Phys.org reports: Russian spies likely tried to hack into the Dutch Safety Board’s computer systems to access a sensitive final report into the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, experts said Friday. The cyberattacks were revealed by security experts Trend Micro which blamed a shadowy group dubbed Operation Pawn Storm, “an active economic and…
Category: Government Sector
Failure to update software left Naperville computers vulnerable: report
A costly reminder of the need to patch and update promptly. Geoff Ziezulewicz reports: Hackers were able to break into Naperville’s computer network in an unprecedented 2012 cyber attack because of a vulnerability in the city’s web software that had not been patched, even though an alert and update had been released roughly a month…
Anons blow Japanese airports off-course in dolphin cull protest
John Leyden reports: Hacktivist collective Anonymous knocked offline two of Japan’s busiest websites in a protest against dolphin killings. Distributed denial-of-service attacks against Tokyo’s Narita airport and Nagoya’s Chubu airport left each largely inaccessible for about eight hours. Flights at both airports were unaffected, the Japan Times reports. Read more on The Register.
NATO, White House hackers tried to pwn MH17 air disaster probe
Shaun Nichols reports: The Pawn Storm hackers who tried to infiltrate NATO and White House networks have been spotted bothering another sensitive target: the team investigating the downed Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight. Researchers at Trend Micro found suspicious SFTP, VPN, and Outlook Web Access servers configured to collect usernames and passwords from officials probing the aircraft disaster. Read…
UK: Advocates upset at abuse inquiry data loss
Radio New Zealand reports: Child sex abuse survivors in Britain are calling for an investigation after discovering some testimonies may have been deleted due to a technical error. Claims of paedophiles in Westminster in the 1980s sparked the inquiry and cases under investigation could date back to the 1970s. But the inquiry’s website has said…
California DMV worker indicted in ID theft probe
AP reports: A clerk at the California Department of Motor Vehicles and five other people have been indicted on charges involving the creation of new identities with Puerto Rican documents that were then used to get driver’s licenses, authorities said Wednesday. DMV clerk Tracy Lynette Jones pleaded not guilty on Monday in federal court in…