Tag: Claims

British spies tapping ‘Smurf’ tech to hack phones claims Snowden

Snowden claims British agencies are spying on your phone using programme codenamed ‘Smurfs’ Fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on Monday claimed that British spies are are tapping into our telephones and can even switch them on and off remotely as a way of keeping track of our every move. They can hack into phones […]

Hacking, China’s maritime claims overshadow Xi’s US visit

Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans As Chinese President Xi Jinping makes his first state visit to Washington this week, the outlook for relations is decidedly murkier than when he hosted President Barack Obama at their last summit less than a year ago. Tensions are rising over allegations of Beijing-directed cyberattacks on […]

New render claims to show the final design of the LG Nexus 5 (2015)

Google is seemingly getting ready to announce two brand new Nexus smartphones during an event held on September 29 in San Francisco. As reported countless of times before, one of the new Nexus handsets is likely manufactured by LG (this would be the third LG-made Nexus phone to date), while Huawei appears to be in […]

Obama apologizes to Japan over NSA spying claims

Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans “President Obama said he was very sorry… as the case caused a big debate in Japan,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said without confirming the spying claims. Suga added that Abe told Obama that if the allegations were true, “it could shake our relationship of […]

ISIS social media accounts are buzzing with a spreadsheet of personal data on employees of the American, British, and Australian governments, including military personnel. The Islamic State claims this list was compiled using data stolen from government systems by its “hacking division,” although some experts who have reviewed the list say most of it was more likely created using simple Google searches of publicly available data. There are about 1,400 individuals included on the list. The list was accompanied by a message from the “Islamic State Hacking Division,” transcribed by Sky News: O Crusaders, as you continue your aggression towards the Islamic State and your bombing campaign against the Muslims, know that we are in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move. We have your names and addresses, we are in your emails and social media accounts, we are extracting confidential data and passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilafah, who soon with the permission of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands. So wait, we too are waiting. The Sydney Morning Herald criticizes Australian officials for being “caught on their heels” by the hit list, which includes Defense Force employees and a Victorian MP. Even though “Australia’s most senior Islamic State militant, former Melbourne man and terror recruiter Neil Prakash” was posting links to the hit list early Wednesday morning, at least half of the Australians targeted by ISIS said they were unaware of the threat until they were informed by the media… which contacted them using the phone numbers published by the Islamic State. “I’m completely at a loss,” said the aforementioned MP, who at least has access to a security detail assigned to protect elected officials. “What do I do? The police probably know less than you and I.” Defense Force employees on the list said they were in shock no one from the government had warned them. Various agencies of the Australian government declined to discuss the matter. In addition to Prakash – who crowed “Cyber war got em shook!” and “Kill them where you find them and enslave their women” on Twitter – the Herald reports “other prominent militants, including British man Junaid Hussain, who is third on a CIA kill list of Islamic State operatives, also used social media to promote the leak and encourage attacks.” Sky News reports the hit list includes British Foreign Office employees, plus a “local council employee.” Most of the names on the list are American, including personnel from the Air Force, Marines, NASA, FBI, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Russian state outlet RT.com says the list also includes “a worker in an Israeli magistrate’s court” and “someone in a college in Mississippi.” The RT.com article mentions some reasons for skepticism about the Islamic State’s claim that this list includes confidential information obtained by hackers: some of the phone numbers appear to be disconnected, while the purportedly stolen U.S. military passwords appearing on the list are “too weak to pass the guidelines of an official computer system operated by the Pentagon.” The Sydney Morning Herald also found some of the information published on the list to be outdated. “This is the second or third time they’ve claimed that and the first two times I’ll tell you, whatever lists they got were not taken by any cyber attack,” said Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno, as quoted by the UK Guardian. The Guardian also cites the opinion of computer security expert Troy Hunt, who said the of the supposedly hacked data: “It’s pretty clear that it’s been aggregated from different sources. It’s been put together on the basis of a .gov or .mil address. Even the passwords, they’re not strong enough to have come from a corporate or government. They’re not even strong enough to have come from an online service – you can’t create a Gmail account, for example, with a password of less than eight characters, and here we’re seeing some passwords of three letters.” The UK Daily Mail notes that Twitter administrators appear to have shut down the Islamic State Hacking Division’s account three times on Wednesday while it attempted to spread its hit list around, leading to the creation of a fourth terrorist account with the message, “Kuffar seem to be raging.”

Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans ISIS social media accounts are buzzing with a spreadsheet of personal data on employees of the American, British, and Australian governments, including military personnel. The Islamic State claims this list was compiled using data stolen from government systems by its “hacking division,” although some experts who […]

New rumor claims that Apple will not release an iPad Air 3 this year

According to a new report from Taiwanese publication Digitimes, there won’t be an Apple iPad Air 3 this year.  Before diving into the details, it should be mentioned that. although the publication has been right on multiple occasions in the past when reporting on upcoming smartphones and tablets, it is far from a perfect track […]

Anonymous claims responsibility for Census Bureau hack

Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans Online hacking group Anonymous is taking responsibility for breaching U.S. Census Bureau databases and posting what looks like personally identifiable information on various federal and state government employees. In a tweet Wednesday, the collective posted a link to a website that houses four large text documents […]

FBI questions in-flight hacker who claims plane takeover

Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans A hacker told the FBI last week he has been able to crack aircraft computers on numerous occasions—as a passenger. According to the affidavit, Chris Roberts claims he caused a plane to move laterally and climb while he was connected to its onboard entertainment system. During […]

SCDF ex-director claims trial over ‘pocketing’ of 2 iPads

Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans  Powered by Max Banner Ads The director of technology at the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), who has been accused of misappropriating two Apple iPad tablets, apparently wanted to buy the products, a district court heard yesterday. Jeganathan Ramasamy, 63, who was director of the technology department […]