What is Data17?

There is a booming industry that sells computer security products to consumers and businesses. But antivirus companies have a problem: Their software often can’t prevent hackers from breaking into your computer and snooping around. The New York Times was the latest victim to discover the limitations of antivirus software. The Times revealed Wednesday night that Chinese hackers [...]

Danger: Malware ahead! Google chrome has blocked access to this page on ______. Content from www.qcksrv.com, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware. For a few hours now, thousands of Chrome users are dealing with problem. Why no [...]

The Kaspersky Lab security solutions company claims to have discovered a complex, sustained and global cyber attack which has been operational for over five years. The operation, known as ‘Red October’, aims at stealing sensitive information from governmental, diplomatic and scientific entities in different countries.  If Kaspersky is to be believed, the operation is powered [...]

According to tests carried out by the German company AV-Test.org, antivirus software is less effective than it has been in the past. This conclusion has been drawn after AV-Test analyzed 33 pieces of antivirus software targeted at both home and corporate users. While the antiviruses were able to clean 91% of the infected systems, they [...]

Ignoring Oracle’s recent efforts to patch the zero-day vulnerabilities in its Java 7 platform, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security still advises users to disable Java in their browsing experience.  The Department is skeptical of the company actually fixing all security holes and fears that soon other yet undiscovered vulnerabilities will be exploited. Their fears [...]

In response to the zero-day attacks on its Java 7 platform, Oracle has issued an emergency update. As of today, attackers are no longer able to infiltrate computers through the Java platform and the Mal/JavaJar-B Trojan is rendered powerless on the Windows, Linux and Unix platforms it focused.  The update is available on the company’s [...]

Oracle’s Java 7 security updates seem to lose their race with the various malware that keep attacking the platform. The Java platform has been the victim of zero-day attacks lately, with malicious software such as the recent Mal/JavaJar-B Trojan horse going wild over Windows, Linux and Unix systems with Java 7 installed long before developers [...]

An odd pattern of online cyberattacks on several banks has been  observed in the U.S. over the last few months. For a long while, the government officials have kept silent over who is responsible for these attacks, but according to The New York Times they have now started blaming them on Iran. James A. Lewis, a [...]

Privacy and its hazy future in the cloud might not have occupied the central stage at CES 2013 so far, but some colorful discussions have surely been present on the side of the mobile future discourse. This morning for example, Jim Reavis, Executive Director of Cloud Security Alliance, compared privacy with virginity when talking about [...]

If you live in South Carolina, you might be in for a Holiday treat : some good old fashioned Christmasy identity theft. You can thank the state’s Department of Revenue for that. The department is responsible for literally giving away approximately 3.5 million bank accounts and Social Security Numbers to some unnamed Russian hackers. Everything [...]

One Samsung developer discovered a major-risk security flaw that he suspects affects all Samsung devices powered by the Exynos 4 ARM-based system-on-chip. This includes Galaxy S3, Galaxy S2 and Galaxy note, but not the Nexus 10. The security hole enables applications to access all user data and subsequently enables malicious applications to corrupt the Samsung devices [...]

Seculert, an Israeli security company, has identified a unique and yet extremely dangerous malware that is specialized on infecting PoS (point-of-sale) systems. Going by the name of Dexter, this malware has been stealing credit card data from major retailers in over 40 countries in the last three months. The United States are affected most by [...]

If you’re too lazy to reach for the remote, it seems you can hire a hacker to change the channels for you. But only if you own one of the newest models of Samsung TVs. According to a security consultancy company in Malta, most TV devices made by Samsung can be hacked, rooted and turned [...]

According to the FBI, a botnet of over 11 million infected computers is no longer operational, thanks to a cooperation with Facebook. Historically speaking, this is the largest anti-cybercrime operation so far, as it disabled a network which managed to steal over 850 million dollars during its uptime. Ten people were arrested in Croatia, Bosnia [...]

A hacktivist group known as Team GhostShell has declared on Pastebin that it is responsible for stealing an impressive number of accounts of employees from various US government agencies and their contractors. Notable targets of their attack were the FBI, the Interpol, the Pentagon and pretty much everything in-between. At a closer look, the stolen [...]

If you have been at least remotely interested in online security in the last few years, you would know that there are two kind of hackers: “white hat” hackers or security experts with a desire for the greater good, which simply attack websites to expose the vulnerabilities of important companies and then give the information [...]

International hackers broke into the Miami Family Medical Centre over the weekend and stole all patient records. The files are still available on the medical centre’s server, but they were thoroughly encrypted by the hackers who are now asking for 4000 USD to decrypt the files. The hackers also meddled with the center’s back-up discs [...]

With people getting into the shopping spree mood this Christmas,  hackers are turning back to one of their oldest tricks: email phishing through PayPal. According to several online news sources, Australia and Canada are actively targeted this month. But, since PayPal has become a global payment solution, it is only a matter of time since [...]

You should think twice before posting to Twitter via SMS. It seems that a recently discovered bug enables hackers to make use of your account through SMS technology. According to the blogger who discovered this SMS vulnerability, if someone has your telephone number, he can use it to post to your Twitter on your behalf. [...]

With cyber attacks becoming bigger and lasting longer, the possibility of a “Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Armageddon” doesn’t seem so extreme any more - an attack  so complex that it could paralyse the whole of the Internet. Statistically speaking, DDoS attacks can overwhelm a 10 Gbps connection since 2005. According to Arbor Peakflow SP, this year some attacks were [...]

Important blogs such as USA Today, CNET, The Verge and Reuters were the target of worm attacks today. The worm injected itself through Tumblr by exploiting a bug which is now officially fixed. This piece of malware is the creation of the GNAA hacker group, which also claims that they managed to affect almost 9000 [...]

