Hacking News(Ready)

hack4u wrote: Last fall, the U.S. Secret Service announced the arrest of 28 people from eight states and six countries who were allegedly involved in a global organized cybercrime ring. Charges filed ranged from identity theft to computer fraud.****

Fuck!! they can actually do that!!

Great article though. This newsletter gonna be amazing

Hackers attacked Microsoft's Korean News site Microsoft's popular MSN website in South Korea was taken off-line for nearly half a day after hackers booby-trapped it to try to steal passwords from visitors. The company said it was unclear how many Internet users might have been victimised. Microsoft said it cleaned the website, www.msn.co.kr, on Thursday and removed the dangerous software code that unknown hackers had added earlier this week. A spokesman, Adam Sohn, said Microsoft was confident its English-language websites were not vulnerable to the same type of attack. – aljazeera.net –

Hackers Break Into University of Colorado servers The University of Colorado has become the latest educational institution to fall prey to hackers. The school is warning about 43,000 people that they may be at risk of having their identities stolen after two of its servers were attacked, it said Thursday. One server, at the school's health center, contained the names, Social Security numbers, student ID numbers, addresses and dates of birth of about 42,000 people, the university said. Also stored on the server were the results of about 2,000 laboratory tests, the university said. The break-in was discovered on July 14. Initial investigation has found no evidence that personal data was extracted or abused, according to the university. – CNET News.com –

Nuclear power plant data leaked on Net via virus-infected PC Data on safety inspections of four Japanese nuclear power plants have been posted on the Internet, having apparently been leaked from a virus-infected personal computer of an employee of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the agency said Friday. The leaked data include reports on inspections between 2000 and 2002 and data on the operational status of nuclear plants in Fukui, Niigata, Shizuoka and Kagoshima prefectures, according to the agency, a unit under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. – Kyodo News –

Worm Spreading Through MSn and AIM Microsoft's MSN Messenger and America Online's Instant Messenger services are being targeted by malicious messages containing links that could infect a computer with a Trojan horse or dangerous worm. The latest threat is a Trojan called Kirvo, which arrives in the form of an instant message from someone on the user's "friends" list. The message contains a link to a Web site, which, if clicked on, loads a copy of Kirvo onto the computer, according to an advisory from security company Symantec. Kirvo is preprogrammed to then fetch a copy of Spybot, a dangerous worm that can take advantage of software vulnerabilities to spy on the user. – cyberarmy –

Mozilla marketing site hacked A Web site used to promote the Firefox Web browser has been hacked, potentially compromising personal information about thousands of volunteer supporters of the open-source software. The attack, which shut down the spreadfirefox.com Web site for several days over the past week, was disclosed Thursday in an e-mail message sent to Spread Firefox members by The Mozilla Foundation, which develops the browser and runs the Web site. Firefox developers could not say for certain whether any Spread Firefox member information had been compromised. "It appears that a part of Spread Firefox was hacked in an attempt to use it to send out spam," wrote Firefox developer Asa Dotzler in a Friday Web log posting. "It doesn't look like the attacker accessed any personal data on the site, but to be safe, we're encouraging all of our users to log in and change their passwords." Attackers accessed the site on Sunday by exploiting an undisclosed vulnerability in the Drupal content management software used to run the site, said Rafael Ebron, product marketing manager with The Mozilla Foundation. – IDG News Service –

Teenager Gets Suspended Sentence for Internet Worm The German teenager who wrote the Sasser Internet worm was convicted of computer sabotage on Friday and given a suspended jail sentence of one year and nine months. A court in the northwestern German town of Verden said Sven Jaschan, 19, concocted his plans over a long period and worked with "mischievous delight" to create new, better and faster versions of the worm, which spread over the Microsoft Windows operating system in May 2004. "His goal was to improve the computer worm he programmed, especially increasing the speed with which it spread and thus to maximize the damage he intended to cause," the court said. "He was in competition with others and caused immense, incalculable damage." Jaschan had confessed to creating the worm, which knocked out an estimated one million computers in homes and businesses. Sasser victims ranged from the British Coastguard to the European Commission, Goldman Sachs and Australia's Westpac Bank. Some security firms called it the most destructive worm ever. Described by authorities as a "computer freak," he pleaded guilty to charges of data manipulation, computer sabotage and interfering with public services. However, because he was 17 when the crimes were committed, Jaschan was tried in a youth court and his punishment was far short of the maximum sentence of five years in jail for computer sabotage under German law. – Reuters –

Hacker Gets into a University of Southern California Data Base A hacker penetrated a University of Southern California database, putting personal information of 270,000 applicants at risk. USC officials told the Los Angeles Times they believe the hacker looked at only a few files. All of our forensic analysis tells us that there was no massive download of data, said L. Katharine Harrington, dean of admission and financial aid. Information security officer Robert Wood said the hacker was a prospective student who discovered the security flaw, looked at a few files and then notified an online security company of what he had done. That company notified USC. The database was part of a Web site for online applicants and included names, addresses and social security numbers for applicants going back several years. Wood said the FBI has been notified about the incident, but he said criminal charges are unlikely. – United Press International –

Most-wanted spammer arrested One of the world's most notorious spammers appeared in a federal court yesterday after being arrested on arrival in the US. Christopher Smith, who allegedly sent a billion junk e-mails to America Online subscribers, was arested at a Minniapolis airport after he stepped off a plane from the Dominican Republic, where he had allegedly been holed up running his illegal operation. Earlier this year, US authorities seized assets from Smith and shut down one of his businesses which was illegally selling pharmaceuticals online. – ITWEB TRAINEE JOURNALIST –

Microsoft.co.uk defaced in hacking attack Microsoft.co.uk was defaced with a message in support of Venezuelan hacker Rafa. Apocalypse hacked into Microsoft's UK web site (microsoft.co.uk) and uploaded a picture with the message "FREE RAFA - HACK IS NOT A CRIME". – theregister.co.uk –

By:Slodave

BTW we need to add Slodavve to the Zine Staff. He seems interested in writing for it.