hack an entire plane using an Android smartphone. Gulp. Teso—a commercial airline pilot turned computer security consultant—explained to the…

Attempts To Dodge Chinese Hacking May Backfire As Usual

With concern about Chinese hacking on the rise, Congress passed new restrictions on buying equipment from China last month as part of a funding bill. The measures ban some federal purchases of networked equipment “produced, manufactured or assembled” by any group with a strong connection to China. But members of the tech community, including the…

North Korea’s Twitter and Flickr Accounts Have Been Hacked

A team of hackers appears to have broken into North Korea’s official, government-run Twitter and Flickr accounts. Evidence left on the sites suggests that the hacks on the social media accounts were carried out by Anonymous activists. North Koreas’s Uriminzokkiri Twitter and Flickr accounts started sending out atypical messages and images several hours ago (see…

Even Grandma Could Tell This Isn’t How Hacking Works

It’s a common little meta-game for those of us who are technically competent: keep your eye out in the movies for the most egregious technical misrepresentation you can find. And while its one thing to just keep tossing of reference after reference to “the mainframe,” this complication of hacktastic scenes put together by the folks…

Are Hackers Heroes?

“Hacker” is one of the most loaded Internet words getting thrown around these days. To many (hi cable news), the label is inherently malicious, and goes hand in hand with threats to blow up the interwebs. Others who self-identify as such, will never ever stop whining about how it means just the opposite. But are…

The 1970s Version of 4Chan Relied on Telephones for Their Pranks

Journalist and hacker historian Phil Lapsley has just published an incredible book about the early days of phone phreaking, Exploding the Phone. In the late 1960s and early 70s, people like Steve Wozniak were running around doing things to telephones that today people would do to the internet. We’ve got a great excerpt from the…

An Ode to Hollywood’s Obsession With Hacking the Mainframe

The term ‘mainframe’ doesn’t get thrown around as much as buzzwords like ‘cloud computing’ these days; except in Hollywood. The movies are still obsessed with the idea of someone hacking into the mainframe. Or, to be more specific, “hacking the mainframe” is still a convenient but lazy plot device that lets characters discover vital expository…

Report: Apple Passwords Can Be Reset With Just Email and Birthday

Have you turned on your Apple ID two-step verification yet? You’ll want to get on that. A report from The Verge indicates that if you haven’t, hackers can change your password with nothing more than your email address and your birthday. https://gizmodo.com/apple-just-fixed-a-huge-security-hole-with-two-step-ver-5991755 Apparently, the exploit involves using a modified URL and then supplying the correct…

NATO-Commissioned Report Says Killing Hackers Is Basically OK

Cyber-warfare is all well and civilized when it’s confined to a tit-for-tat hacking of banks, but it’s got the potential to spiral out of control real fast. To try and prevent that, and save the world from a hacked-WoW-account-induced apocalypse, NATO’s comissioned a set of international laws to try and make cyber-warfare more…civilized. Despite how…

Is This the 20 Year Old Hacker Wreaking Havoc With Journalists Everywhere?

Security writer Brian Krebs has stumbled across new information which could link the recent hack of his own website with attacks on Ars Technica and Gizmodo alumnus Mat Honan’s iCloud breach. https://gizmodo.com/apple-and-amazon-know-about-a-massive-hack-exploit-and-5932176 Following his own lead—that he was the target of a team of hackers annoyed by an article he wrote about a black market…

Hackers Team Up To Steal $40,000 in Subway Gift Cards

If that $3 million credit-card stealing scam that hit Subway in 2011 didn’t convince you to stop using your credit card there (or stop going all together), you might want to consider it again. Recently released documents show that another pair of ne’er-do-wells are accused of running a similar scam on the restaurant for an…

The NSA Is Training 13 Teams of Covert Hackers to Attack Other Countries

For the first time, the United States has officially disclosed plans to develop counterattack measures against foreign nations’ cyberattacks. General Keith Alexander, chief of the military’s Cyber Command and the NSA, told Congress yesterday the military is training 13 teams of programmers and computer experts to carry out offensive attacks. As disclosures to Congress go,…

What It’s Like to Be a Chinese Military Hacker

All-black stealth suits, fingers flying across keyboards, screams of unintelligible jargon at Matrix-style lines of code. These are the things that generally come to mind when you hear the phrase “foreign military hacking unit”—or at least the mind of anyone who’s seen a movie in the past 10 years. But as the Los Angeles Times…

Our friends over at Jalopnik found some amazing Russian car nuts who hacked their Opel to be driven by an iPad.

Ben Heck Ends the Console Wars By Cramming Them All Into One Box

Hacker, modder, and DIYer extraordinaire Ben Heck has seemingly done the impossible with his latest project. For years a fierce battle has raged between proponents of the big three gaming consoles, but to finally bring peace and civility to gaming forums across the land, Heck created an all-in-one console that combines a PS3, an Xbox…