Swedish Political Party Sites Hit by Hackers

Several websites of Swedish political parties were recently hacked and targeted by cyber attacks, according to a Swedish news wire.

On Aug. 23, a spokesman for the nationalist party Sweden Democrats said its website had crashed due to DDoS attacks. The party’s IT department was working on gathering as much information about the attack to file a police report, he said.

A few days later, the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League…

‘Sextortion’ Becoming More Common as Cyber Crime

Federal prosecutors and child-safety advocates say they are  seeing a rise in cases of online sexual extortion, also called “sextortion.”

According to experts, teens who text naked cellphone photos of themselves or show off their bodies on the web are being contacted by pornographers who threaten to expose their behavior to friends and family unless they pose for…

Jordanian Journalists in Uproar over New Cyber Law

Jordanian journalists are furious after the government earlier this month passed a temporary cyber-crime law perceived by many as a way of controlling local news websites, AFP reports.

In July, the government also barred civil servants from accessing around 50 websites while at work, mostly local news, in what it called an effort to improve productivity.

According…

Hackers Blind Quantum Cryptographers with ‘Invisible’ Attack

Quantum hackers have performed the first ‘”invisible” attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems by using lasers on the systems, Nature News reports.

By using lasers—which employ quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission—the hackers were able to crack the encryption keys on the commercial quantum systems, without any trace of the hack.

Quantum cryptography has been considered an unbreakable mean of encryption. It is based on the principle…

Deloitte’s Cyber Expert Raduege to Lead National Security Mission

Deloitte Center for Cyber Innovation’s Lt. Gen. Harry Raduege will be leading a new Homeland Security Executive Mission, which seeks to bolster a deeper defense and strategic partnership between the United States and India. 

Raduege, co-chairman of the Commission on…

Hayden: Cyberspace is ‘Lawless’

Cyberspace has become a lawless environment without any natural technical barriers to protect information, requiring every user to assume a personal responsibility for firewalls, said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and of the CIA.

In an interview with PBS, Hayden spoke about the cyber threat and his reluctance to…

Florida Attorney General Hopeful Website Survives Brute Force Attack

The website of Florida Republican attorney general candidate Holly Benson was targeted by cyber crooks last Monday, without causing any major damage, according to campaign spokeswoman Kristen Bridges.

The campaign’s webmaster called it a brute force attack where the perpetrators try to crash the site. An investigation is ongoing, Bridges said.

“ollybenson.com was the victim of a brute force attack where one or more individuals attempted…

India Could Face Onslaught of Pakistani Hackers, Say Intelligence Officials

Already reeling from repeated cyber attacks by sophisticated Chinese cyber criminals, sensitive Indian departments could be up against a blitz of Pakistani hackers.

According to Times of India, the Indian government has cautioned defense services, financial institutions, Internet service providers and private-sector businesses of possible cyber attack by Pakistani hacker groups. Intelligence agencies recently issued a…

Hackers Deface Philippine Government Sites

The Philippine government has cautioned all federal agencies tighten security of their official websites following last week’s hacking of the Philippine Information Agency website, Xinhua reported.

A government official said in a press statement the executive branch is adopting “best practices” to make government websites less vulnerable to intrusion. PIA is the official information arm of the Philippine government.

The information agency website was down for several hours after it was…

Brits Relaxed about Online Security

New research reveals just how relaxed the Brits are when it comes to protecting themselves in the digital era, from using easy-to-guess passwords to thoughtlessly disclosing personal information.

The online study by Experian plc revealed three of the most regularly used passwords–town of birth, 24 percent; date of birth, 1 percent; name of past schools, 18 percent–are…