‘Ghost Exodus’ Gets Jail Time for Hacking Hospital’s Computer System

A Dallas man who was a member of hacking group Electronik Tribulation Army and called himself Ghost Exodus has been sentenced to serve 110 months in federal prison, according to a release from the FBI’s Dallas office.

Jesse William McGraw, 26, worked as a security guard at a Dallas-based hospital, where he hacked into the computer by gaining physical access to more than 14 computers, including a…

Dutch Teen Arrested for Pro-WikiLeaks DDoS Attacks

Police in the Netherlands on Saturday arrested a 19-year-old accused of cyber attacking the website of the public prosecution office as part of a bigger effort to support WikiLeaks, according to Reuters.

Naked Security reported the DDoS attack on the prosecution website followed the Dutch police’s arrest of a 16-year-old in connection with cyber attacks launched against several websites, including PayPal and MasterCard.

The…

‘Anonymous’ Launches Operation Avenge Assange

Hacker coalition Anonymous has launched a slew of cyber assaults against what it perceives to be enemies of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, including a DDoS attack on PayPal, which recently stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks in the wake of the release of U.S. embassy cables.

Anonymous said it will “offer Wikileaks an additional mirror and have it Googlebombed” and “create counter-propaganda, organized attacks (DDoS) on various targets related…

‘Operation Payback’ Results in 550 Hours’ Downtime, 742 Interruptions

The shadowy hacker coalition Anonymous’ most recent DDoS attacks against 11 organizations across the world have caused more than 550 hours of downtime and 742 service interruptions since the web assaults began Sept. 17, PandaLabs reports.

The latest attacks that began Oct. 6 on the Spanish Copyright Protection Society, the Spanish Culture Ministry and Promusicae websites have resulted in 119 service interruptions and more than 68 hours of downtime…

Anonymous Continues Cyber Attacks Until it Stops ‘Being Angry’

Hacker group Anonymous won’t stop cyber attacking anti-piracy advocates and other nemeses until it has stopped “being angry.”

In an interview yesterday with PandaLabs, an organizer of Anonymous said the collective’s mission was to fight back against the anti-piracy forces. Explaining how the group had been provoked by the U.K. Digital Economy Bill and “‘three-strikes legislation in the…

Chinese Hackers Suspected of DDoS Attacks against Japan

In the wake of the Sept. 7 sea dispute involving a Chinese fishing boat that collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a disputed island chain, Japan suspects Chinese hackers last week cyber attacked its defense ministry and national police agency websites.

The government is looking into the assaults after China’s largest known hacker group had warned it would target Japanese government websites until Saturday in protest over the maritime…

Man’s Vendetta, DDoS Attacks against ‘Perverted Justice’ Land Him a Guilty Verdict

A computer programmer was last week convicted of launching a virus that infected approximately 100,000 computers around the world and directed them to attack media …

4chan Members Hack Official Tea Party Website

The official website run by the right-wing movement Tea Party was compromised by members of 4chan on Tuesday, The Register reports.

Vulnerabilities on the teaparty.org website allowed the hackers to reroute visitors landing on the site’s photo section to pornographic sites. According to The Register, it is unknown what website security shortcomings were exploited and whether they are now closed.

The attack follow last weekend’s DDoS attacks by members…

Third Anonymous Member Sentenced in Scientology Church Attack

A member of Anonymous was sentenced earlier this week in New York City Criminal Court for his role in an attack on the Church of Scientology of New York, making him the third affiliate of the hacktivist collective to be held responsible for the 2009 incident.

In 2009, Jacob Speregen accompanied another member of Anonymous, Mahoud Samed Almahadin, who ran into the New York Church off Times Square and…

Christmas holiday sees DDoS attacks

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, several websites were hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack around the Christmas holiday. The company that provides directory service to a variety of websites was targeted in the attack, which left several of the sites inaccessible to some users.

Once the company providing the directory services noticed the spike in activity, it moved rapidly to respond…