The NSA’s disturbingly successful hack of the American military Excerpted from Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War by Fred Kaplan. Out now from Simon & Schuster. On Wednesday, March 9, Kaplan will discuss his book in New York; for more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website. On June 9,…
Category: Cyber-Skills
Going Inside the Ukrainian Power Grid Hack
IT WAS 3:30 p.m. last December 23, and residents of the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine were preparing to end their workday and head home through the cold winter streets. Inside the Prykarpattyaoblenergo control center, which distributes power to the region’s residents, operators too were nearing the end of their shift. But just as one…
Reversing the Cyber-Crime Paradigm: The “Cyber-Robin Hood”
ID THIEF HACKS INTO FAMILY’S NETFLIX, AT&T ACCOUNTS TO PAY OFF THEIR BILLS STOLEN CREDENTIALS; USER ACCOUNTS COMPROMISED An Orange County, Fla. family says a hacker breached their phone and Netflix accounts to pay off the family’s bills. The Hennigs discovered the sorta well-meaning hack when AT&T alerted Kathy Hennig that she owed $1,300 because…
Why You Should More Afraid of Apple than the Feds
I know I suggest this book alot, but you need to read Future Crimes by Marc Goodman. It will absolutely open your eyes to how companies like Apple, Microsoft and the thousands of other Data Brokers out there COLLECT your personal, private information and then treat it as a valuable commodity to be bought and…
Cyber-Security: Googles New “Neural Network” can Locate the Location of any Photo on the Web
For those of you that are “seasoned” Science Fiction fans like myself, perhaps you remember the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the HAL Computer? Yeah this “neural network” called PLaNET kinda reminds me of that…unsettling in a way, no? -SF Here’s a tricky task. Pick a photograph from the Web at random. Now…
Why You Should Side With Apple and Not the FBI in the San Bernardino I-Phone Case
I have the utmost respect for Bruce. The man knows his stuff and is the final word in topics of this sort. -SF By Bruce Schneier Earlier this week, a federal magistrate ordered Apple to assist the FBI in hacking into the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple will fight this order…
Cyber-Crime: JP Morgan Invents Algorithm to “Sniff Out” Rogue Traders
I swear every day we get closer to the movie “Minority Report” being a reality..the “authorities” knowing you are guilty of a crime before you commit it! Combine this with the current fight with Apple and the FBI you start to see the big SCARY picture. -SF Wall Street traders are already threatened by…
Cyber-Warfare: Nitro-Zeus
A new documentary on “Stuxnet”, the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program, reveals it was just a small part of a much bigger cyber operation against the nation’s military and civilian infrastructure under the code name “NITRO ZEUS” The United States hacked into critical civilian and military infrastructure in Iran to allow its operatives…
Seven Ways Crowd-Sourcing is Changing Society
I highly Recommend everybody read the book Future Crimes by Marc Goodman to get an in-depth look at how deep this cyber rabbit hole really goes. And really read those “Service Agreements” and “Privacy Statements” before you download that next free app!-SF The term was coined in 2005 when businesses began attempting to gather data…
Apple’s FBI Battle is Complicated, Here is What is Really Going On
THE NEWS THIS week that a magistrate ordered Apple to help the FBI hack an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooter suspects has polarized the nation—and also generated some misinformation. Those who support the government say Apple has cooperated in the past to unlock dozens of phones in other cases—so why…