Dragging your Database Out Through Your Login Screen

Let’s start with the visual image of one of those mechanical claw arcade machines – the one where you insert a few quarters and grab a toy with a mechanical claw. These can be addictive games for some of us. Let’s take that same visual image. But instead of a claw dropping down onto a pile of beanie babies, let’s visualize a hacker reaching through your login screen and … Read More »

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Taking a Laptop to a Knife Fight

We all have fears. My own include high places (the falling part), being buried alive (Uma Thurman’s coffin scene in Kill Bill 2 haunts me) and crazy people with sharp weapons. I don’t do gutters and the probability of my being buried alive is smaller than a lightning strike – I’m safe on both fronts. As for crazies with weapons; while I couldn’t find solid numbers, Indiana’s total 2011 … Read More »

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Famous Hackers: Cult of the Dead Cow

Anonymous and Wikileaks have been in the news a lot lately, but they weren’t the first group to use the Internet to protest censorship and promote what they consider basic rights. The Cult of the Dead Cow, also know as cDc or cDc Communications, is a hacker organization first established in 1984. According to Wired magazine, the group actually coined the term “hactivism” and defined it as “the development … Read More »

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Anonymous, Lulz Security and WikiLeaks – True Activist or Hackers Looking for A Justification?

Activism in America has a rich and vibrant history and the actions of American activists have resulted in sometimes dramatic and far-reaching social, government and industrial changes. By declaring themselves activists, hactivist groups Anonymous, LulzSec and WikiLeaks have entered a lofty arena full of history and significance. In order to better understand the nature of hacktivism, it is important to consider this concept in a broader context. However, before … Read More »

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The RSA Breach – Back in the News

As you may remember RSA, the vendor the SecurID authentication tokens, was hacked in March 2010. The  resulting data breach affected many of RSA’s 25,000 global customers who use over 40 million of these devices. The SecurID is one half of a “two-factor” authentication method. “Two-factor” indicates the user must successfully login using a memorized password or PIN, as well as a six-digit code found on the SecurID; with … Read More »

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Hacker Payback: Dox

The world of computer security is full of slang. And while the media has made a number of different hacker terms, such as “hacktivism” and “malware,” more mainstream, there are still a number of terms that remain relatively unused by the average reporter. As a result, though being “doxed” is nothing new, you may have never heard the term. Doxed, or being doxed, is Internet slang for releasing personal … Read More »

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Origins of Hacktivism: Anonymous, Lulz Security and WikiLeaks

While today’s hacktivism is undoubtedly much broader than media reporting would lead us to believe, the public appears to focus on three organizations: Anonymous, Lulz Security (LulzSec) and WikiLeaks, as the core of hacktivism in the United States, if not the world. So who are these self-proclaimed hactivists? Where did they come from? And how are they making their mark on cyber security, corporate business and how we conduct … Read More »

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The Anatomy of Hacktivism

As I discussed in my previous post “Hacktivism: An Introduction,” the term “hactivism” recently gained visibility as the result of media reports of attacks on major corporations and organizations including Sony, Lockheed and PBS. Individuals and loosely associated organizations are also now defining themselves as “hacktivists.” The public actions of groups under this title have only added familiarity to the term and Anonymous, Lulz Security (LulzSec) and WikiLeaks have … Read More »

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Official Hacker of the Stars

Is it just me, or do the rest of you feel just a twinge of disappointment when you don’t make Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” each year? To add insult to injury, Christopher Chaney of Jacksonville, Florida was just arrested for hacking into computer accounts belong to more than 50 people—primarily celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera, Mila Kunis, Simone Harouche and Renee Olstead—but once again, this time … Read More »

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Typosquatting – Another Great Web Scam

If nothing else, the world of web security is remarkable for the creativity of its scams and the names the names given to these scams. Where else could you expect to find names like typosquatting and Doppelganger Domains? In fact, the actual meanings of these scam names are just as interesting as the names might imply (well… at least for us hard-core geeks). What is Typosquatting? Typosquatting is the … Read More »