Shady RAT Attack Hit 72 Organizations

McAfee on Tuesday issued a warning that an attack, which it's dubbed "Shady RAT" for remote access tool, successfully compromised at least 72 organizations, across 14 countries, beginning in 2006.

Victims included government agencies in the United States, Canada and South Korea, defense contractors, and International Olympic Committees in three countries. All told, 49 of the exploited organizations were located in the United States.

McAfee released a related report on Tuesday, saying it first discovered signs of the Shady RAT attack in 2009, after a forensics investigation at a defense contractor found an infection that originated from a spear-phishing attack, which contained attached malware that uses "encrypted HTML comments in Web pages that serve as a command channel to the infected machine." While McAfee didn't name the malware in question, security experts said it sounds like malware that's been traced to a group known as the "Comment Crew."

McAfee found evidence that the Shady RAT attacks began in July 2006, if not before. All told, there were eight related intrusions spotted from 2006, including attacks against a Department of Energy research laboratory, as well as steel and construction companies located in South Korea. Meanwhile, in 2007, attacks increased by 260%, expanding to 29 organizations, including multiple U.S. defense contractors. In 2008, the attack expanded to 38 organizations.

ICANN Approves Plan For New Domain Names

The Internet's governing body on Monday approved a plan to increase the number of generic top-level domains (gTLDs), which could significantly increase peoples' options when it comes to domain names.

At this point, there are 22 gTLDs, including .com, .org, and .net. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), however, have approved a plan that would allow people to apply for new gTLDs, like .pcmag, for example.

"Today's decision will usher in a new Internet age," Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN's board of directors, said in a statement. "We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration."

That creativity won't come cheap, however. Applicants must pay a $185,000 evaluation fee, with $5,000 upfront. They might also be required to pay even more "in certain cases where specialized process steps are applicable," in addition to business startup costs, ICANN said.

ICANN will soon kick off a global campaign publicizing the new gTLD option, and will accept applications between January 12 and April 12. When the application period closes, ICANN will publish a list of all requested gTLDs, at which time people can file objections.

LulzSec, Anonymous Announce Hacking Campaign

Hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec said today they are uniting in a campaign aimed at banks, government agencies, and other high-profile targets, and they are encouraging others to steal and leak classified information.

The "AntiSec" campaign appeared to have its first target earlier today--the Web site of Serious Organized Crime Agency in the United Kingdom was down. "Tango down - http://t.co/JhcjgO9 - in the name of #AntiSec," the group tweeted after releasing a statement announcing the campaign. The site was down this morning but back up at midday.

"Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation," Lulzsec said in a statement. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood."

"Oldschool Internet is back. Anarchy is now - spread "AntiSec" whenever and wherever you can. Is saying 'hackers unite' too cheesy? :D" LulzSec tweeted, adding in a follow-up tweet that "DDoS is of course our least powerful and most abundant ammunition. Government hacking is taking place right now behind the scenes."

Sega Hacked: 1.3 Million Users’ Information Compromised

Sega Corp.'s database has been hacked. The multinational video game developing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan has sent an email to users to notify Sega Pass system users that their emails, dates of birth and their passwords were compromised by hackers. The stolen passwords were encrypted.

The email contained a message stating there is no risk financially since payment information was not stolen and the company is investigating the extent of the hacking. So far, 1.3 million customers' information has been comprised.

Sega has recommended users to change their passwords if they use the same password for Sega Pass website and other sites.

The Sega pass website is currently down and all the passwords have been reset.

When users visit the website customers will see this notice "Hi, SEGA Pass is going through some improvements so is currently unavailable for new members to join or existing members to modify their details including resetting passwords. We hope to 

RIM Down Over 21 Percent On Wall Street

Shares in Research in Motion plunged on Wall Street Friday after the BlackBerry maker lowered its outlook for the year and said it would be cutting jobs.

Shares in the Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM sank 21.45 percent, or $7.58, to close at $27.75. RIM shares have lost around 50 percent of their value since the beginning of the year.

Friday's drop came a day after RIM said it expected earnings per share for fiscal 2012 to be between $5.25 and $6.00, sharply less than the $7.50 forecast previously.

RIM, which is facing increased competition from Apple's iPhone and mobile phones running Google's Android software, also announced Thursday it would be cutting jobs this quarter as part of a plan to "streamline operations."

It did not say how many jobs would be eliminated.

The Canadian handset maker posted a net profit of $695 million, or $1.33 per share, in the first quarter of its 2012 fiscal year, compared with $769 million, or $1.38 per share, a year ago.

Revenue grew 16 percent to $4.9 billion, short of the $5.1 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.

