Hacks/Cracks - Page 125.5

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Attrition statement on NY Times defacement greeting

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In the recent defacement of the NY Times business site, the defacer from "Sm0ked Crew" included an apology to Attrition that has resulted in a flood of mail to Attrition staff asking for clarification. Attrition staff frequently endures abuse from script-kiddy groups who are under the misguided belief that we work for them. We have been harassed and chastised if we are slow in posting a defacement or if we happen to miss one.. . .

You, Too, Can Write an Anna Worm

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This is exactly the type of thing that could happen to Linux. "The Anna Kournikova e-mail worm that whacked networks this week was not the work of a skilled cracker. It was created using one of the many virus-generating kits that . . .

Hackers of a Different Color

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Some are pranksters. Like the group known as "scriptx," which cracked into a Web site two weeks ago only to post a picture of a jolly fat man wearing nothing but a Santa hat and a smile. Some are Romeos. A . . .

University Computers Remain Hacker Havens

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"Why were universities so involved in these attacks? Because they're naked," said Stephen Northcutt, head of the SANS Institute's Global Incident Analysis Center in Bethesda, Md. "They're sitting out there on the Internet with no firewalls or anything." So naked are . . .

The Greatest Hacks of All Time

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The recent spate of security breaches and e-mail invasions including Monday's news trilogy -- the World Economic Forum hack, the JavaScript email wiretapping scare, and the hole discovered in the protocol that is supposed to secure data transmitted wirelessly -- recalls . . .

Cyberlawyer: Hackers are people, too!

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Jennifer Granick is a well-known figure within the hacker community. She helped Kevin Poulsen navigate his return to using computers after the convicted hacker came out of jail. Granick is now defending Jerome Heckenkamp, the 21-year-old Los Alamos National Laboratory employee . . .

New Security Software Thinks Like A Hacker

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Web protection software maker eEye Digital Security said today it has released Retina 3.0, a network guard for the Microsoft Windows NT platform. The company said in a statement that the Retina network security scanner is the first such software application . . .

Security Mavens Invaded by Trojan

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A popular Web discussion board in which the subject is computer security became the unwitting host of an attack program directed at security consultant firm Network Associates Wednesday night. A cracker posted to the Bugtraq board what he said was a . . .

Experts send malicious code to 37,000 users

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It seems that even the experts get fooled sometimes. A Trojan horse posing as a security tool did just that Wednesday night, when experts at SecurityFocus.com-which moderates the popular Bugtraq security list-sent the mildly malicious code to the list's 37,000 users. . . .

Former System Admin. Sentenced

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A former network administrator for the US District Court in Alaska has been sentenced for launching a series of denial-of-service attacks against a New York District Court Web site. According to information released today by the FBI, Anchorage resident Scott . . .

Captain Crunch sets up security firm

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Legendary hacking figure Captain Crunch is returning from years of relative obscurity to set himself up as a security consultant. Perhaps the most well known figure in the digital underground besides Kevin Mitnick, John Draper made his name in 1971 when . . .

Close calls, but no cracks

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The dust has settled from the frantic first week of Openhack III, with its heavy traffic and mass of DoS attacks. The second week saw a lot more stability in the site and a bit more frustration from serious hackers still . . .

The next security threat: Web applications

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The next wave of hacking schemes focuses on a vulnerable and extremely difficult area to defend: Web applications. Application hacks take advantage of vulnerabilities that normally occur in many HTML pages. A person hacking into a Web page could, for example, . . .

From Outlaw to Consultant

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... there may be no tale so poignant as that of John T. Draper, the mythical "phone phreak" who became a national figure in 1971 after being one of the first to discover that a toy whistle in the Cap'n Crunch . . .

Web war rages over DVD-cracking site

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In a move that free-speech activists hope will be trendsetting, Internet service provider Verio is standing up to the movie industry by refusing to remove a Web site the Motion Picture Association of America says is illegal. Many ISPs, especially smaller . . .

Internet Exploits Defined

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Start with the basics. "No longer does a hacker have to huddle in front of a glowing monitor. Today's hacker has at his disposal a literal arsenal of fully automated tools, through which he can gain access to your system without . . .

French hackers break SDMI, publish results

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Two French hackers, Julien Stern and Julien Boeuf, have broken the Secure Digital Music Initiative's watermarking scheme. However, being French, they (1) have declined to sign SDMI's nondisclosure agreement, and (2) are not subject to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So they have published their findings, both in French and in English. . . .