SRA Deals Smart Phone Security Suite, Plans Govt Comm. Across Devices

SRA International has spent the past few years helping develop a hardware-based system of security tools for the smart phones of its government customers.

This week, it closed a transaction to sell its stake in the system’s application suite and send an engineering team to R&D partner KoolSpan. 

KoolSpan manufactures a chip that slides into cell phones via…

Did Hackers Shut Down Illinois Water Pump? Feds Looking Into It

A water pump at a Springfield, Ill. utility failed Nov. 8. Usually this would be considered a technical difficulty, but this failure has raised eyebrows of the federal government.

Joe Weiss, a cybersecurity expert, disclosed the incident on his blog Thursday and pointed the finger at foreign cyber attackers. Now the U.S. Department of…

IBM X-Force Says Mobile Vulnerabilities Are Here and Growing

IBM released the results of its X-Force 2011 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report finding that the security landscape is ridden with high-profile attacks, mobile vulnerabilities and more sophisticated threats such as “whaling.” The report is based on intelligence gathered through IBM’s research including monitoring and analyzing 12 billion security events since the beginning of 2011.

The trend of bringing mobile…

Nokia Developer Forums Hit By Cyberattack

Nokia has suspended its developer forum website after it discovered a recent attack that resulted in members’ data being compromised.

The database tapped by hackers included  member e-mail addresses and, in some cases, personally identifiable information such as birthdates, homepage URLs and screen names from messaging services such as AIM, Skype and Yahoo.

Before the site was taken down, an image of Homer Simpson delivering his characteristic phrase —…

Man Pleads Guilty to Hacking OneSky Jets’ Computer Systems

A Goffstown, N.H., man has pleaded guilty to repeatedly hacking into his former employer’s computer systems and using that information to solicit new business for a competing company, the Justice Department announced.

Lawrence R. Marino, 41, pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging him with computer intrusion. In the plea hearing, he admitted to breaking into the computer systems of OneSky Jets to obtain other employees’ email…

Crazed Wi-Fi Hacker Gets 18-year Sentence for Harassing Neighbors, Threatening Joe Biden

A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for hacking into his neighbor’s wireless network to make threats against Vice President Joe Biden and disseminate child pornography, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

Barry Ardolf, 46, was indicted in June 2010 and pleaded guilty in December. In his plea agreement, Ardolf admitted hacking into his neighbor’s Wi-Fi and creating several email accounts in his neighbor’s name. He…

Another Government Contractor Falls Prey to Hackers: 90,000 Emails, Passwords Stolen from Booz Allen

Members of hacking collective Anonymous yesterday tweeted they had broken into government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton‘s computer systems, as part of the group’s larger effort to expose government and corporate failure to secure computer networks, Reuters reports.

The hackers said they deleted four gigabytes of the firm’s source code and took 90,000 military email addresses, encrypted passwords and data related to other companies and government networks. 

“In [Booz…

Sega Hack Impacts 1.3 Million Customers

Japanese video game maker Sega has become the latest victim of ubiquitous cyber attacks in which information belonging to 1.3 million customers was swiped, Reuters reports.

In a statement released Sunday, Sega said names, birth dates, email addresses and encrypted passwords of Sega Pass online network members had been compromised; credit card numbers appear to be safe.

The attack on Sega follows other recent significant web assaults…

LulzSec Releases Massive Data Dump, Shuts Down Thousands of Australian Sites

Prankster hacker group LulzSec has steered its Lulz Boat and quest for mischief toward “down under,” breaking into Australian domain registrar and web host Distribute.IT, and crippling access to thousands of websites, according to media reports.

The Register reports that the among the Australian data dump were details from Australian universities and government departments, including AusAID, the Victorian Department of Childhood and Early Education and several local…

Texas Man Sentenced to 24-Months Jail Time for Hacking NASA Servers

A 26-year-old Texas man has been sentenced to two years in prison after admitting to hacking into computer networks at a Minnesota business and at NASA, the FBI’s Minneapolis office announced.

In his plea agreement, Jeremey Parker of Houston, Texas, admitted to breaking into computer network of SWReg, Inc., a subsidiary of the cyber-based company Digital River, Inc., to steal approximately $275,000. He also confessed…