Patients using medical gear such as pacemakers, heart defibrillators and insulin dispensers  could become moving targets for cyber-criminals, according to a federal note issued by  the US Department of Homeland Security. Modern medical devices are miniatures of their predecessors and allow wireless programming and control to minimize maintenance, which would otherwise require cables sticking out of the pati...

One of Twitter’s most popular hashtags may become a strong social engineering resource. As users share personal information with complete strangers, #69factsaboutme will increasingly be used by scammers for nefarious purposes. Over 200,000 tweets were already posted under the hashtag at the time of publishing. “I have two houses that I live in,” one user said. “I think BoyzIIMen is the greatest musical grou...

The Drupal open-source group reset passwords after detecting unauthorized access to account information, according to a security update. The warning applies to users with data stored on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org, and not to all sites running Drupal. Hackers gained access to the data through third-party software on the server infrastructure. Information exposed includes user names, email addresses, co...

The Anonymous member arrested for hacking security analysis company Stratfor faces 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to hacking and conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to cNET. In the attack last year, Jeremy Hammond took confidential data from Stratfor’s clients, including the U.S. Army, Lockheed Martin, U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, and the Bank of America. “As part of each...

The Dutch increasingly keep extra cash at home after the recent DDoS attacks targeting the country’s infrastructure and financial institutions, according to the Virus Bulletin. The month-long attacks persuaded a quarter of Dutch citizens to follow advice from Nibud, a charity organization that aims to make families more aware of their finances. Last month, ING clients reportedly lost hundreds of euros and w...

A New York detective was arrested after allegedly spying on over 30 people, including police colleagues, to discover if any of them was sleeping with his ex, according to The Register. The 42-year-old cop hired hackers to get their usernames and passwords. Edwin Vargas allegedly spent over $4,000 for email-hacking services, and appeared before a magistrate judge charged with conspiracy to commit computer ha...

The 2012 Internet Census published earlier this year revealed that embedded devices are facing serious security threats when connected to the Internet. The issue appears bigger than expected, according to Metasploit maker HD Moore’s presentation at AusCERT2013. Embedded devices – an umbrella term defining specialized appliances that run their own operating system such as GPS receivers, industrial equipment,...

A number of Dutch ministerial sites were brought offline for several hours by a massive distributed-denial of service attack. "The government's sites have been the target of a DDoS attack since last night around 8:00 pm,'' deputy director Robert Wester told the AFP. The sites remained offline throughout the night as IT teams tried to restore access to the affected services. This is not an isolated incident:...

A security researcher managed to “hijack” a flight deck system and change a plane’s course in a hacking skill demonstration, according to the BBC. Hugo Teso, an authorized pilot, gave the aviation computer systems new navigation instructions. He then gained total control of the simulated jet he had built using spare parts bought from eBay. “I expected them to have security issues but I did not expect them t...

North Korea may be on the brink of declaring war, but guerrilla operations have already started in cyber-space. Hacktivists supposedly affiliated with Anonymous seized control of the Twitter and Flickr accounts of the North Korean propaganda news agency and started posting criticism of leader Kim Jong-un. As North Korea has hardly any presence on the Internet, the Twitter and Flickr accounts set up by Urimi...