hacker

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Another reason not to buy books: Hackers installed credit card readers at 63 stores across the country, New York City included.

- Attention New Yorkers: It's officially time to freak out about Hurricane Sandy.

- SDSU study confirms that five-second rule is pretty much bull.

- A license plate frame that defeats red light camera flashes.… Read more

Apple's experiment with employing a hacker famous for jailbreaking the iPhone has ended.

Nicholas Allegra, also known as Comex, was hired at Apple after gaining fame with the JailBreakMe, a Web site that simplified the process of removing Apple-installed protections from the phone -- a practice Apple opposes. When Apple hired him as an intern in August 2011, Allegra was a high-profile member of the jailbreaking community, regularly publicizing security vulnerabilities in Apple's iOS software.

However, Apple ended the 20-year-old Brown University student's employment last week, Allegra revealed today.

"So... no point in delaying. As of … Read more

Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who allegedly broke into NASA's computers, will not be extradited to the U.S., ending his 10-year fight against the process.

Home Secretary Theresa May blocked the extradition on human rights grounds, saying she has "carefully examined the medical evidence" and concluded that his extradition would "give a high risk that he would end his life," the BBC reports.

Whether McKinnon will now face trial for the crime in the U.K. will be determined by the the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer.

The U.S. military has the ability to act pre-emptively when it detects an imminent cyberattack threat, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said today.

During his first major policy speech on cybersecurity, Panetta echoed previous statements that the United States was facing the possibility of a "cyber-Pearl Harbor" perpetrated by foreign hackers, painting a grim portrait of the destructive power wielded by unnamed agents.

"A cyber attack perpetrated by nation states or violent extremist groups could be as destructive as the terrorist attack of 9/11," he said in prepared remarks during a speech at the Intrepid … Read more

Hack into Google Chrome, and you could win $60,000, at least if you do it through Google's Pwnium 2 competition.

That's just what happened to a hacker dubbed Pinkie Pie, who won the award on Tuesday by exploiting a security hole in Chrome.

In an effort to shore up its browser's defenses, Google holds the competition to challenge hackers to hack their way through Chrome's security to find previously unknown holes. Tuesday's Pwnium 2 contest was held at the Hack in the Box 2012 event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"We're happy to … Read more

Hackers have accessed the confidential information of nearly 300,000 students, employees, and faculty in a massive security breach at a Florida college, officials said today.

The breach was first thought to have been isolated to employees at Northwest Florida State College but may involve student records from across the state, education officials said. More than 200,000 records were stolen in the breach, including the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of any student who was eligible for Florida's Bright Futures scholarships from 2005 to 2007.

"We speculate this was a professional, coordinated attack by one … Read more

A group of hackers claims to have stolen thousands of personal records by breaching the servers of more than 50 universities around the world, including Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, and Princeton.

A group calling itself GhostShell posted to text-sharing site Pastebin more than 120,000 records from the breached servers, including thousands of names, usernames, passwords, addresses, and phone numbers of students and faculty. While most hacker activity is motivated by a desire to steal identities or pranksterism, GhostShell said the goal of its data dump was to focus public attention on the state of higher education:

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman sent a letter to President Obama today urging him to use his executive power and publish "advisory" guidelines on a cybersecurity order.

"Countless national security leaders from your Administration and the previous Administration have made clear that the threat from cyber attack is similar to the threat we faced from terrorism on September 10, 2001 -- the danger is real and imminent, yet we have not acted to defend against it," Lieberman wrote. "We know our adversaries are already stealing valuable intellectual property and exploiting our critical infrastructure … Read more