Hasta La Gadget!

In McAfee Lab’s latest annual report, it details how it views the security of the Internet throughout 2013. Perhaps surprisingly, the company says to expect a decline in attacks from Anonymous, with a possibility of a few big attacks as it peters out into relative obscurity. In its place will be more centralized, targeted groups with specific causes and goals.

This isn’t to say that we will see Anonymous disappear, according to McAfee, but rather that we will see it decline as cohesive groups bound by specific causes fling attacks against organizations and companies conflicting with them. Examples provided include hacktivists, ecoterrorists, and anti-globalization supports.

Says McAfee Labs: “Sympathizers of Anonymous are suffering. Too many uncoordinated and unclear operations have been detrimental to its reputation. Added to this, the disinformation, false claims, and pure hacking actions will lead to the movement’s being less politically visible than in the past. Because Anonymous’ level of technical sophistication has stagnated and its tactics are better understood by its potential victims, the group’s level of success will decline.”

Other expected issues in 2013 include a combination of smaller malware nuisances and scams, as well as large, destructive malicious malware that launch digital attacks against platforms and infrastructure, with the goal being to create destruction rather than illicitly harvest money. Another problem expected to boom is so-called randsomware, which provides a government emblem and purports that the user must pay a fine because child pornography and other nastiness was detected on their computer, both scaring and scamming people out of hundreds of dollars.

[via ars technica]

Anonymous’ attacks will decline in 2013, says McAfee Labs is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While shells and interceptor missiles started flying between Israel and Gaza, Anonymous did what it does best: swore vengeance against a superpower. It had some swagger at first. But as the days go by, we’re seeing a weak, confused Anon, not a group of Internet freedom fighters. More »

In case you don’t remember, today is Guy Fawkes Day. Anonymous is trying to make sure that you remember the fifth of November, taking to Twitter today to announce that it has hacked PayPal and made off with nearly 28,000 passwords. According to The Next Web, Anonymous posted these passwords (along with usernames and telephone numbers in some cases) to Private Paste, though at the time of this writing the page linked to by the AnonymousPress Twitter account has been taken down. [UPDATE: PayPal responds below.]

PayPal says that it is currently investigating the claims of a breach, but so far the company hasn’t found any evidence that it has been hacked. SEE: quote below. That isn’t all Anonymous has been up to though, as the BBC reports that Symantec is looking into claims that it has been hacked as well. Over the weekend, sites belonging to NBC, Lady Gaga, and the Australian government were compromised in an apparent protest for Guy Fawkes Day.

“It appears that the exploit was not directed at PayPal after all, it was directed at a company called ZPanel. The original story that started this and was retweeted by some of the Anonymous Twitter handles has now been updated.” – PayPal Spokesperson

Guy Fawkes, who attempted to blow up the House of Lords in an effort to kill King James I back in 1605, has become something of a legend within Anonymous, thanks to 2005′s V for Vendetta. “Members” of the group often wear Guy Fawkes masks that were used in the movie when they appear publicly, and indeed, a few of the websites displayed the famous Gunpowder Treason rhyme after being compromised. “Remember, remember the fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot,” the rhyme commands. “I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.”

A number of the sites that were reportedly compromised in this Guy Fawkes protest are now back to normal, but you can bet that Anonymous is pleased with the attention it has received this fifth of November. Even though PayPal hasn’t confirmed that it was hacked, it might not be a bad idea to switch up your password if you happen to be a customer. Knowing Anonymous, this won’t be the last we hear of the hacktivist group today, so keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more details.

Anonymous celebrates Guy Fawkes Day with reported PayPal hack [UPDATE] is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’re sure that most of you guys are familiar with the hacking ground, Anonymous, by now. Now it seems that as part of the group’s 5^th of November protest, they claim to have hacked PayPal’s servers and managed to get their hands on 28,000 customer account passwords and leaked it online. Safe to say the amount of chaos that will ensue if these passwords fall into the wrong hands will be tremendous. The group has posted the list of emails, passwords, names and even telephone numbers, so you can head on over to the list and check to see if your sensitive information is there.

However according to PayPal’s head of PR, they claim to be investigating the alleged hack, but so far they have stated that they are unable to validate any evidence that there has been a security breach which we can only take to be a good thing. In any case if you think it’s prudent, perhaps you might want to change your password just to be on the safe side.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: PayPal hands over 1,000 Anonymous IP addresses to the FBI, GoDaddy says internal network issues responsible for crash,

Welcome to Friday, folks. The weekend is here once again, and what better way to kick off the festivities than with a Windows 8 purchase? The new OS went up for pre-order today, while a number of other Windows 8-related stories were popping up all over the place. For instance, we found out that the marketing campaign for Windows 8 cost Microsoft a whopping $1.5 billion, and a collection of HP computers were spotted running Windows 8 on the show floor of one Best Buy store in Minnesota.

Dell is getting in early on the Windows 8 action, opening up pre-orders for a handful of new machines today, and we learned that a staggering 6 billion people around the world are now using a mobile phone of some type. A leaked T-Mobile release roadmap gives us an idea of when the carrier expects to receive a bunch of different devices, including the Windows Phone 8X. We received a rather in-depth look at an LG Nexus prototype today, and LG delivered a brand new Optimus G “product movie” that aims to get us familiar with the new handset’s features. Netflix released a Windows 8-compatible version of its app today, just ahead of the launch of the OS.

Google could be headed for an antitrust case from the FTC, and it seems that the Apple Maps controversy hasn’t done much to damage consumer enthusiasm for the iPhone 5. Speaking of the iPhone 5, Apple’s latest mobile offering has managed to overtake the Samsung Galaxy S III in web traffic despite being available for a much shorter amount of time, and Google is getting the Play Store ready for the holiday rush. SoftBank is looking to secure $23 billion to buy a majority stake in Sprint, and industry insiders are claiming that the long-rumored iPad Mini will be revealed on October 23 – just a couple weeks from now.

Star Citizen has already managed to raise an absurd $500,000 in funding, while Borderlands 2 was seen outshining its predecessor in a pretty significant way. We learned that the games industry is still on the decline, and ASUS unveiled a brand new Windows 8 VivoBook today. Amazon is now posting a disclaimer about the Kindle Paperwhite’s backlighting, YouTube is rethinking the way it ranks videos for search results, and Anonymous has cut ties with Wikileaks after the website started restricting access and asking visitors for donations.

Finally tonight, we have an unboxing and hands-on with the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD for you to check out, and Chris Burns tells us why every little piece of Apple news seems to matter so much these days. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, here’s hoping that this weekend is a good one!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 12, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.