Apple Delays MacBook Update, Waits For Lion

Apple is sitting on at least one refresh of its Mac notebook line, waiting for the new version of its operating system to be released in July.

That's according to sources quoted by AppleInsider, which says that new MacBook Air models featuring Intel Sandy Bridge processors and the Thunderbolt expansion port have been ready for some time, but Apple doesn't want to release them featuring the old Mac OS X 10.6 operating system. This was released in June 2009.

The Macrumors.com Buyer's Guide, which tracks the intervals by which Apple refreshes its hardware, supports this view. It shows all portable Mac products are reaching the end of their typical sales cycle, with the exception of the MacBook Pro, which was updated earlier this year. The Mac Mini is also due an update.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is due in July and is more than a simple operating system upgrade. It hooks users into iCloud, Apple's new storage service, which offers benefits including seamlessly storing music and personal files online. iCloud represents a major new direction for Apple, which sees it as a way of tying together its various desktop and mobile platforms, as well as providing an additional method for delivering media to users.

Kindle E-book Store Slammed By Spam "Authors"

Amazon's Kindle e-books store has been hit hard by spam in the last few months, according to Reuters. Hundreds of entities are pulling quasi-useless content found for free or for a small price on the Internet, reformatting it into e-books, and selling it under catchy titles for very little, clogging Amazon with low-value materials that stand to mire the platform and maybe make customers think twice about future e-book purchases.

Many of the books are created with Private Label Rights (PLR) content, which is often milled by content creators on the Internet and then made available for free or a low price. PLR content can then be reformatted or even modified if the buyer wants, and then put up for sale under virtually anyone's name. PLR content is usually of the beginner-how-to or get-rich-quick variety that baits those looking for their elevator to success: make a certain number of dollars in a much smaller number of days, money-making blogging for beginners, how to start an Internet marketing business.

Content like this is posted around the Internet for free or at low prices—one purveyor we found, Jett Digitals, sells the PLR to a light tome called Podcasting for Beginners for $7—and once bought, the buyer is free to do whatever he or she wants with it. In this case, they can simply convert it to a Kindle e-book, submit it to the store, and begin reaping 30 to 70 percent profit from each sale.

Facebook iPad App Reportedly In The Works

Facebook is reportedly prepping an official application for the iPad.

According to a July 16 article in The New York Times, itself quoting unnamed "people briefed on Facebook's plans," the social network is prepping a free application for release in the coming year. The software has been under development for the past year.

"One person who works with Facebook said Mark Zuckerberg, the company's chief executive and founder, has been heavily invested in the process," the article suggested, "overseeing design decisions and the app's unique features."

Facebook has certainly become more aggressive in expanding its functionality, if current reports eventually prove accurate.

In addition to an iPad application, Facebook is reportedly prepping an HTML5-based platform for mobile applications, which could end up directly challenging Apple's App Store.

Mozilla To Add Built-in PDF Viewer To Firefox

Mozilla is working on a project that will add PDF rendering to Firefox using HTML5 and JavaScript, eliminating the need for users to run Adobe's own plug-in.

The PDF reader may be included in Firefox within three months, said Andreas Gal, a Mozilla researcher who on Wednesday unveiled work the company had done quietly for the last month.

If Mozilla follows through on its plans, it would make Firefox the second major browser -- after Google's Chrome -- to offer in-browser PDF rendering.

But while Chrome relies on an API (application programming interface) to craft its own native-code plug-in, Mozilla will exclusively use HTML5 and JavaScript to display Adobe's popular document format.

Gal touted that as more secure.

LulzSec Claims Credit For CIA Site Takedown

The hacking group LulzSec, aka the Lulz Boat, on Wednesday claimed to have rendered the CIA's public website inaccessible.

"Tango down - cia.gov - for the lulz," said a tweet on the LulzSec Twitter feed. ("Tango down" is a phrase from the Tom Clancy videogame Rainbow Six, uttered after an enemy's been killed.) For at least part of the day, the CIA website couldn't be reached, or was only sporadically accessible. Some Internet watchers said the site could have been unreachable simply because LulzSec tweets led so many people to try and access the site at once, leading to its becoming slashdotted.

But LulzSec claimed to have used a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. "People are saying our CIA attack was the biggest yet, but it was really a very simple packet flood," said a LulzSec tweet.

That apparent attack--according to news reports, the CIA said it's still investigating--followed the group's requests, earlier in the day, for suggested targets. As part of that campaign, the group also released a phone number, which it rerouted for "phone DDoS" attacks. "Our number literally has anywhere between 5-20 people ringing it every single second. We can forward it anywhere in the world. Suggestions?" said a LulzSec tweet.

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