The Syrian Electronic Army has claimed responsibility for numerous Twitter hacks, most of which have proved more annoying than anything else. The hacking collective has stated its intentions in different ways through various tweets over the course of many hacks, but now has done so in a bit more direct way. The self-designated leader of […]
It’s not like Toyota hasn’t already faced its fair share of Prius braking issues, but it appears that even more headaches are headed its way at Defcon this week. Famed white hats Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek are preparing to unleash a 100-page paper at the annual hacker conference in Las Vegas, and notably, hacks that overtake both Toyota and Ford automotive systems will be positioned front and center. The information was gathered as part of a multi-month project that was funded by the US government, so it’s important to note that the specifics of the exploits will not be revealed to the masses; they’ll be given to the automakers so that they can patch things up before any ill-willed individuals discover it on their own.
Using laptops patched into vehicular systems, the two were able to force a Prius to “brake suddenly at 80 miles an hour, jerk its steering wheel, and accelerate the engine,” while they were also able to “disable the brakes of a Ford Escape traveling at very slow speeds.” Of course, given just how computerized vehicles have become, it’s hardly shocking to hear that they’re now easier than ever to hack into. And look, if you’re really freaked out, you could just invest in Google Glass and walk everywhere.
Filed under: Transportation, Software
Source: Reuters
Barnaby Jack, a prolific hacker hailing from New Zealand, has unfortunately passed away in an apartment in San Francisco at the age of 35. The cause of death has not been revealed, but a spokesperson for the local police did say that foul play was not a factor. Jack was scheduled to attend the Black Hat conference next week, an hour of which will now be dedicated to his memory instead.
During the event next week, Jack was supposed to demonstrate how one can hack into implanted defibrillators and pacemakers, exposing vulnerabilities in the technology. According to Reuters, which interviewed the hacker earlier this month, he’d stated his method could “kill a man” with the implanted technology up to 30 feet away.
Although he had dabbled in many categories, Jack is perhaps best known for a hack called Jackpotting, which involves a demonstration of the hacker causing ATMs to dispense bills. He had also worked at identifying vulnerabilities in medical devices that could prove dangerous, and has received praise from individuals, companies, and even government agencies for his efforts.
Jack worked at McAfee and other places, with the last being IOActive Inc., a consulting firm that focused on cyber security. The cause of death will be reported in one month, according to the police spokesperson, following an autopsy. According to Reuters, his sister confirmed his passing, but did not provide details.
Stuart McClure, a security industry executive and colleague of Jack, said to Reuters in a statement: “He was passionate about finding security bugs before the bad guys. He was one of those people who was put on this earth to find vulnerabilities that can be exploited in a malicious way to hurt people.”
SOURCE: Reuters
Barnaby Jack, renown hacker, dies at 35 is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Okay, we’ll admit that it looks a bit like a baby monitor. But in contrast to those over-engineered pieces of parenting paraphernalia, this DIY cellphone can actually make calls and send texts over GPRS. More importantly, Hackaday claims it was put together by a lone hacker (“Victorzie”) from an assortment of off-the-shelf and modded parts, including a TFT touchscreen, lithium ion battery, charging circuit, GPRS module and shield. These components were hooked up to an Arduino Uno microcontroller running a barebones UI and then jammed into a 3D printed case, which makes the device look far more pocketable than some previous hackaphone efforts. The end result inspires big respect for the creator, but also, more grudgingly, for the pro engineers at places like Nokia, who can pull all this stuff together and even get it FCC-approved for just a few dollars.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Hackaday
Apple revealed late yesterday that its Developer Center had been forced out of action by "an intruder"—but a researcher has provided evidence to confirm that the downtime was a result of his identification of a security vulnerability.
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With the NSA leaks going full force it probably won’t sound like news at all that a German cryptographer claims to have hacked a SIM card. But that’s never been done before (as far as we know . . .) so it’s kind of a big deal, and shows that millions of phones are potentially vulnerable.
