Anonymous Goes after Copyright Collection Agency

Anonymous has cyber attacked the website of copyright collection agency BMI as part of Operation Payback, the collective’s ongoing war against copyright and anti-piracy enforcers.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, BMI temporarily took down its website in response to the group’s denial-of-service attack and in a statement said the hackers were not able to compromise the agency’s security.

Anonymous members also released a statement saying…

35K Chinese Websites Hacked in 2010

Tens of thousands of websites in China were attacked by hackers in 2010, including 4,635 government websites, according to a report released by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China.

The report, quoted by People’s Daily Online, said government websites are vulnerable to cyber attacks, and websites of financial institutions have become hackers’ first choice. The number of compromised government…

Former State Dept. Contractor Pleads Guilty to Unauthorized Computer Access

A former State Department contractor pleaded guilty yesterday to illegally accessing confidential passport application files, according to the Justice Department.

Mark Carter, 51, of Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging him with unauthorized computer access.

According to the plea documents, Carter was a contract hire at the State Department and served as the network administrator in the Eastern District of Virginia. He…

Suspects Nabbed for Selling Fake Olympics Tickets Online

Five people were yesterday arrested in England as part of a police operation targeting illegal cyber crime associated with next week’s launch of the London 2012 Olympic Games tickets, according to The Telegraph.

Detective Nick Downing, chief inspector in charge of the so-called Operation Podium, said the aim was to disrupt organized criminal networks involved in illegally selling Games tickets.

“The victims are those people who get scammed, have their…

Nigerian Scam Bamboozles $1.5 Million from Senior Citizens

A total of 10 suspects have been charged for running a $1.5 million California-based 419 scam targeting mostly elderly people, according to media reports.

Prosecutors said three defendants — Bright Amesi, Briceson Loving and Erika Fletcher — yesterday pleaded not guilty after being already charged by a federal grand jury in 2009. The alleged mastermind Claudio Uche Dibe, who is a Nigerian national, was extradited from Canada…

Hackers Find Google’s Yet-to-be-Launched Cloud-based Music Service

Hackers have discovered that Google’s rumored, yet-to-be-released cloud-based music service not only exists but is up and running, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

Users on a developers’ message board noted that if they installed the leaked Honeycomb music player app in a certain way on Android, they could sync their music collections with Google’s servers. In short: They can now stream their music files remotely…

Anonymous Launches ‘Operation Bradical’

Anonymous has declared it will go after those who are currently responsible for detaining Bradley Manning, and in a crowd-sourced document the collective identifies Defense Department Press Secretary Geoff Morell and Quantico’s Chief Warrant Officer Denise Barnes as targets and calls on members to uncover personal information on both, Forbes’ Firewall blog reported.

Calling their attack “Operation Bradical,” members of the online gathering have set out…

Wash. State Man Found Guilty of Cyber Stalking Prosecutor

A 48-year-old man in Washington state was convicted last week of cyber stalking after sending a deputy prosecutor two angry emails, The Herald reported.

James R. Swanson was found guilty of twice emailing a prosecutor after the lawyer declined Swanson’s request to file criminal charges against his now ex-wife. Jurors also determined Swanson committed the crime in retaliation against a public official performing her duties.

Prosecutors…

French Finance Ministry under ‘Spectacular’ Cyber Attack

The French Finance Ministry has been cyber attacked since December by hackers targeting the treasury and G20 documents, according to a French news outlet.

Paris-Match magazine said between December and this weekend, the Ministry of Finance and the Economy had been the victim of “an unprecedented cyber attack,” with the management of the French Treasury department identified as the main target.

A senior official who declined to be…

South Korea under DDoS Bombardment

Forty websites belonging to the South Korean government, agencies and businesses came under attack yesterday, including those of the presidential Blue House, the U.S. forces, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, the ministries of foreign affairs, defense and unification, the intelligence agency, parliament and the tax office, AFP reported.

Cybersecurity company AhnLab confirmed the websites had been hit by DDoS attacks and estimated that up to…