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Chinese Military Suspected in Hacker Attacks on U.S. Satellites – Businessweek

October 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Computer hackers, possibly from the Chinese military, interfered with two U.S. government satellites four times in 2007 and 2008 through a ground station in Norway, according to a congressional commission.

The intrusions on the satellites, used for earth climate and terrain observation, underscore the potential danger posed by hackers, according to excerpts from the final draft of the annual report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The report is scheduled to be released next month.

“Such interference poses numerous potential threats, particularly if achieved against satellites with more sensitive functions,” according to the draft. “Access to a satellite‘s controls could allow an attacker to damage or destroy the satellite. An attacker could also deny or degrade as well as forge or otherwise manipulate the satellite’s transmission.”

A Landsat-7 earth observation satellite system experienced 12 or more minutes of interference in October 2007 and July 2008, according to the report.

Hackers interfered with a Terra AM-1 earth observation satellite twice, for two minutes in June 2008 and nine minutes in October that year, the draft says, citing a closed-door U.S. Air Force briefing.

The draft report doesn’t elaborate on the nature of the hackers’ interference with the satellites.

via Chinese Military Suspected in Hacker Attacks on U.S. Satellites – Businessweek.

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‘Indestructible’ botnet has infected 4.5M PCs and counting | VentureBeat

June 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The “TDL-4″ botnet now has more than 4.5 million infected PCs running on it and is the “most sophisticated threat” to computer security today, according to Kaspersky Labs researcher Sergey Golovanov.

Botnets are groups of malware-infected computers that are used for malicious activities, such as sending spam, stealing personal information, launching hacker attacks, and infecting other computers with viruses. They are so hard to defeat because there are so many infected machines.

Kaspersky’s anti-virus software identifies the botnet as TDSS. “TDSS uses a range of methods to evade signature, heuristic, and proactive detection, and uses encryption to facilitate communication between its bots and the botnet command and control center,” Golovanov wrote earlier this week. “TDSS also has a powerful rootkit component, which allows it to conceal the presence of any other types of malware in the system.”

The TDL-4 botnet started hitting computers in 2008, and it goes undetected because it infects the master boot record of a computer. This means the operating system and security software can’t detect it because the infection is so deep. It’s also strong because it has its own “anti-virus” that prevents other botnets from taking it over.

via ‘Indestructible’ botnet has infected 4.5M PCs and counting | VentureBeat.

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Twitter Settles U.S. Charges Over Hacker Attacks – BusinessWeek

June 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Twitter Inc., the microblogging service with about 190 million visitors per month, agreed to settle a U.S. government complaint that security lapses allowed hackers to view private messages and send “tweets” from other people’s accounts.

Failures in the company’s data security allowed hackers to gain administrative control of Twitter, the Federal Trade Commission said in a statement today announcing its complaint and settlement. One hacker sent a bogus tweet in January 2009 from the account of then-President-elect Barack Obama offering his followers a chance to win $500 in free gasoline.

San Francisco-based Twitter, which is closely held, allows users to send tweets, or messages of up to 140 characters. Privacy settings allow users to designate some tweets as private.

“When a company promises consumers that their personal information is secure, it must live up to that promise,” said David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in the statement. “Likewise, a company that allows consumers to designate their information as private must use reasonable security to uphold such designations.”

The company said in a blog posting that the attacks on the site resulted in 45 accounts being accessed in January 2009 and 10 in April last year. The company said it moved quickly to address the security issues then.

via Twitter Settles U.S. Charges Over Hacker Attacks – BusinessWeek.

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