Tag: financial

Australian Tax Office Stores Passwords In Clear Text

mask.of.sanity writes “The passwords of thousands of Australian businesses are being stored in clear readable text by the country’s tax office. Storing passwords in readable text is a bad idea for a lot of reasons: they could be read by staff with ill intent, or, in the event of a data breach, could be tested against other web service accounts to further compromise users. In the case of the tax office, the clear text passwords accessed a subsection of the site. But many users would have reused them to access the main tax submission services. If attackers gained access to those areas, they would have access to the personal, financial and taxpayer information of almost every working Australian. Admins should use a strong hash like bcrypt to minimize or prevent password exposure. Users should never reuse passwords for important accounts.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Australian Tax Office Stores Passwords In Clear Text

Alleged ZeuS Botmaster Arrested For Stealing $100M From US Banks

Trailrunner7 writes “A 24-year-old Algerian man remains in a Thai jail awaiting extradition to the United States, where he is suspected of masterminding more than $100 million in global bank heists using the ZeuS and SpyEye Trojans. Malaysian authorities believe they’ve apprehended the hacker Hamza Bendelladj, who they say has been jetsetting around the world using millions of dollars stolen online from various banks. He was arrested at a Bangkok airport en route from Malaysia to Egypt. The hacker had developed a considerable reputation as a major operator of ZeuS-powered botnets and bragged about his exploits” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Alleged ZeuS Botmaster Arrested For Stealing $100M From US Banks

Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act

New submitter electron sponge writes “On Friday morning, the Senate renewed the FISA Amendments Act (PDF), which allows for warrantless electronic eavesdropping, for an additional five years. The act, which was originally passed by Congress in 2008, allows law enforcement agencies to access private communications as long as one participant in the communications could reasonably be believed to be outside the United States. This law has been the subject of a federal lawsuit, and was argued before the Supreme Court recently. ‘The legislation does not require the government to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.'” The EFF points out that the Senate was finally forced to debate the bill, but the proposed amendments that would have improved it were rejected. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act

Apple Considering Switch Away From Intel For Macs

concealment sends this quote from Bloomberg: “Apple Inc. is exploring ways to replace Intel processors in its Mac personal computers with a version of the chip technology it uses in the iPhone and iPad, according to people familiar with the company’s research. Apple engineers have grown confident that the chip designs used for its mobile devices will one day be powerful enough to run its desktops and laptops, said three people with knowledge of the work, who asked to remain anonymous because the plans are confidential. Apple began using Intel chips for Macs in 2005.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple Considering Switch Away From Intel For Macs