Hasta La Gadget!

Hacking has become so widespread over the last few years that people are beginning to get more than a little jaded. Hackers are constantly attacking various businesses, government services, and financial institutions around the world. US law enforcement agencies have announced that they have charged 24 suspected hackers in a sting operation spanning four continents.

The sting operation targeted hackers trading in stolen credit card and bank information. The US FBI has spent two years on the investigation and posed as hackers on forums watching as other hackers swapped methods for breaching servers and stealing data. The investigators also listened in as the hackers talked about creating fake credit cards that would work for purchases in stores and online. Law enforcement agencies say that the probe prevented about $205 million in possible losses on over 411,000 compromised credit cards and debit cards.

Eleven arrests were made in the United States, and 13 others were made in other countries, including Britain and Japan. Searches were also made in Australia. There is no indication of which credit card companies or banks the hackers compromised during the investigation. The investigation saw the FBI create a “carding forum” the participants didn’t know was operated by law enforcement. The forum was called “Carder Profit” and was used as a place for hackers to exchange stolen credit card information. The investigation resulted in the arrest of 24 different men between 18 and 25 years old. Some of them could face up to 40 years or more in prison if convicted. They’re facing charges such as conspiracy to commit wire fraud and access device fraud charges.

[via Reuters]

US law enforcement charge 24 people for hacking is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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If you’re used to seeing a device like this on a daily basis, you probably assume that it’s a vital security measure to keep your employer’s networks and data secure. A team of computer scientists beg to differ, however— because they’ve cracked the encryption it uses wide open. More »

NICT has developed Daedalus, a cyber-attack alert system.
Daedalus renders attacks on networks visible in real time. The sphere in the center represents the Internet, and the circles moving around it represent networks under observation. The state of an attack is shown using 3D graphics, and can be viewed from any perspective.
“We previously created a system called nicter for observing cyber-attacks. We also built an observation network in Japan, called the Darknet Observation Network, to …

Ever drive into New York City?  Most people don’t, unless they have a garage space for $750 a month.  The odds of finding an available parking
space in NYC are about as high as winning the Mega
Millions.  But Adrian Bone of Lewes, England, has invented a ‘Parking
Patch’ he hopes will solve two parking issues in Brighton, a city south
of London on the English Channel, a city far smaller than NYC or
London. But first Brighton, then the world!

Windows has had it’s share of vulnerabilities in the past, so now Microsoft is offering more than $250,000 in cash and prizes for contestants who can come up with new ways to mitigate exploits. Anonymous and LulzSec are out there after all, taking companies down.

Microsoft will pay $200,000 for the best “novel runtime mitigation technology designed to prevent the exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.” Two runners up will also receive $50,000 and a MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000. I’d say that is lots of incentive to come up with some new tricks, wouldn’t you?

[Ubergizmo] VIA [darkreading]