This Hack Might Unlock Your NES Classic or Brick It

If you really wanted to go out of your way, it’s definitely possible to make your own Raspberry Pi-powered NES Classic. But for most, that cute and convenient little package by Nintendo is the best way to go. That’s why using this hack to load ROMs onto the new-retro device is a gift from the gaming gods. Read more…

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This Hack Might Unlock Your NES Classic or Brick It

FBI says DNC wouldn’t give it direct access to hacked servers

The FBI has spent months trying to persuade people that Russia was behind the DNC hack , but we’re now learning that it didn’t get much help from the DNC itself. The bureau tells Buzzfeed News that the Democrats’ organization reportedly “rebuffed” multiple requests for physical access to the hacked servers, forcing investigators to depend on the findings of the third-party security firm CrowdStrike (which the DNC contacted after the hack). The FBI would have tackled the breach earlier if the DNC hadn’t “inhibited” the investigation, according to its statement. The claims directly contradict earlier claims from the DNC, which maintained that the FBI had never asked for access. The DNC says it handed over CrowdStrike info “without any limits, ” but that’s not very reassuring when the Committee wouldn’t let FBI agents skip the middleman. It doesn’t look good even if there were innocuous reasons. Does the FBI need direct access to the servers to scrutinize the information? Not necessarily. As The Verge observes after consulting with security firms, this arrangement is still business as usual for interactions with law enforcement: private firms conduct the initial study and clear the security threat, while official investigators focus on the actions they should take as a result. And so long as CrowdStrike can supply the raw server data, the FBI doesn’t need in-person access to double-check conclusions. Moreover, the FBI was already suspicious of Russian involvement well before CrowdStrike got involved, and had access to information that a private company wouldn’t see. This isn’t to let the FBI off the hook. It still has to trust that CrowdStrike is both accurate and divulging everything it can. Also, the bureau’s most recent report on the hack include mistakes (such as listing “malicious” internet addresses that include Tor exit nodes, which doesn’t really say anything). And while multiple intelligence agencies are pointing the finger at Russia , there’s no publicly available smoking gun that will sway you if you’re skeptical. One thing’s for sure: the he-said-she-said between the FBI and DNC will have to be addressed if both sides are going to remove doubt that Russia was to blame. LATEST: FBI says they asked DNC for servers, and DNC refused, “inhibited” the investigation. pic.twitter.com/AfkAPlJsYZ — Ali Watkins (@AliWatkins) January 5, 2017 Source: BuzzFeed News , The Verge , Ali Watkins (Twitter)

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FBI says DNC wouldn’t give it direct access to hacked servers

Russians Used Malware On Android Devices To Track and Target Ukraine Artillery, Says Report

schwit1 quotes a report from Reuters: A hacking group linked to the Russian government and high-profile cyber attacks against Democrats during the U.S. presidential election likely used a malware implant on Android devices to track and target Ukrainian artillery units from late 2014 through 2016, according to a new report released Thursday. The malware was able to retrieve communications and some locational data from infected devices, intelligence that would have likely been used to strike against the artillery in support of pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, the report from cyber security firm CrowdStrike found. The hacking group, known commonly as Fancy Bear or APT 28, is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to work primarily on behalf of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. The implant leveraged a legitimate Android application developed by a Ukrainian artillery officer to process targeting data more quickly, CrowdStrike said. Its deployment “extends Russian cyber capabilities to the front lines of the battlefield, ” the report said, and “could have facilitated anticipatory awareness of Ukrainian artillery force troop movement, thus providing Russian forces with useful strategic planning information.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Russians Used Malware On Android Devices To Track and Target Ukraine Artillery, Says Report

Nigerian Man Charged in Hacking of Los Angeles County Emails

A ‘mere’ 10.8% phishing success rate has forced Los Angeles County to notify approximately 756, 000 individuals that their personal information may have been compromised. The attack occurred on May 13, 2016 when 1, 000 County employees received phishing emails. 108 employees were successfully phished. A Nigerian national has been charged in connection with the hack. From a report on The Guardian: Many large organizations would welcome a 10% success rate in their internal anti-phishing training sessions, with 30% and above being common. The 2016 Verizon DBIR suggests that 30% of all phishing emails are opened. The high number of individuals affected from a relatively low number of successes in LA County demonstrates how dangerous phishing attacks can be. The nature of the potentially compromised information is also concerning. “That information may have included first and last names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license or state identification numbers, payment card information, bank account information, home addresses, phone numbers, and/or medical information, such as Medi-Cal or insurance carrier identification numbers, diagnosis, treatment history, or medical record numbers, ” said the County of Los Angeles Chief Executive Office in a statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nigerian Man Charged in Hacking of Los Angeles County Emails

Hackers Steal $31 Million at Russia’s Central Bank

The Bank of Russia has confirmed Friday that hackers have stolen 2 billion rubles ($31 million) from correspondent accounts at the Russian central bank. Central bank security executive Artiom Sychev said it could’ve been much worse as hackers tried to steal 5 billion rubles, but the central banking authority managed to stop them. CNNMoney reports: Hackers also targeted the private banks and stole cash from their clients, the central bank reported. The central bank did not say when the heist occurred or how hackers moved the funds. But so far, the attack bears some similarity to a recent string of heists that has targeted the worldwide financial system. Researchers at the cybersecurity firm Symantec have concluded that the global banking system has been under sustained attack from a sophisticated group — dubbed “Lazarus” — that has been linked to North Korea. But it’s unclear who has attacked Russian banks this time around. Earlier Friday, the Russian government claimed it had foiled an attempt to erode public confidence in its financial system. Russian’s top law enforcement agency, the FSB, said hackers were planning to use a collection of computer servers in the Netherlands to attack Russian banks. Typically, hackers use this kind of infrastructure to launch a “denial of service” attack, which disrupts websites and business operations by flooding a target with data. The FSB said hackers also planned to spread fake news about Russian banks, sending mass text messages and publishing stories on social media questioning their financial stability and licenses to operate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hackers Steal $31 Million at Russia’s Central Bank

