Tag Archives: Hack

Yahoo shuts down weeks after confirming the hacking of a billion emails

Posted on by
2

Yahoo, the internet mailing system, shut down about 2:30 pm on Thursday.

 

A bold message indicating the system shutdown on a desktop computer screen reads: “YAHOO! Will be right back… Thanks for your patience. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue.”

 

This is coming a few weeks after the internet company announced that the emails of about a billion of its users were hacked back in 2013.

 

On Monday, reports said that the parent company, Yahoo Incorporated, would be renamed Altaba after a deal for its sale to Verizon Communications was closed. But the company has said it will not be renamed.

 

The shutout lasted only a few hours, as checks by TheCable at 6pm revealed that the mailing system had become active again.

5-year vendetta against Hillary Clinton reason behind Vladimir Putin’s hack of election – US Intel

Posted on by
Reply

US intelligence officials now believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in hacking during the American election campaign as part of a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, NBC News reported late Wednesday.

Putin personally instructed how material hacked from US Democrats was leaked and otherwise used, the US television network said, quoting two senior officials with access to this information.

The officials said they have a “high level of confidence” in this new assessment, NBC reported.

Putin is said never to have forgiven Clinton — then secretary of state — for publicly questioning the integrity of parliamentary elections in 2011 in Russia, and accused her of encouraging street protests.

The intelligence officials told NBC that Putin’s goals in the alleged hacking began as revenge against Clinton.

But they transformed into a broader effort to show that the world of US politics was corrupt and to, in the words of one official, “split off key American allies by creating the image that (other countries) couldn’t depend on the US to be a credible global leader anymore.”

In preparation for possible retaliation, US intelligence agencies have intensified probing of Putin’s personal wealth, NBC said, citing US officials.

Trump, who has spoken warmly of Putin, has dismissed as “ridiculous” the allegation that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and people close to Clinton.

Leading US lawmakers have called for a formal congressional investigation into the hacking.

Simone Biles Releases Statement On Twitter Following The Russian Drug-Testing Hack

Posted on by
313

A group of Russian hackers broke into the World Anti-Doping Agency’s database earlier this week and released the private medical records of multiple Olympic athletes, including Simone Biles, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams.

According to E! News, all three of the superstar athletes had been “given medical exemptions to use banned drugs” for various reasons, and Simone had tested positive for one of WADA’s banned substances prior to the 2016 Summer Games. In response, Simone took to Twitter on Tuesday to explain her side of the story, and to further emphasize that she did not misuse any drugs or cheat.

“I have ADHD and I have taken medicine for it since I was a kid,” she wrote. “Please know, I believe in clean sport, have always followed the rules, and will continue to do so as fair play is critical to sport and is very important to me.”

“Having ADHD, and taking medicine for it is nothing to be ashamed of [and] nothing that I’m afraid to let people know,” she continued.

WADA later released a statement on the matter, condemning the cyber-attack and to state that they believe it happened as a result of email phishing. They also believe that the attack happened in response to the Russian doping scandal at this year’s Olympics.

“WADA deeply regrets this situation and is very conscious of the threat that it represents to athletes whose confidential information has been divulged through this criminal act,” Director General Olivier Niggli said. “We are reaching out to stakeholders, such as the IOC, IFs and NADOs, regarding the specific athletes impacted.”

“Let it be known that these criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to re-establish trust in Russia further to the outcomes of the Agency’s independent McLaren Investigation Report,” he continued.

Meanwhile, the team behind the cyber-attack — which goes by the name Fancy Bears — has released a statement on their website saying that they “stand for fair play and clean sport” and intend to keep releasing information from the WADA database.

“We will start with the U.S. team which has disgraced its name by tainted victories,” they wrote. “We will also disclose exclusive information about other national Olympic teams later. Wait for sensational proof of famous athletes taking doping substances any time soon.”

Credit: cosmopolitan

Putin Denies Democrat email Hack But Praises Leak

Posted on by
Reply

Russia’s president on Friday denied Moscow was behind an email hack that embarrassed White House hopeful Hillary Clinton but said it was important the information got into the public domain.

“I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this,” Vladimir Putin told Bloomberg News in an interview aired Friday.

Hacked emails leaked by WikiLeaks in July revealed that party leaders had sought to undermine the primary campaign of Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders and US officials said Russia was behind the release.

Putin slammed the accusations as attempts to “distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it.”

“The important thing is the content that was given to the public,” he said.

