Tag: HACKING

Wi-Fi is not the most secure method of transmitting data. Like any other wireless transmission system, it's relatively simple for a hacker to detect and intercept your data as it literally flies through the air. Cracking encryption systems, like WEP and WPA, which are meant to keep out uninvited Web surfers and data thieves, has proven elementary for those with moderate hacking skills. Now, the ...

Is a reformed con artist really a reformed con artist if he cons another criminal into a federal sting operation? That's the question Thor Alexander Morris must be asking himself after ending up on the wrong side of an undercover FBI investigation. The 19-year-old grocery store worker from North Carolina recently made the mistake of teaming up with a con artist from Houston to pull off a major ATM ...

Share According to The Washington Post, a 9-year-old boy hacked into the Fairfax County, Virginia, school system's Blackboard Learning System. He changed teacher and staff passwords, edited course content and toyed with school enrollment numbers. For those who don't know, Blackboard is an online classroom where teachers can track grades and post assignments for students to complete and submit. ...

Share To get a look at the world of cyber-security from an insider, Switched turned to noted and notorious hacker Jeff Moss, a.k.a Dark Tangent. Moss got his start hacking the phone system before founding DefCon, the long-running annual hacker convention in Las Vegas, in 1992. He then took his l337 skillz to big industry by founding the network security consultancy firm Black Hat. Moss's ...

Attention, amateur hackers: Uncle Sam wants you to help fight cyber-crime -- and he's getting pretty desperate, too. As cyber-attacks become more complex and virulent, the U.S. government has poured billions of dollars into securing our nation's digital borders. Problem is, it's facing a severe shortage of manpower. Out of the roughly 20,000 "elite" cyber-experts that the U.S. needs, there are ...

Hacker Christopher Tarnovsky has accomplished what many thought was nearly impossible: cracking the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Described by some as a "digital Fort Knox," the TPM is a specialized processor dedicated to encrypting data and keeping sensitive information from prying eyes. The chips, found in many PCs, are an important line of defense for businesses and governments who need to ...

Getting invited to New York Fashion Week shows is hard enough, trust us (i.e. me).Moreover, getting the invites to haute designers like Cushnie et Ochs, Alexander Wang and Erin Fetherston is practically impossible, and requires a minor amount of celebrity to accomplish. But two Vermont high school seniors who have over-indulged in a little too much 'Gossip Girl' have decided to take matters into ...

2009 was an abysmal year in terms of cybersecurity, as cyberattacks and data breaches doubled from 2008. The most publicized event occurred when Google became embroiled in a heated dispute with China over the nation's involvement in a hack on the search engine. Google even threatened to shutter its Google China service because of the incident, which Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. ...

As Chinese citizens continue to shower Google's Beijing headquarters with flowers and "Thank You Google" cards, a group of researchers reportedly identified the source behind the cyber attacks that spurred Google's recent decision to stand up to the People's Republic. According to a report from VeriSign iDefense Labs, the Chinese government was indeed behind the December attack on Google and 30 ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2009/11/02/just-how-risky-are-public-wi-fi-hotspots/'; Ever wonder how safe all your personal information is when it's beamed through the air over Wi-Fi ? If you haven't, then chances are, you haven't taken the right precautions to keep that information safe, either. In clear, easy-to-understand language, the 'Today Show' recently examined the ...

Whether they were stalking us on MySpace from a secret account, drunkenly crashing our birthday parties, or just texting and calling 200 times a day for three months straight, we've all got our share of crazy exes. But those stories would pale in comparison to the tales that the exes of Ali Wise would tell. A former Dolce & Gabbana PR Director, Wise has been met with allegations that she ...

A scandal involving sexting, the risque practice of sending illicit texts or photos, predominantly attributed to teens, is currently rocking a high school in England. The students in question weren't circulating photos of themselves or their classmates, though. The photos were of their principal. According to The Telegraph, the headmistress, Sue Brearley, told colleagues that she uploaded the ...

The U.S. already spends a ton of money on cybersecurity, but it may need to dig a little deeper if something like this happens again: According to the Associated Press, The FBI and the U.S. Marshals offices were forced to shut down sections of their respective networks on Thursday after they were hit by a mystery virus. The U.S. Marshals office even had to disconnect from the Justice ...

On April 30th, an unidentified individual, or group, hacked into the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program's Web site, WikiLeaks first reported Sunday. A full week after the hack occurred, the perpetrator is still holding hostage the private data of over 8 million Virginia patients. The party responsible for this security breach didn't hack into the prescription-drug-abuse-tracking site for ...

If the New York Police Department had a dollar for every attempted hack on its computer system, New York cops would be driving around in Ferraris instead of those horrid Crown Victorias (or Impalas). In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that hackers try to breach the NYPD's computer system at least 70,000 times a day, according to the ...