14 DAY TRIAL // A lot of young people have been arrested recently for being involved in cyberattacks. Also, researchers have been busy analyzing new types of malware and other cyber threats. Read on to find out what you’ve missed in case you haven’t been online much over the past week.
At least five youths have been arrested for cybercrimes. One of them is an 18-year-old student from Hamburg, Germany. He has been detained by the Cyber Crime Competence Center (4C) for disrupting the website of the state of Saxony-Anhalt with a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack.
Another young hacker detained by authorities is 19-year-old Jared James Abrahams from Temacula, California. He is accused of hacking into the computers of several women in an effort to steal compromising photos and videos. He used the stolen information to blackmail his victims.
He extorted women from all over the world, including Miss Teen USA 2013, Cassidy Wolf, who alerted authorities after the hacker approached her.
A couple of students from India were also visited by police after hacking into the online income tax accounts of several famous people, including actors, cricket players and a businessman.
The last arrested individual was actually detained in April. However, the press only learned of it now. A 16-year-old from the UK was arrested for being involved in the largest DDOS attack in history.
Let’s take a look at IT security research-related stories. Researchers Patrick Stewin and Iurii Bystrov have uncovered a way to detect malware that’s executed on dedicated hardware by leveraging direct memory access (DMA).
They’re actually the ones who have created such DMA malware (DAGGER). Now, they’ve found a way to detect it.
Kaspersky Lab researchers have been analyzing a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign aimed at organizations mainly from Japan and South Korea. The operation, dubbed Icefog, is interesting because the cybercriminals that run it know exactly what information they’re after.
ESET and Avast researchers have spotted a new piece of malware dubbed Napolar. The Trojan, openly advertised on a professional-looking website, is designed to steal information, act as a SOCKS proxy and launch DDOS attacks.
Experts from Rice University say they’ve invented a clever authentication system that can be used to protect implanted medical devices. The researchers propose using heartbeats as passwords.
As far as hacks are concerned, a Pakistani group has managed to deface Google Kenya and several Google Burundi domains. The list of websites defaced this week also includes Translate.com, and the ones of the Palestine Ministry of Justice and other Palestinian government organizations.
100 Thailand government websites were also defaced this week by two separate hacker groups.
We’ve also learned of some more high-profile hacks. US officials are accusing Iran of breaching an unclassified network of the US Navy. Iran has refused to comment on the allegations.
And, finally, here are a couple of rather amusing stories from the UK. Former London Deputy Mayor Richard Michael Barnes has blamed hackers for a series of pictures of a man’s private parts posted on his Facebook account.
The second story stars former England footballer Paul Gascoigne, whose bank account was hit by hackers. Check out his statement.
Here are some other interesting stories:
Users report receiving calls from unknown numbers of Viber
Softpedia Exclusive Interview: Digital Defense CTO Gordon MacKay on SEA attacks
Guide: how to remove Qvo6 browser hijacker
The Pirate Bay and other similar websites might be blocked in Portugal
Apple’s Touch ID cracked by German hackers by using decade-old technique
LinkedIn denies hacking into customer emails
AnonGhost leaving the hacking scene
Indian High Commission in London starts using typewriters to prevent spying
Canadian man loses C$500,000 (€359,000) in online dating scam