Clinton’s rival Donald Trump has made no secret of his admiration for Putin, leading some to conjecture the Kremlin strongman was working to put the real estate billionaire in the White House.

Credit:

http://guardian.ng/news/putin-denies-democrat-email-hack-but-praises-leak/

Apple Rejects ‘Dangerous’ Order To Hack US Shooter’s iPhone

Posted on by
Reply

Apple has rejected a judge’s order to help the FBI break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, warning it was “too dangerous” to create such a backdoor to the smartphones.

US magistrate Judge Sheri Pym ordered Apple on Tuesday to provide “reasonable technical assistance” to the FBI, including disabling an auto-erase feature after too many unsuccessful attempts are made to unlock the iPhone 5C.

Federal prosecutors had filed a motion requesting Apple’s help after the FBI failed to crack the phone’s code two months into the investigation into the December rampage.

Syed Farook, a US citizen, and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik gunned down 14 people at an office party in San Bernardino, California, before they were killed in a shootout with police. 

But Apple said it would fight the judge’s order, firing the latest shot in a growing debate over encryption pitting the government against tech companies.

“The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement on the company’s website.

“We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.”

Cook said it was too risky to provide the requested software because it could allow ill-intentioned individuals to unlock any iPhone and raises major privacy concerns.

“The US government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone,” Apple said.

“In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

“While the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control,” he said, adding that Apple has cooperated with the FBI thus far.

By disabling the security features, the FBI would be able to attempt as many different password combinations as needed before gaining access to the phone.

It was the property of the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, which employed Farook, and the authority had agreed to the search of the phone.

Credit: Punch

MUST READ: Jonathan Procures N11 Billion Device to Hack into People’s Phones?

Posted on by
1

The Nigeria Police, the Department of State Services [DSS] and the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited [NIGCOMSAT] are, on behalf of the Nigerian government, possibly hacking your phones and listening in to your conversations.

The three state agencies are able to do this with the aid of an over N11 billion sophisticated equipment procured and installed for them by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Knowing what Nigerians are discussing over the telephone was too important a necessity for Mr. Jonathan that he awarded two different contracts for the same purpose in less than two months interval.

On August 31, 2010, less than six months after he became acting president, Mr. Jonathan awarded an approximately N6billion contract to an Israeli-owned but Abuja-based security firm, V & V Nigeria Limited, for the “Procurement of strategic GSM Tracking System for the Nigeria Police Force and expansion/upgrade of the existing system with the DSS”.

Read More: premiumtimesng.com

ICT Expert Claims AIT Lied About Hacking Allegation, Provides Evidence

Posted on by
Reply

 AIT had few days ago organised an online poll between the Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), President Goodluck Jonathan and that of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari.

 AIT then released a press statement claiming the poll was hacked by supporters of Buhari with the use of a software to vote several times in favour of Buhari.

In the statement widely circulated to media houses, AIT claimed an integrity test conducted on the result of the poll showed that 30 unidentified unique IP addresses voted a total of 4969 in favour of Buhari, suggesting that the process was hacked and rigged.

 ICT expert and Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN), Gbenga Sesan, howevere went to work and discovered that AIT did nit only lied in the press statement, but also deliberately manipulated the CSV file which contained the IP addresses where voters who participated in the polling are found.

Read More: abusidiqu.com

APC Planned to Hack into INEC Database— DSS

Posted on by
Reply

The Department of State Services, DSS, has accused the All Progressives Congress, APC, of an elaborate plot to hack into the voters registration data base of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. It alleged that the purpose was to clone voters and party membership cards to match those in the data base.

The DSS claim was based on what it allegedly recovered from the invasion of the APC data centre in Lagos on November 22, 2014.

The charges were immediately rebuffed, by the APC which described the findings as hogwash, a “disservice to Nigeria and an embarrassment to all intelligence-gathering organizations around the world.”

Revealing the alleged findings from the outcome of its investigations, DSS spokesperson Marilyn Ogar, at a press conference in Abuja, said its operatives recovered a computer hard drive containing a video of 21 hacking tutorials during the raids on the APC centre located at 10 Bola Ajibola Street, Ikeja, Lagos State.

Ogar, a deputy director, Public Relations in the DSS, said the tutorial video focused on how to become a hacker and steps to take to avoid detection in the process of hacking web servers.

Ogar also alleged that the video explained how to hack into the systems of media houses, with the purpose of broadcasting fake stories or headlines.

She said the DSS also discovered that the APC registered under-aged persons including several infants and babies, foreigners and security personnel as members of the party.

Credit www.vanguardngr.com