Yahoo hackers were criminals after all
Information security firm InfoArmor accessed portions of the Yahoo databases and has concluded that the hackers who stole 500 million records from the tech giant were criminals and not a state-sponsored group. InfoArmor has named the hackers “Group E” and said they have sold the entire Yahoo database three times, including one sale to a state-sponsored actor. Read more.
Hacker gets 20 years for leaking ‘kill list’ to ISIS
Ardit Ferizi aka "Th3Dir3ctorY" was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leaking the details of military personnel in June 2015. Ferizi had gained administrator access to a server, which hosted sensitive data belonging to military personnel and created a ‘hit list’ of 1,300 individuals and gave the information to an ISIS recruiter. Read more.
SMBs fear Ransomware (with good reason)
A recent study by Carbonite found that small businesses in the U.S. are increasingly worried about the $1 billion ransomware crisis, with 79 percent of small-business owners saying that a presidential candidate's position on mitigating cyber threats against their business will influence their vote. Read more.
Google’s Project Shield gets KrebsonSecurity.com back online
After a week of disruptions caused by one of the largest DDoS attacks on record, security journalist Brian Krebs’ website is back online thanks to Google’s Project Shield program. Project Shield is a free service run by Google to help protect news outlets, journalists and free speech as a whole from online censorship. Read more.
U.S. believes Russian government is intensifying campaign to hack America
U.S. officials are increasingly confident that the hacker Guccifer 2.0 is part of a network of individuals and groups kept at arm’s length by Russia to mask its involvement in cyber intrusions such as the theft of thousands of Democratic Party documents. Read more.
Hackers cost China’s economy $15 billion annually
With encryption resources available spread thin, some 400,000 hackers suck $15 billion out of China’s economy every year according to new estimates. Respondents to a 2016 PwC survey of 330 chief executive officers and IT directors of foreign and domestic companies operating in China and Hong Kong reported a 417 percent year-over-year increase in “detected security incidents,” which can include malware, ransomware, stolen data, and other network breaches. Read more.
Apple calls in hackers for bug bounty bash
Apple is hosting notorious hackers such as Luca Todesco, Nicholas Allegra and Patrick Wardle at their headquarters in Cupertino to brief them on the imminent launch of its bug bounty program. The program will reward hackers up to $200,000 for providing the company with information on vulnerabilities across the firm’s laptops and phones and is expected to go live before the month is over. Read more.
