The main events of the week between August 5 and August 11, 2013

Aug 11, 2013 02:31 GMT  ·  By

We’ve had some interesting stories over the past week and in case you haven’t been online much, here’s your chance to catch up on some reading.

One of this week’s most interesting topics is related to an attack on the TOR Network which coincides with the arrest of a man believed to be behind Freedom Hosting, a hidden services hosting platform that’s said to have been supporting several illegal websites.

After analyzing the malware involved in the attack, security researchers found that some of the IP addresses it used appeared to be linked to the United States National Security Agency (NSA).

Later, experts admitted that they might have misinterpreted evidence, but they still haven’t completely ruled out the NSA’s involvement in the case.

As far as US law enforcement authorities are concerned, they sometime hire hackers to help them, but they’d rather teach them a lesson. A Las Vegas cab driver has revealed the details of an interesting conversation he had with FBI agents about hackers.

Hacktivists and former hacktivists have also made the news. First, we learned that another LulzSec hacker, Raynaldo Rivera, was sentenced to 1 year in prison, 13 months of house arrest and 1,000 of community service.

Another former LulzSec member, Jake Davis, has published a statement to explain why he’s not allowed to contact or associate with Anonymous or his former colleagues.

And since we’re talking about Anonymous, it appears there are a lot of members of the activist movement in the US Army. One unnamed captain has revealed that some of them wanted jobs in the Army just to gain access to “secret stuff.”

The example set by Snowden and Manning will likely be followed by others.

When it comes to hacks, it’s worth noting that the Syrian Electronic Army breached the website of the British TV broadcaster Channel 4. Also, this week we’ve learned that Zimbabwe’s presidential election has been accompanied by several cyberattacks.

The DNS servers of three Dutch hosting companies were hijacked. As a result, thousands of websites served malware.

In the Twitter/Instagram hack section, we have the following list of victims: Fast & Furious actress Jordana Brewster, American actor Zach Roerig, writer and producer Hart Hanson, British MP Jane Ellison, ESPN racing analyst Mike Massaro, American football cornerback Justin Bethel, the Australian Electoral Commission, and One Direction Drummer Josh Devine.

Cybercriminals can’t escape the long arm of the (US) law. Three individuals involved in the $5 million (€3.7 million) cyber fraud operation dubbed “Western Express” were sentenced to up to 40, 44, respectively 47 years in prison.

The three are the latest to be convicted in the eight-year-long investigation carried out by US authorities.

Another cybercriminal, this time from Latvia, will be extradited to the United States where he faces up to 67 years in prison. Some Latvian officials attempted to block the extradition, arguing that the sentence is too harsh, but their protests have been in vain.

Here are some other stories worth reading:

Customers of British ISP Sky blocked from accessing news site TorrentFreak

Citizens Bank hit by DDOS attack possibly launched by Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters

“Hand of Thief” Trojan steals banking information from Linux computers

Millions of users from Mexico at risk due to vulnerability in the email systems of telecoms company Prodigy

Video: OAuth bypass vulnerability found in Microsoft’s social network Yammer

High-tech Japanese toilets can be hacked via Bluetooth