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Hacker Group That Hit Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft Intensifies Attacks 40

itwbennett writes: The hacker group, which security researchers from Kaspersky Lab and Symantec call Wild Neutron or Morpho, has broken into the networks of over 45 large companies since 2012. After the 2013 attacks against Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft were highly publicized, the group went underground and temporarily halted its activity. However, its attacks resumed in 2014 and have since intensified, according to separate reports released Wednesday by Kaspersky Lab and Symantec.
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Hacker Group That Hit Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft Intensifies Attacks

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  • by Chas ( 5144 ) on Friday July 10, 2015 @04:39AM (#50080505) Homepage Journal

    Oh wait, they're a cybercrime gang.

  • by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Friday July 10, 2015 @05:08AM (#50080563) Homepage

    But in some countries it seems to me its still treated as vaguely harmless probably because the judiciary don't really have a clue.

    Need an example? Finland recently gave Lizard Squard hacker Julius Kivimaik a 2 years suspended. I mean he only hacked 50K systems (yes 50,000) and made a hoax bomb threat to a plane. You have to wonder if the judge in that courtroom was asleep through the prosecution case.

    With lenient treatment like that its no surprise smart (in a narrow sphere) but socially dysfunctional teens keep doing this shit.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by mrbester ( 200927 )

      There's also Hacker Team doing this, but as they are employed by governments apparently that's just fine and dandy.

    • by Racemaniac ( 1099281 ) on Friday July 10, 2015 @06:30AM (#50080709)

      Just wondering, what dus 50k systems mean in this context. Is it like downloading 50k mp3's (sounds impressive but isn't, you can automate most of it), or is it he put serious work and did serious damage to each of those systems (would be quite a full time job with lots of overtime though).
      Just write 1 good worm and you'll have "hacked 50k systems"... It just sounds like some stupid number that's supposed to sound impressive, but has hardly any meaning.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      We need to frame hacking as a part of Rape Culture. Then everyone even slightly involved can be demonized, and hacking will go from beign "cool" to being a source of shaming.

      • We need to frame hacking as a part of Rape Culture. Then everyone even slightly involved can be demonized, and hacking will go from beign "cool" to being a source of shaming.

        Or, we could just be sensible. It's always an option - instead of blindly following you into the quagmires of stupid.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Are you a good hacker or a bad hacker? Apparently, now, the good hackers are the ones who rob and extort people and companies for personal gain. While the bad ones, apparently, are the ones who try to help people - with no personal benefit to them. The courts have their priorities...

    • Because that has worked so well in the United States. Last I checked we criminalize everything over here including hacking and it's not taken exactly lightly. But people still do it, and people still sell drugs! We need a better solution, but using the legal system doesn't work. It really doesn't. I'm not going to whine about people losing their future livelyhood or how bad prisons are. I just want to point out kids still do it as a hobby and so do adults.
  • i don't know boo about pen-testing, but are these guys tagging their work in some way, or is something a lot more sophisticated taking place?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Well, if the so called premier security agencies and the so called peak software bodies had actually done their job and made the defective software safer and more resilient, we would not be having these conversations. One suspects this gang is making their hacks multi part, delayed over months, then combined, so that so called network flight recorders are defeated over time. Bluntly, there is a very active market for zero days, and even licensed sales.

      Oddly the hacks against offensive cyber-malware, is goin

      • We're still using C, we're still using ACLs, we now have so many rings below 0 on PCs we don't even use using negative numbers when talking about them any more and they've mostly only allowed rootkits to bury deeper, almost all companies allow people to access the web with the same OS instance they use to work on the internal LAN with.

        There are no easy fixes for the situation we're in.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    What a bunch of cunts. Dicks like these are ruining the internet. Fuck off already and do something useful you bunch of fucking asshats.

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday July 10, 2015 @06:00AM (#50080665)

    after all, they did attack Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. ;)

    • Exactly. It's not like they could do harm to anything that matters at any of those four. And if, as a result, some flaws are fixed, the whole Internet becomes a little safer.

      I don't see a problem here.

  • for profit maybe but assuming it is non-state agents as reports do is going to far. First argument was - embassies were not targeted . Maybe they did not target them but their colleagues from across the hall did. The profit motive is also irrelevant - we know that sometimes the agencies need double cover so one operation can finance another.
  • by tom229 ( 1640685 ) on Friday July 10, 2015 @07:59AM (#50081055)
    In a way I welcome attacks like this. They help prove the inviability of the cloud.
  • It used to be that SLASHDOT knew the difference between hackers and crackers. So the media is telling us what geek/nerd language is and how to use it. Allow me to FTFY:

    A cracker gains illegitimate accesses to a computer system.

    A hacker accesses systems so that they can learn. i.e. You don't learn to hack, you hack to learn.

    It's bad enough hearing hipsters go 'lol'. Get.it.right.slashdot.news.for.nerds.not.noobs

    • by Dr. Evil ( 3501 ) on Friday July 10, 2015 @09:25AM (#50081601)

      A cracker is also a white guy with a whip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(pejorative) [wikipedia.org] I would cringe if somebody referred to a criminal hacker kid from the Southern U.S. as a "cracker"

      The criminal hacker as a "cracker" was coined 30 years ago and still hasn't caught on. It's up there with Gnu/Linux as relevant.

      OTOH, Hackerspaces and the maker movement have done a good job at changing the meaning of 'hacker' to include both worlds. Hackerspaces are somehow more approachable and understandable to the media and general public.

    • ... but hackers and geeks stopped being the arbiters of computer-based culture at least ten years ago. Our pedantic definitions don't mean squat to a public that uses them for their own purposes.

      Besides, "cracker" was already turning unfashionable when Hackers came out in '95, and that movie gave it a shove out the door. And you just can't say it out loud in the South without getting weird looks. :D

  • And these "attacks" will cease just as soon as industry capitulates to the demands of the gov't stooges... strictly a coincidence, of course.
    • by garote ( 682822 )

      Oh those wacky stooges! nyuk nyuk nyuk
      What will they demand next!

      Wait, they haven't demanded anything.

      • Even dumbass shills ought to keep from sticking their feet that far [slashdot.org] down their throats...

        • by garote ( 682822 )

          Oh I see what you're doing. You're trying to say that this big anonymous h4x0r group is actually our own federal government attacking our own most successful tech industry companies, to try to get them to completely abandon the technology they're using to defend themselves from such attacks.

          That's way, waaaaay stupider than what I originally thought you were saying. Because it is prima facie self-contradictory.

          I suggest you go outside, sit in a nice sunny park for a while, and breathe some fresh air. Tha

  • Untill someone has the balls to tackle the problem of what to do with infected PCs nothing will ever change. If there was a way to take away these scum criminals tools of the trade everyone is at risk. What to do?

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. -- Henry David Thoreau

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