Some hacked e-mails, documents from Putin advisor confirmed as genuine

Enlarge Recently a cache of 2,337 e-mails from the office of a high-ranking advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin was dumped on the Internet after purportedly being obtained by a Ukrainian hacking group calling itself CyberHunta . The cache shows that the Putin government communicated with separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine, receiving lists of casualties and expense reports while even apparently approving government members of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. And if one particular document is to be believed, the Putin government was formulating plans to destabilize the Ukrainian government as early as next month in order to force an end to the standoff over the region, known as Donbass. Based on reporting by the Associated Press’s Howard Amos and analysis by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab , at least some of the e-mails—dumped in a 1-gigabyte Outlook .PST mailbox file—are genuine. Amos showed e-mails in the cache to a Russian journalist, Svetlana Babaeva, who identified e-mails she had sent to Surkov’s office. E-mail addresses and phone numbers in some of the e-mails were also confirmed. And among the documents in the trove of e-mails is a scan of Surkov’s passport (above), as well as those of his wife and children. A Kremlin spokesperson denied the legitimacy of the e-mails, saying that Surkov did not have an e-mail address. However, the account appears to have been used by Surkov’s assistants, and the dump contains e-mails with reports from Surkov’s assistants. The breach, if ultimately proven genuine, would appear to be the first major publicized hack of a Russian political figure. And in that instance, perhaps this could be a response to the hacking of US political figures attributed to Russia. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Some hacked e-mails, documents from Putin advisor confirmed as genuine

Report: Russian Hackers Phished The DNC And Clinton Campaign Using Fake Gmail Forms

Citing a report from SecureWorks, BuzzFeed is reporting that Russian hackers “used emails disguised to look as Gmail security updates to hack into the computers of the Democratic National Committee and members of Hillary Clinton’s top campaign staff”: The emails were sent to 108 members of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign and 20 people clicked on them, at least four people clicking more than once, Secureworks’ research found. The emails were sent to another 16 people from the DNC and four people clicked on them, the report said. Researchers found the emails by tracing the malicious URLs set up by [state-sponsored hacking group] Fancy Bear using Bitly, a link shortening service… “We were monitoring bit.ly and saw the accounts being created in real time, ” said Phil Burdette, a senior security researcher at SecureWorks, explaining how they stumbled upon the the URLs set up by Fancy Bear. The URL apparently resolved to accounts-google.com (rather than accounts.google.com), and Burdette says “They did a great job with capturing the look and feel of Google.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Report: Russian Hackers Phished The DNC And Clinton Campaign Using Fake Gmail Forms

Terahertz radiation could speed up computer memory by 1000 times

One area limiting speed in personal computing speed is memory — specifically, how quickly individual memory cells can be switched, which is currently done using an external magnetic field. European and Russian scientists have proposed a new method using much more rapid terahertz radiation, aka “T-rays, ” the same things used in airport body scanners. According to their research, published in the journal Nature , swapping out magnetic fields for T-rays could crank up the rate of the cell-resetting process by a factor of 1000, which could be used to create ultrafast memory. The radiation is actually a series of short electromagnetic pulses pinging the cells at terahertz frequencies (which have wavelengths of about 0.1 millimeter, lying between microwaves and infrared light, according to the scientists’ press release). Most of the recent T-ray experiments have dealt with quick, precise inspections of organic and mechanical material. Aside from quickly scanning you for contraband and awkward bulges at airports, other proposals have involved using terahertz radiation to look into broken microchip innards , peer into fragile texts and even comb airport luggage for bombs . But similar to those hypothetical applications, you won’t see T-rays in your PCs any time soon. The scientists have successfully demonstrated the concept on a weak ferromagnet, thulium orthoferrite (TmFeO₃), and even found that the terahertz radiation’s effect was ten times greater than a traditional external magnetic field, meaning the new method is both far faster and more efficient. But the scientists have yet to publish tests on actual computer memory cells, so it’s unknown when, or if, T-rays will buzz around inside your machine. Source: Nature

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Terahertz radiation could speed up computer memory by 1000 times

London’s Metropolitan Police Still Running 27,000 Windows XP Desktops

An anonymous reader writes: London’s Met Police has missed its deadline for abandoning the out-of-date operating system Windows XP, as findings reveal 27, 000 computers still run on the software two years after official support ended. Microsoft stopped issuing updates and patches for Windows XP in Spring 2014, meaning that any new bugs and flaws in the operating system are left open to attack. A particularly risky status for the UK capital’s police force – itself running operations against hacking and other cybercrime activity. The figures were disclosed by Conservative politician Andrew Boff. The Greater London Assembly member said: ‘The Met should have stopped using Windows XP in 2014 when extended support ended, and to hear that 27, 000 computers are still using it is worrying.’ As in similar cases across civil departments, the core problem is bespoke system development, and the costs and time associated with integrating a new OS with customized systems. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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London’s Metropolitan Police Still Running 27,000 Windows XP Desktops

Guy Builds a Crazy Bellows Using Only Primitive Technology

The story of mankind is one of doing as little work as possible. And that plays out most excellently as Christian Bale lookalike Primitive Technology seeks to build the most efficient “forge blower” he can with the bounty of the forest. Read more…

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Guy Builds a Crazy Bellows Using Only Primitive Technology