News

• Ringleader of $1m online trading account scam charged

  A Russian citizen has been charged with hacking online trading accounts and trading with himself in a scheme that cost his victims over US$1.4 million.

• The week in security: hackers work as quick as a Flash

  The use of Facebook and Google credentials to log onto multiple services has been heralded as a benchmark in service integration, but a recent study has shown the protocols used to facilitate such logins remain woefully inadequate. This is a significant weak point in cloud-based services, while Microsoft's decision to release an anti-malware tool for its Azure cloud service seems to counter the company's own advice that one of Azure's benefits is to avoid reliance on security software.

• Alleged members of hactivist group LulzSec busted

  The FBI and law enforcement counterparts abroad have arrested members of the LulzSec hacker group now affiliated with the broader hactivist collective Anonymous, according to news reports that also say LulzSec leader "Sabu" turned in his fellow hackers.

• Privacy Commissioner opens investigation into Fairfax site hack

  The Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, has launched an investigation into the recent hacking of Fairfax microsite, Herald Education. Fairfax’s Young Writer was also hacked.

• Many pcAnywhere systems still sitting ducks

  Despite warnings from security software maker Symantec not to connect its pcAnywhere remote-access software to the Internet, more than 140,000 computers appear to remain configured to allow direct connections from the Internet, thereby putting them at risk.

• Oracle's latest Java moves frustrate users and vendors

  Oracle, which officially took on the big job of shepherding Java two years ago this month, is traveling bumpy roads lately, with its modularization and licensing plans for Java raising eyebrows and security concerns coming to the fore as well.

• 2012 Outlook: The end of everything?

  Welcome to 2012, the year the world ends. Yes, in case you haven't been following the eschatologists out there (and most of them are definitely "out there"), 2012 will be "it" for humanity. The "last hurrah". Fini. Au revoir.

• Turnbull's card details exposed by hackers

  Millionaire MP Malcolm Turnbull and billionaire businessman David Smorgon have had their credit card details published on the internet by hackers.

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  Gmail Backup, a recipe for happiness

  Before I get to this week's main topic I must give a big thumbs-up to a book that all of you who like to cook will thoroughly enjoy: "Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food" by Jeff Potter (pub. O'Reilly).

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  Monday Grok: 600,000 Facebook accounts compromised

  600,000 Facebook accounts were "compromised" yesterday, or thereabouts.

• Top four security predictions for 2012: ISF

  While 2011 is coming to an end, security threats show no sign of slowing down. UK-based Information Security Forum (ISF) vice president of sales and marketing, Steve Durbin, shared his four security predictions for 2012.

• Stupid hacker tricks: Exploits gone bad

  If the Internet is the new Wild West, then hackers are the wanted outlaws of our time. And like the gun-slinging bad boys before them, all it takes is one wrong move to land them in jail.

• Opinion: Breadth First Hacking

  Recent publicity for online hacking groups such as Anonymous and Lulzsec has seemed to show that nobody is immune from attack on the Internet. Once targeted, it seems that these groups are capable of breaching security systems and retrieving data, including identity information, from the most secure systems.

• LulzSec, WikiLeaks, Murdoch: hacking's fourth wave

  Wikileaks, hacking incidents like those attributed to LulzSec, and even the UK's News of the World voicemail scandal represent a fourth stage in the evolution of cybercrime, according to Dr Paul Nielsen, director and chief executive officer of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburg.

• High-profile hacks distract attention from serious threats: Sophos

  Search engine poisoning, social networking scams and fake anti-virus have been the top security threats in 2011 so far, according to security vendor Sophos. All three rely on social engineering to achieve their aims.