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Digital Threat

Displaying 61 - 81 of 81
pcworld.com • Fri 2009 Jun 5, 12:35am

FTC says company actively recruited and colluded with criminals seeking to distribute everything from child pornography to spyware and viruses... FTC also alleges that the defendant engaged in the deployment and operation of botnets.... advertised its services in the darkest corners of the Internet, including a forum established to facilitate communication between criminals.... Pricewert, based in San Jose, California, shielded its criminal clientele by either ignoring take-down requests issued by the online security community or shifting its criminal elements to other Internet Protocol addresses it controlled to evade detection, the FTC said...

informationweek.com • Fri 2009 Jun 5, 12:31am

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday said that it had shut down a rogue Internet service provider that knowingly hosted and actively distributed child pornography, malware, and spam... Symantec identified more than 600 IP addresses controlled by 3FN that had launched malicious attacks.... The FTC said it had identified more than 4,500 malicious programs directed by the command-and-control servers hosted by 3FN.

smartbrief.com • Tue 2009 May 26, 4:48pm

A Nielsen Co. report found unlimited texting plans offered by wireless carriers have sent U.S. teens on a messaging spree, sending and receiving an average of 2,272 texts per month, more than double the amount from a year earlier. Physicians said all the texting is causing anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation among teenagers.

breitbart.com • Thu 2009 May 21, 8:55pm

Law enforcement computers were struck by a Mystery computer virus Thursday, forcing the FBI and the U.S. Marshals to shut down part of their networks as a precaution.

guardian.co.uk • Tue 2009 May 19, 7:38pm

US government officials are concerned that the quality of the Global Positioning System (GPS) could begin to deteriorate as early as next year, resulting in regular blackouts and failures — or even dishing out inaccurate directions to millions of people worldwide. The warning centres on the network of GPS satellites that constantly orbit the planet and beam signals back to the ground that help pinpoint your position on the Earth's surface. The satellites are overseen by the US Air Force, which has maintained the GPS network since the early 1990s. According to a study by the US government accountability office (GAO), mismanagement and a lack of investment means that some of the crucial GPS satellites could begin to fail as early as next year.

news.cnet.com • Fri 2009 May 8, 2:01pm

Hackers have broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration several times in recent years.... compromised an FAA public-facing computer and used it to gain access to personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, on 48,000 current and former FAA employees....

dailymail.co.uk • Tue 2009 Apr 14, 9:23pm

ScreamSocial networks such as Twitter may blunt people's sense of morality, claim brain scientists. ... A study suggests rapid-fire news updates and instant social interaction are too fast for the 'moral compass' of the brain to process. [Oh, my!]

mashable.com • Sat 2009 Apr 11, 10:30pm

Minutes ago, Twitter confirmed that they have successfully closed the hole that allowed this worm to spread. You're safe to visit Twitter profiles again :)

news.cnet.com • Sat 2009 Apr 11, 10:30pm

A worm apparently infected Twitter on Saturday. The worm may originate with the StalkDaily.com site, and Twitter warned people against visiting the site or linking to it. "If you have been locked out of your acct due to the StalkDaily issue, pls do a p/w reset; we may have reset your p/w for safety,"

online.wsj.com • Wed 2009 Apr 8, 9:55pm

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials. The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

pcworld.com • Mon 2009 Mar 30, 2:24pm

Symantec is warning Web users that searching for information on computer viruses such as Conficker could put them at risk of unintentionally downloading the virus on to their PC. ... searching for 'conficker' in a number of the Web's most popular search engines brings up a number of hoax Websites that actually host the virus and infect any users that navigate to the site....

eweek.com • Mon 2009 Mar 30, 2:24pm

April 1 is reportedly D-Day for the latest variant of the global worm, but is the hype living up to reality. Dire predictions for the wave of destruction coming with Conficker.C's activation may be grossly exaggregated, but that doesn't mean solution providers shouldn't help their customers prepare for this and many other security threats.

breitbart.com • Mon 2009 Mar 30, 2:24pm

A tenacious computer worm which has wriggled its way onto machines worldwide is set to evolve on April Fool's Day, becoming harder to exterminate but not expected to wreak havoc. ... The worm is programmed to modify itself on Wednesday to become harder to stop....

pcworld.com • Sun 2009 Mar 22, 8:32pm

The networks powering industrial control systems have been breached more than 125 times in the past decade, with one resulting in U.S. deaths.... evidence of more than 125 control systems breaches involving systems in nuclear power plants, hydroelectric plants, water utilities, the oil industry and agribusiness.... a June 1999 gasoline pipeline rupture near Bellingham, Washington. That rupture spilled more than 200,000 gallons of gasoline into two creeks, which ignited and killed three people. Investigators found several problems that contributed to the rupture, but Weiss has identified a computer failure in the pipeline's central control room as part of the problem. ... It could take the U.S. a long time to dig out from coordinated attacks on infrastructure using control systems.... The industrial control system industry is years behind the IT industry in protecting cybersecurity, and some of the techniques used in IT security would damage control systems...

fcw.com • Sun 2009 Mar 22, 8:32pm

The government is working on a new Smart Grid that would use computer technologies to make the country's energy infrastructure more efficient. But the government's plans for increased technology research and a smart electric grid could be compromised if cybersecurity is not improved.... "Unfortunately, if the new smart meters are not secure, they can be hacked, taken over by attackers and used to disrupt the delivery of electricity.... If the smart grid is built to existing standards, however, it will not be secure. ... The real risk lies in the long-term damage to our economic competitiveness and our technological leadership...."

government.zdnet.com • Sun 2009 Mar 15, 4:03pm

arrested on charges of online solicitation, promotion of kiddie porn and sexual performance of a child. ... playing Warhawk on PS3s when O'Shea convinced the girl to take nude photos of herself and send them to him

money.cnn.com • Sun 2009 Mar 15, 4:03pm

* Governments, corporations snooping on website visits... * Next big thing on Web is linked data...* Berners-Lee says future of Web is on mobile phones Surfers on the Internet are at increasing risk from governments and corporations tracking the sites they visit to build up a picture of their activities, the founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday.

breitbart.com • Tue 2009 Mar 3, 7:34pm

As text messaging has boomed in recent years, it has also given rise to so-called "textual harassment." Text messages antagonize recipients in a way that is not easily ignored: Most people are never far from their cell phones, and the gadgets tend to blink and chirp until unopened messages are acknowledged. Adding another sting, the victims are often charged by their cell phone companies for receiving the messages. ... 23 percent of stalking or harassment victims reported in 2006 that the stalker had used some form of cyberstalking, such as cell phone texting or e-mail, to harass them.

news.cnet.com • Sun 2009 Mar 1, 4:18pm

An Internet security company claims that Iran has taken advantage of a computer security breach to obtain engineering and communications information about Marine One

plane
telegraph.co.uk • Mon 2009 Feb 9, 8:28pm

French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus

theregister.co.uk • Mon 2008 Dec 15, 6:24pm

GoogleGoogle this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance. Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. ... A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view. ... what was once Googlewashing by a select few now has Google's active participation.

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