National Cyber Security By Gregory Evans

Law officers made a major arrest in the Sony Picutre hacking case.  A federal grand jury indicted 23- year old Cody Kretsinger for his alleged roll in hacking the major corporation earlier this year.  Kretsinger is a suspected member of the hacking group LulzSec and he was arrested in Arizona on Thursday.  Security firms warn you better be careful the next time you use your computer.  They say there’s a new Trojan horse masquerading as a PDF document to Mac users. It’s been a political fight that might seem to be over.  California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill today over whether Internet retailers should collect sales tax. Also, tune in for the job of the day.

There are multiple vulnerabilities on Adobe Flash Player and Adobe is working to fix the problem.  Exploitation of these vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, obtain sensitive information, cause a denial-of-service condition, or perform a cross-site scripting attack. Facebook has 750 million users worldwide.  Twitter users now send one billion tweets a week and LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 120 million members.  If you think social media is going away, think again.   Cyber experts say that makes the jobs of cybercriminals way too easy. Identity theft is a growing problem in Massachusetts.  The Attorney General’s office has been busy with more than 1100 notices of data breaches in less than two years. Also, listen in for the job of the day!

The latest cyber attack may have taken place across the ocean, but U.S. officials are taking notice.  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was hit and the attack involved at least eight different types of malware. Cyber criminals are very busy overseas.  According to officials, Malaysia sees incidents of online threats at least twice an hour.  So far, more than 10 thousand cases have been reported this year alone. One technology company is turning what some see as a disadvantage into a major reason to hire people with disabilities.  Aspiritech, is a nonprofit organization in Illinois.  It plans to hire adults with autism as software testers.

A New Zealand teen is behind bars, charged with threatening the government on YouTube.  The threats were reportedly made in a video on YouTube.  It included claims that explosives had been hidden in New Zealand government buildings. Law officers say a poker site took a gamble and lost when it tried to steal hundreds of millions of dollars.  Tuesday, federal prosecutors said the operators of the online site Full Tilt Poker ran a Ponzi scheme through the site.  The operators allegedly took more than $440 million in gambler winnings to give to board members and owners. A well known presidential advisor offers his take on the nation’s cyber defense.  Richard Clarke says the country lags in the capabilities of those attacking us online.  He believes the country is leaving critical infrastructure and data vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks.

Hackers don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.  This time they reportedly managed to target U.S. intelligence officials, including some from the Obama Administration.  The names and addresses of hundreds of those officials were posted on an anti-secrecy website after computer hackers allegedly took them from the internal membership list of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. They may be hackers but they are saying no to cybercrime.  Gong Wei and Wan Tow released a convention calling for the rejection of cybercrime.  They are asking their associates and peers to support it. A UK tabloid will have to shell out some big bucks for its alleged role in phone hacking.  News International, which is the UK division of News Corp, will reportedly pay $4.7 million to the family of Milly Dowler.  She is the 13- year old murder victim allegedly involved in the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Is Yahoo up for sale?  Maybe or maybe not.  The founder of the company Jerry Yang says the company is not up for sale but says the company is exploring strategic options. Groups like LulzSec and Anonymous have apparently taught those in the technology world a very valuable lesson: you need to protect your data. In an effort to better preparefor cyber attacks, teachers, students and cyber experts gathered at the 2nd Annual New York Institute of Technology Cyber Security Conference Thursday. As the school year started so did something else: New Jersey’s landmark legislation.  The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, went into effect last week as students across the state began the 2011/2012 school year.

They are thousands of miles away but they are wreaking havoc on computer users around the world.  Cyber experts say an international cybercrime gang is currently on the loose, orchestrating attacks on major U.S. corporations and government organizations to the tune of $3.2 million in the first six months of the year, or $17,000 a day. Do you have a bit of a temper?  If you do, you may be more likely to be a target of cybercrime.  That’s the latest from a new report from Norton. As the list of cyber attacks gets longer and longer, experts say those attacks won’t stop anytime soon.  However, there is hope.  They believe the publicity of hacking will only make people more aware and better prepared to fight cybercrime.

Men seem to be the most common victims of cyber attacks according to a new study.  A new Symantec report studied 500 Singaporean adults and found that 86 percent of men are likely to become a victim of cybercrime versus 74 percent of women. Two major cyber giants could be headed back to court soon.  Auto-Completion Solutions LLC or ACS says Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. infringed on its technology patent by incorporating it on their websites. It seems that people want the government to get involved when it comes to cybersecurity.  A recent Eset/ Harris Interactive poll found that 91 percent of respondents feel vulnerable in some way to cyberattacks.  Eighty-four percent think the Federal government should have some responsibility in protecting their online identities. We will also have the job of the day.  Make sure you listen in!

