The FBI has managed to link the theft of a frankly staggering 1.2 billion log-in credentials to a single hacker, after finding a Russian email address within reams of data obtained by security researchers. Read more…
Read this article:
FBI Links a Single Hacker to the Theft of 1.2 Billion Stolen Log-Ins
schwit1 writes: Researchers have created the least reflective material ever made, using as inspiration the scales on the all-white cyphochilus beetle. The result was an extremely tiny nanoparticle rod resting on an equally tiny nanoparticle sphere (30 nm diameter) which was able to absorb approximately 98 to 99 percent of the light in the spectrum between 400 and 1, 400nm, which meant it was able to absorb approximately 26 percent more light than any other known material — and it does so from all angles and polarizations. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
View post:
Engineers Create the Blackest Material Yet
Last week, Dow Jones (owner of The Wall Street Journal among other things) said that its customer database was hacked — but it’s possible the company has been contending with a much bigger data breach for a long time now. According to Bloomberg , the FBI, Secret Service, and SEC have all been investigating a theft of data from Dow Jones by Russian hackers who wanted to access insider trading information. There’s a bit of a twist to the story, however: Dow Jones is strongly denying the Bloomberg report. In a statement, Dow Jones says: “to the best of our knowledge, we have received no information from the authorities about any such alleged matter, and we are looking into whether there is any truth whatsoever to this report by a competitor news organization.” Despite that strong denial (and shade thrown at Bloomberg’s reporting), CNBC received confirmation from the FBI’s New York office that it was indeed aware of the hack and investigating it. For months, the FBI and SEC have been trying to determine exactly what sort of data was accessed and how the hackers could have profited from the breach. Some of Bloomberg’s sources claimed that the hackers were able to view news stories not yet released for publication, some of which could have provided information and news about companies that hadn’t been released to the public. And this isn’t the first hack centered around finding insider info: earlier this year, Ukrainian hackers infiltrated servers from PR companies like PR Newswire and Businesswire for five years to access unreleased press releases from major corporations. [Image credit: AP/Mary Altaffer] Source: Bloomberg , CNBC
See the article here:
Russian hackers reportedly stole stock trading info from Dow Jones
Another week, another major institution falls victim to hackers. This time, it’s New York-based heathcare provider Excellus BlueCross BlueShield : the company says that more than 10 million personal records of its customers were exposed to hackers in an attack it discovered this past August. The company discovered the attack early in the month, but after doing more investigation it turned out that it actually took place way back in December of 2013. The investigation showed that the hackers could have accessed personal information including “name, date of birth, Social Security number, mailing address, telephone number, member identification number, financial account information and [insurance] claims information.” While all of this information could have been exposed to hackers, the company isn’t sure exactly what may have been revealed. The investigation thus far hasn’t shown any evidence of what data was stolen and whether it was used in any nefarious way, but Excellus is still offering its customers the now-commonplace two years of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection. Unfortunately, hacks against healthcare providers are hardly a rarity at this point. An attack on Premera , another arm of BlueCross, was revealed in March of this year, putting the data of 11 million customers at risk. And just a month earlier, Anthem was hacked — the database accessed in that breach contained the info of a whopping 80 million customers, though only a portion of those were believed to have been accessed. [Image credit: Shutterstock] Comments Source: Excellus BlueCross BlueShield , Democrat & Chronicle Tags: BlueCrossBlueShield, hack, healthcare
Read More:
BlueCross BlueShield hack may have exposed data for 10 million customers
Mass dampers are designed to counteract the swaying of a skyscraper as it’s buffeted by strong winds or earthquakes. But it’s incredibly rare to see one of these huge devices moving more an a few inches. Unless, of course, there’s a typhoon nearby. Read more…
Excerpt from:
Watch the Incredible Force of a Typhoon Move a Skyscraper’s 720-Ton Mass Damper
“Oh don’t worry, ” your uncle said when you were shopping for a new computer. “Macs are virtually virus proof.” Your uncle was wrong . Read more…
Read the original post:
The World’s First Firmware Worm for Mac Is Here, and It Sounds Scary
Your cousin’s Facebook friends are probably going nuts over this image that claims to show how the early history of Arabic geometric design informs how we write numerals today. “Each figure contains its own number of corners and angles, ” reads the text. That’s half-true of the drawings in the image. The rest is patently false. Read more…
Read the original:
No, This Viral Image Does Not Explain the History of Arabic Numerals
After confirming that over 22 million people had their personal information stolen in the largest government digital data breach, Office of Personnel Management director Katherine Archuleta has resigned . Read more…
Original post:
OPM Director Steps Down After Admitting 22 Million Hacked on Her Watch
The only thing that sucks more than spam are the greedy people who send it to you. That’s why the Department of Justice charging three spam kingpins responsible for one of the largest data breaches in history is so exciting. Finally, Feds are taking down the spam kingpins—or at least trying. Read more…
Originally posted here:
Feds Just Charged 3 Spammers With the Biggest Data Breach in History
An anonymous reader writes Researchers at Trend Micro have uncovered a gas pump in the United States whose ID has been changed from ‘DIESEL’ to ‘WE_ARE_LEGION’ — the call-sign of the Anonymous hacking group. Following up recent revelations regarding the vulnerability of gas pump systems to online attackers, the researchers found 1, 515 completely unprotected gas pump monitoring devices via the Shodan device-based search engine. The report notes that the exposed devices are capable of being protected via six-digit pins, but this security measure is not being used. The report concludes: “Our investigation shows that the tampering of an Internet-facing device resulted in a name change. But sooner or later, real world implications will occur, causing possible outages or even worse.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
View article:
US Gas Pump Hacked With ‘Anonymous’ Tagline