NEWS
Cyberattack on Google Said to Hit Password System
Execute a cyber attack with kits for just $700!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
••• A December cyberattack on Google Inc computers hit the company’s password system that millions of people worldwide use to access almost all of the company’s Web services, a popular U.S. newspaper reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.
The closely-guarded program is considered a crown jewel at Google, enabling users and employees to sign in with their password only once to operate various services including e-mail and business applications, the newspaper said in its April 20 edition.
Google did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Code-named Gaia for the Greek goddess of the earth, and still in use under the name Single Sign-On, the program was described publicly only once at a technical conference four years ago, the newspaper said.
The intruders do not appear to have stolen passwords of Gmail users, and Google quickly started to bolster security, the newspaper said.
But the theft leaves open a possibility, perhaps faint, that the intruders may find weaknesses that Google might not know about, the newspaper said, citing independent computer experts.
Google disclosed the hacking on January 12, reporting a detection of “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.”
The Mountain View, California-based company said the attack appeared to target Chinese human rights activists, and that only two Gmail accounts appeared to have been accessed.
Google at the time said it would stop censoring search results on Google.cn. In March, it closed its China-based Web search service and began redirecting users to an uncensored portal in Hong Kong. That decision came amid heightened tensions between China and Washington, D.C.
Execute a cyber attack with kits for just $700!
Cybercrimes are no longer the domain of the tech-savvy-just splash out $700 and one can buy an attack kit online, reveals an internet security report.
Symantec, which monitors one-third of the Internet through its software, has discovered a marked increase in sales of crimeware – or attack kits – in the past 12 months.
Attack kits automatically create customised malicious code designed to steal any type of information.
An attack kit, Zeus, can be purchased online for $700 in an underground economy forum.
The kit allows the user to access infected computers and steal email and banking details and passwords.
Last year, it sent out phishing messages to 1.5 million Facebook users and nine million phishing emails.
“The kits have lowered the entry point into cybercrime,” Fox News quoted said Symantec vice president and managing director Craig Scroggie as saying.
“They make it easier for an unskilled attacker to compromise a computer and steal information, whereas in the past you needed to have the skill to write these things.”
Scroggie said “tens of thousands” of the attack kits had been sold, helping create 90,000 unique variations of the Zeus toolkit.
Other known crimeware tools include the Fragus Exploit Kit and the Spyeye.
••• Apple says it has banned a developer from its applications store after hundreds of hijacked user accounts were used to push his titles to best sellers.
Apple’s app store offers paid and free applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