A security researcher published on Friday another attack on Facebook’s Instagram photo-sharing service that could allow a hacker to seize control of a victim’s account. The attack was developed by Carlos Reventlov around a vulnerability he found within Instagram in mid-November. He notified Instagram of the problem on Nov. 11, but as of last Tuesday, it had [...]

According to John “Mike” McConnell, former director of NSA under President Clinton  and former director of national intelligence under both President Obama and George W. Bush, the U.S is only one small step away from another “World Trade Center” type of attack. Only this time everything will take place in the cyber world. In his interview [...]

After AV-Test.org, a German security suite evaluator has got its busy hands on Microsoft Security Essentials, the message is clear: do not rely on Microsoft to protect your computer from viruses. MSE was the only security suite out of 24 to fail the company’s  extensive testing. In AV-Test.org’s opinion, Microsoft is offering rudimentary protection at [...]

Copyright: http://www.economist.com/node/21556641

Twenty eight scientist from the Jet Propulsion Lab who sued NASA for privacy rights violation back in 2007 were hit by a streak of bad luck in the recent two years. Their case, which was taken to the Supreme Court, was lost last year. They claimed that NASA employee background check practices are too invasive [...]

Both some proper Samsung printers and some of the devices manufactured by Samsung for Dell are vulnerable to hacking. These printers feature a hardcoded SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) string which can be used by third parties to monitor information on the devices. Moreover, the SNMP stays active even if the user specifically disables the [...]

A fresh study sponsored by Kaspersky Lab claims that less than 50% of companies world-wide (this percent is even more drastic in the U.S.) don’t take measures against modern cyber-threats. The results were generated from a base of over 3,300 senior IT professionals from 22 countries who have a word to say when it comes [...]

The United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency has fallen under the attack of hackers. The attack, which resulted in information theft, was targeted at an old server which was taken out of service some time ago. Responsible for the attack is a group of individuals which calls itself “Parastoo”. This group has leaked a sample of [...]

FBI and MI5, with the help of the Romanian Special Services, have arrested nine Romanian key members of two global hacker organizations which operated mainly in Australia, Malaysia and Great Britain. The first organization was responsible for installing skimming devices on ATMs on the Eastern Australian Coast, obtaining credit card data, cloning this data and using it [...]

If you have access to the right cyber-crime forum, you might be able to purchase a script which enables you to steal and replace tracking cookies on Yahoo.com, as well as send and read emails from any Yahoo e-mail account. The script, developed by an Egyptian hacker, is usually activated through clicking on an apparently [...]

According to cnet, Microsoft is giving away copies of Windows 8 free of charge and doesn’t even know it! Everything is possible through an exploit present on the Windows 8 website. All you need is to apply for a free Windows Media Center upgrade key, which is being offered until January 31. It seems to bear a surprising [...]

For breaking into the AT&T iPad website and stealing over 100,000 account details, 26-year old Andrew Auernheimer has been charged with 10 years of prison and a half a million dollars fine. The hacker had been arrested at the beginning of 2011 for a security breach that he had exploited in 2010. Using a personal [...]

The company Adobe has been the target of a hack which resulted in the temporary closure of the Connectusers.com forum. Adobe was using this forum to make it easy for users to exchange information and reviews on its online conferencing service, Connect. The cyber-villain was an Egyptian hacker, who extracted over 150,000 usernames and passwords [...]

According to a survey from the Ponemon Institute, out of  583 U.S. companies which were the subject of the study, 90% have been the target of a successful hack in the past year. For over half of the companies interviewed, attacks actually happened repeatedly. The same percent expressed a grim outlook on the possibility of protecting themselves from similar [...]

All throughout September, cyber criminals managed to hack into the keypad devices of over 50 Barnes & Noble stores and used them to extract credit card numbers. Although the bookstore company became aware of the breach September 14, it didn’t go public and contacted the FBI in an attempt to track the evildoers. Over 7000 PoS terminals [...]

If you reside (or have resided) in South Carolina and you have filed a tax return form after 1998, there is a very high chance that your Social Security Number has been exposed by a cyber criminal. The South Carolina Department of Revenue has admitted that due to a recent security breach in September, 3.6 [...]

If you own the nifty Samsung Galaxy S3, you might want to know that you are exposed to anyone with the know-how remotely deleting all your personal data. The flaw was discovered last week and made public at a conference on security, in Argentina. In short, it seems that the device’s user interface can handle additional [...]

A developer is nodding at the way in which Virgin Mobile USA handles the security of its customers. More specifically, the company argues that Virgin’s method of allowing its user to only input numbers as login passwords poses a very high security risk. Moreover, the passwords are actually PIN numbers, which means they are limited strictly to [...]

It seems that all major modern versions of Internet Explorer (namely IE7, IE8 and IE9) feature a formerly unknown security hole that makes the infiltration on Windows XP of back door trojans such as “Poison Ivy” a breeze. The vulnerability has been discovered this weekend by Eric Romang, a security blogger and, in response, a [...]

The University of Miami Hospital has been the target of two attempts at information theft in the last year. Two hospital employees were believed to have been involved in stealing and selling the personally identifiable information of patients (PII) and have been fired. The number of patients affected by the theft has not yet been [...]

From now on, think twice before accessing any Windows help file, as they no longer are what they seem. A lot of high-risk-level malware can actually hide behind the apparent innocence of .hlp files nowadays. The DarkShell trojan has been discovered to operate in such a way. Once the user executes the help file, it [...]

U.S. consumers lost $20.7 billion to cybercrime over the past 12 months, with 71 million Americans falling victim to online perps, according to new research. Meanwhile, worldwide losses resulting from cybercrime including malware attacks and phishing hit $110 billion between July 2011 and the end of July 2012. On average, each victim experienced $197 in [...]