14 DAY TRIAL // Some time has passed since we made weekly security briefs, but now we plan on bringing back that tradition and make a summary of the most important events that marked the week that passed.
First of all, our Hackers around the world series continued with a hacker from Rwanda. He is a perfect example of the implications of cyber security, even in countries in which the Internet and user safety are not a top priority.
We also had a great interview with Freedom, a hacker who recently made the Apple Hall of Fame after helping the company address a number of cross-site scripting issues that affected one of its public websites.
On Monday, we learned that Symantec was once again the target of blackmailers. A group of cybercriminals threatened to expose the Norton Internet Security 2012 source code if the organization refused to pay up. The security firm rushed to deny that the code possessed by the hackers was genuine.
We also learned that the hacker collective known as TeamGhostShell breached the website of Forex Traders and the one of a Chinese university. From the latter, they leaked around 150,000 user credentials.
Anonymous made a lot of headlines after attacking the sites of Virgin Media, the United Nations and the ones of the Kremlin and the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB).
Hacktivists had a few successful operations, but they also lost some of their members, MLT of TeaMp0isoN, and two Norwegians being arrested. Also, rumors are circulating about the arrest of the infamous Phantom.
However, one team of hackers proved that their arrests didn’t discourage them from carrying on with their operations. Four members of the UGNazi team have been arrested, but right after they were released, they launched another attack on the site of the US Department of Education.
Twitter was also mentioned on a few occasions in the past days. First, when “The Hulk’s” account was taken over. Then, rumors started circulating about 55,000 account credentials being leaked. Finally, a fake Carla Bruni-Sarkozy profile posted a tweet in which the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was declared dead.
The Queen’s speech in front of the UK Parliament raised a lot of concern among rights groups after she announced that the government plans of introducing the dreaded monitoring law.
In the “aliens” department, Anonymous denied possessing information that would demonstrate the existence of extraterrestrial life. Jeffrey Pritchett, the host of The Church of Mabus radio show urged them to get involved in these matters.
Finally, PHP managed to fix that pesky PHP-CGI vulnerability that gave a lot of people headaches, but not before the Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner was updated to include a feature that would identify this particular flaw.