It may seem like innocent banking protection but experts say this latest Trojan is anything but innocent.  The Trojan steals SMS messages and can intercept text messages, sending them to the attacker’s command and control server. The UK government is asking search engine sites like Google to step up to the plate and help fight online piracy.  Government officials are expected to ask Google to make it more difficult for piracy sites by blocking them. With kids headed back to school, cyberbullying is something on many students and parents’ minds.  A San Francisco based nonprofit organization kicked off its national campaign this week to help keep kids safe online. Also, check out the job of the day!

Hackers turned to Twitter to wreak havoc during preparations for the 9/11 ceremonies this weekend.  They allegedly hacked into the NBC News account and posted false messages about a new attack on New York’s ground zero. It beat out some of the top thinkers in the world at Jeopardy.  Now, IBM’s Watson computer has a pretty neat job to add to its resume.   The company will work with WellPoint to bring Watson technology to the healthcare sector. The cyber world isn’t just about hacking into other people’s computers and shutting down networks.  It can actually be used for very good causes like finding a long lost son.  Thanks to Facebook, Kattia Liebers was reunited with her 17 –year- old son after he was taken from her 12 years ago. Also, make sure you check out the job of the day!

Hackers and mobsters have a lot in common according to President Obama.  His administration wants to impose stricter punishments for cyber-criminals because of increased data breaches.   The U.S. government wants to hold businesses accountable if they have week cyber security.  Lawmakers plan to introduce a bill next week that would fine big companies that lose consumer data in a security breach if that breach is a result of poor security measures.   Police say she led a sophisticated conspiracy to import and sell counterfeit Cisco Systems networking equipment and because of that a Virginia woman received a five- year prison sentence.  In addition to the prison time, a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia also ordered Chun-Yu Zhao, 43, of Chantilly, Virginia, to pay US$2.7 million restitution and a $17,500 fine. Also listen for the job of the day!  

A new report says that hackers are turning their sights from computers to cars.  Computer security company McAfee released information regarding the large amount of electronics being used in cars today.  Researchers believe that technology is making cars increasingly vulnerable to hacking attacks, even by something as simple as text message.   If you have a Twitter account, you are not alone.  In fact, you are among 100 million other active users.  Twitter CEO Dick Costolo announced the statistic this morning.  He also said Twitter receives 400 million page views per month.  That’s up from about 250 million in January of this year.   Here’s one more thing robots can apparently do just as well as humans, carry on conversations.  You may remember that last week, Cleverbot, which is an artificial intelligence computer, shocked the world when it held a human like conversation.      Also, listen to hear the job of the day!

It’s an effort to crack down on cyber crime, but a proposed U.S. law could also make you a target for something much less sinister.  On Wednesday, two senators said the main law targeting cybercrime needs fixing because it allows law enforcement agencies to target people who simply violate websites’ terms of service or their employer’s computer use policies. The news isn’t too good for many computer users.  Norton Cybercrime’s annual report found that 19 web users fall victim to online crime every minute.  Also according to the security firm's report, only 16 percent of victims of online crime report the incident to the police. If you have a computer, there’s nearly a 50 percent chance you are using illegal software.  That’s the latest word from the Business Software Alliance, (BSA) which released its detailed findings from its new global anti-piracy study today.  In the study, the company found that 47 percent of computer users around the world get software through illegal means most or all of the time.  In developing economies, that number is much higher. Also, listen for the job of the day!

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Cyber experts warn if you find a deal for DiRT 3 Steam Codes on eBay or places similar, just to keep moving.  At least one million and as many as three million Steam codes for a free copy of Codemaster’s DiRT 3 were leaked onto the web, reportedly by hackers. Law officers are looking into the possible hacking of Iranian Gmail accounts.  About 300,000 accounts were reportedly compromised and read by hackers according to Fox-IT.  That is a forensics firm that investigated the theft of hundreds of digital certificates from a Dutch company. The Sony Corporation hopes some leadership from a former U.S. Homeland Security official will prevent another major hacking like over the summer.  The company announced it has hired Philip Reitinger to take the role of chief information security officer. Also, check out the job of the day!

The crackdown on hacktivists continues with the arrest of two men in the U.K. The Metropolitan Police Service released a statement late Thursday saying that two males, ages 24 and 20, are now behind bars and could be connected to the hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec.   He said he was sorry but it was too little, too late for Luis Mijangos.  A judge sentenced the 32-year old Thursday to six years in prison for hacking into the computers of women and teenage girls.  He found sexually explicit photos and threatened to put them online unless the victims gave him more pictures. Cyber attacks have reached the Irish but they were able to make some arrests.  Two people were taken into custody after law officers investigated an attack on the Fine Gael website.  In January, the hackers allegedly modified the personal information of 2,000 site subscribers that was emailed to the media. Also, check out the job of the day!