Monthly Archives: March 2014

Hackers hijack 300,000-plus wireless routers, make malicious changes

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“So far, the attacks have hijacked more than 300,000 servers in a wide range of countries, including Vietnam, India, Italy, Thailand, and Colombia. Each compromise has the potential to redirect virtually all connected end users to malicious websites that attempt to steal banking passwords or push booby-trapped software, the Team Cymru researchers warned. The campaign comes weeks after researchers from several unrelated organizations uncovered separate ongoing mass hacks of other routers, including a worm that hit thousands of Linksys routers and the exploit of a critical flaw in Asus routers that exposes the contents of hard drives connected by USB.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/03/hackers-hijack-300000-plus-wireless-routers-make-malicious-changes/

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Microsoft is using your data to target political ads on Xbox Live

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“Microsoft is trying to persuade politicians to take out targeted ads on Xbox Live, Skype, MSN and other company platforms as midterm elections begin heating up around the country. The ads, which would appear on the Xbox Live dashboard and other Microsoft products, combine Microsoft user IDs and other public data to build a profile of Xbox users. Campaigns can then blast ads to selected demographic categories, or to specific congressional districts. And if the campaign brings its own list of voter e-mail addresses, Microsoft can match the additional data with individual customer accounts for even more accurate voter targeting.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07/microsoft-is-using-your-data-to-target-political-ads-on-xbox-live/

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In phishing attack, Microsoft’s unmentionables aired by hacktivists

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“Billing invoices and other documents show Microsoft charging the FBI hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to comply with legal requests for customer information, according to The Daily Dot. The stolen Microsoft material was provided by members of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a hacking group that has compromised social media accounts and occasionally private networks of eBay and Viber, as well as media outlets including The Washington Post, the Associated Press, The Financial Times, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and Forbes. The group has proven itself to be extremely effective in waging highly targeted phishing attacks that extract login credentials.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/03/taken-in-phishing-attack-microsofts-dirty-laundry-aired-by-hacktivists/

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Leaked Snowden documents: NSA hacked Chinese telecom company

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“The U.S. National Security Agency monitored communications of top Huawei executives looking for evidence of ties to the Chinese government and military.  The documents do not confirm those ties, the Times reported.  The NSA was also interested in tapping into Huawei’s extensive networks, enabling it to monitor communications of Huawei customers in other countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, and Cuba.  It was unclear from the Times report if those surveillance efforts were followed through on.  The surveillance program, dubbed ‘Shotgiant,’ was also reported by the German publication Der Spiegel.”

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/23/technology/security/nsa-china-huawei/index.html

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This drone can steal what’s on your phone

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“Hackers have developed a drone that can steal the contents of your smartphone — from your location data to your Amazon password — and they’ve been testing it out in the skies of London.  CNNMoney took Snoopy out for a spin in London on a Saturday afternoon in March and Wilkinson was able to show us what he believed to be the homes of several people who had walked underneath the drone. In less than an hour of flying, he obtained network names and GPS coordinates for about 150 mobile devices.  He was also able to obtain usernames and passwords for Amazon, PayPal and Yahoo accounts created for the purposes of our reporting so that we could verify the claims.”

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/technology/security/drone-phone/

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Thieves dig 50-foot tunnel to steal money from a grocery store ATM

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“A group of thieves in the UK dug a 50-foot underground tunnel to steal money from an ATM this week, according to a statement released today by the Greater Manchester Police. The theft occurred between midnight and 6AM on March 14th, at a Tesco grocery store in the town of Eccles. Police say the thieves accessed and escaped the store from an underground tunnel that they dug at an abandoned lot nearby. It’s not clear how much money they made off with, though investigators described it as ‘a substantial sum.’  In 2012, a group dug a 100-foot tunnel to steal about £6,000 ($9,915) from an ATM located near a Blockbuster store in Manchester.”

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5528896/thieves-dig-50-foot-tunnel-to-steal-money-from-uk-atm-tesco

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Ukraine Goes Cyprus 2.0, To Tax Deposits Over 100,000 Hryvnia

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“Ukraine’s parliament is to consider draft laws which would ban foreign-currency bank deposits and introduce a 25% tax on interest on deposits in banks and other financial institutions in circumstances where the interest received is more than 5% above the rate set by the National Bank of Ukraine.  The proposed amendments to banking and tax legislation were put forward by Yevhen Sihal, who is a member of the country’s ruling Party of Regions. In an explanatory note submitted with the drafts, he argued that the higher tax rate will encourage consumer spending, reduce the cost of business loans, and provide extra funding for the country’s Pension Fund.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-20/ukraine-goes-cyprus-20-tax-deposits-over-100000-hryvnia-appease-imf

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Visa, Mastercard block US-sanctioned Russian banks

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“International payment system Mastercard has stopped serving clients of seven Russian lenders, after the US issued sanctions against it regarding Russia’s position over the Ukrainian turmoil.  Rossiya Bank was blocked by both Mastercard and Visa, with the latter also cutting ties with Sobinbank, SMP Bank and Investcapitalbank. Washington’s move is meant to put pressure on people they see as members of President Vladimir Putin’s ‘inner circle’. The bank’s owner, Yury Kovalchuk, is on the list as well, as an individual.  Visa and Mastercard have a record of bowing to political decisions from Washington, most notably in blocking donations to the WikiLeaks whistleblower website.”

http://rt.com/business/visa-mastercard-russia-sanctions-285/

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Startup of the Week: CurrencyTransfer

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“CurrencyTransfer is a business foreign exchange price comparison marketplace. International business payments can be expensive and opaque, with hidden markups of up to five percent of the value of transfers. CurrencyTransfer aims to bring transparency and impartiality to the market, by getting currency specialists to lifestream their tradable rates — which are usually decided ‘manually’ over the phone depending on the client — in a transparent market.  It was set up by computer scientist Stevan Litobac, who was born in Sarajevo but fled to the UK when the Bosnian war started, and Israeli-Brit Daniel Abrahams.”

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/21/startup-of-the-week-currency-transfer

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Was This $200 Vending Machine the World’s First Bitcoin ATM?

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“This low-tech version of a bitcoin ATM was built with a modest budget of €150 (around $200 at today’s prices). Furthermore, it was created not as part of a tech, business or computing course, but as an art installation.  To create his ATM, Albrecht bought a second-hand vending machine that cost him roughly €80 ($110). He printed out both private keys and links to individual online wallets, put the paper slips in small cardboard boxes, and put those in the vending machine.  A customer would simply need to insert a coin to get a voucher for their euro’s-worth of bitcoin, which was stored on easywallet.org.”

http://www.coindesk.com/200-vending-machine-worlds-first-bitcoin-atm/

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