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Back in September, we reported that one of The Pirate Bay’s founders, Gottrid Svartholm Warg, had been sent to Sweden by Cambodia, where he was arrested at his apartment. The issue resulted from a sentence in 2009, which was appealed and reduced to a few months and a multi-million fine. Today he received a jail
On January 8, we reported that Xiang Li had plead guilty in what was being called the most successful copyright criminal prosecution to ever take place. The pirate ran website Crack99.com, as well as some lesser known domains, which sold copyrighted software at discounted rates. While originally word had it he faced a possible 5
Jay Freeman, an iOS and Android developer known for his popular Cydia app store accessible by jailbroken iPhones, has discovered a scary security flaw in Google Glass. While toying around with the Explorer edition of Google Glass, Freeman discovered that the device’s lack of a PIN code or any other form of authentication could make it easy for hackers to install surveillance malware onto the device.
Unlike a smartphone, which stays in your pocket most of the time, a hacked Google Glass can give hackers access to everything you see and everything you hear. According to Freeman, “The only thing it doesn’t know are your thoughts.” All a hacker needs to do is grab an unattended Google Glass, hook it up to their computer via USB, and enable root access on the device. Freeman says,
“Once the attacker has root on your Glass, they have much more power than if they had access to your phone or even your computer: They have control over a camera and microphone that are attached to your head.”
Not only will hackers be able to see and hear everything around you, they will be able to upload your files and recordings to remote servers. Freeman says that a hacked Google Glass “knows all your passwords” because it sees you typing them in. With a compromised Google Glass, “Nothing is safe.” However, chances are that Google will take note of these security flaws and issue fixes to them before the devices become available to consumers early next year.
On the bright side, the only way hackers can install surveillance malware onto your Google Glass device is if they have physical access to it, meaning it won’t be too common. But nonetheless, Google needs to step up the security on the device. The user’s privacy and security should always be the top priority for any company. Freeman issued a statement to Forbes regarding the entire situation. He says,
“It’s just kind of sloppy and negligent for Google to release a device to a bunch of early adopters that is missing a basic security function and even has a known bug on it that was disclosed eight months ago. Like someone could be inside of [tech pundit and blogger] Robert Scoble’s glass right now.”
[via Forbes]
Hacker shows how Google Glass could watch its user’s every move is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Reddit was targeted by a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) attack earlier yesterday morning, resulting in some unpleasant downtime for Redditors all around. Why it became the target of an attack is still a mystery, but a Reddit representative told the Huffington Post that “All we know is it is blatantly malicious.” Some speculate that the DDoS attack was related to Reddit’s manhunt for the Boston Marathon terrorists.
Redditors had spent days trying to uncover just who was responsible for the tragic events at the Boston Marathon. Redditors began crowd sourcing photos from the Boston Marathon and were looking for individuals who looked suspicious. There were many people on the list, many of which were deemed innocent later on. In one unfortunate incident, the New York Post used one of the photos on Reddit of “two suspicious men” as their Thursday cover, two men who were later identified as a high school soccer player/track runner and his coach.
The manhunt for the Boston Marathon Manhunt generated a lot of traffic for Reddit, but was not enough to overload its servers. The hacker could have decided that while Redditors were working diligently on the Boston Marathon manhunt, it would be the best time to throw everyone off with his/her DDoS attack. Reddit was successful in mitigating the attack, however no one has yet stepped forward in claiming credit for it.
Reddit’s DDoS attack was just one of many that happened this year, and one of many that are yet to come. Bandwidth usage by DDoS attacks have skyrocketed by over 700% according to Prolexic Technologies. It discovered that 77% of DDoS attacks were aimed towards bandwidth capacity and routing infrastructure, while 23% of the attacks disrupted critical apps and processes running on a server. WordPress sites have also been under attack by hackers who want to gain access to the servers running the site and use them to create a huge botnet.
[via Huffington Post]
Reddit suffers down-time due to DDoS attack is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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