Stories by Jeremy Kirk

The Onion explains how its Twitter account was hacked

Hackers who commandeered The Onion's Twitter account used simple but effective phishing attacks to obtain passwords, according to a writeup by the publisher's technology team.

Microsoft releases fix-it for Internet Explorer 8 vulnerability

Microsoft has released a temporary fix for a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8, which was used by hackers in a prominent attack against the U.S. Department of Labor's website.

Researchers find hundreds of insecure building control systems

Intruders used to creep in through ventilation ducts. Now they break in using the software that controls the ventilation.

Stealthy Web server malware spreads further

A stealthy malicious software program is taking hold in some of the most popular Web servers, and researchers still don't know why.

Pentagon accuses China government, military of cyberattacks

China's government and military appear to be directly involved in cyberattacks against the U.S., according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Google left heating, cooling system open to hackers

Hackers could have turned up the heat in one of Google's offices in Sydney. Literally.

McAfee to acquire firewall maker Stonesoft

McAfee plans to acquire Stonesoft, a Helsinki-based maker of firewalls, for US$389 million in cash, the companies said Monday.

Lawsuit halts US bitcoin exchange partnership

A partnership that sought to make it easy for Americans and Canadians to buy the virtual currency bitcoin has dissolved into a $US75 million lawsuit.

D-Link publishes beta patches for IP camera vulnerabilities

D-Link has published beta patches for vulnerabilities in the firmware of many of its IP surveillance cameras, which could allow a hacker to intercept a video stream.

Goverment mulls data breach notification law, but details are secret

Australia's government is keeping a tight hold on proposed data breach notification legislation that could become law before a federal election in September.

U.S. Department of Labor website infected with malware

A subdomain of a U.S. Department of Labor website appeared offline on Wednesday after an apparent hack that looks similar to a known China-based hacking campaign nicknamed DeepPanda.

Aging networking protocols abused in DDoS attacks

Aging networking protocols still employed by nearly every Internet-connected device are being abused by hackers to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Mozilla moves to stop spyware company from spoofing Firefox

Mozilla sent a cease-and-desist letter on Tuesday to a European company that created a piece of spyware masquerading itself as the Firefox browser.

D-Link firmware flaws could allow IP video stream spying

If you run a bank and use an IP video camera from D-Link, you may want to pay attention to this.

McAfee spots Adobe Reader PDF-tracking flaw

McAfee said it has found a vulnerability in Adobe Systems' Reader program that reveals when and where a PDF document is opened.