cyber attack

What's up with all the malware aimed at the Middle East?

For the second time in two weeks a virus outbreak has been reported at an energy company in that region. Qatari liquified natural gas producer RasGas said its corporate network and Web site were down after getting hit by a virus on Monday. Earlier this week the Saudi Aramco oil company confirmed that its network was hit by a virus two weeks ago, shutting down 30,000 workstations. Neither company identified the virus, but in at least one of the cases it is believed to be malware known … Read more

In today's show, we test Google's new operating system, chirp goodbye to Nextel, and pay our Russian bills with green pigs:

The reviews are out for Samsung's new Chromebook and Chromebox, running on the newly updated Chrome OS. And the bottom line is that it's better than the last version, but still not all that impressive. (Especially since the Chromebook has limited capabilities and costs more than a tablet.)

The Nextel network will officially be killed-off in June of 2013, and Sprint is pushing Nextel customers to use Sprint Direct Connect devices.

There's a new … Read more

U.S. gas pipeline operators have been targeted in sophisticated phishing attacks since at least December, with the Department of Homeland Security helping firms deal with the incidents since March, the DHS and an industry expert said.

"DHS's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team has been working since March 2012 with critical infrastructure owners and operators in the oil and natural gas sector to address a series of cyber intrusions targeting natural gas pipeline companies," DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said in an e-mail sent to CNET today.

"The cyber intrusion involves sophisticated spear-phishing activities targeting … Read more

Just days after watchdog group Reporters Without Borders named Iran as one of the "Enemies of the Internet," the BBC is now claiming to be the victim of a cyber-attack possibly perpetrated by the Iranian authorities.

The news source says that two of its satellite feeds into Iran were jammed earlier this month coinciding with a denial-of-service attack in which some parts of the BBC's e-mail and Internet services were unavailable. The director-general of the BBC Mark Thompson will be giving a speech to the Royal Television Society shortly, in which he plans to explain how the … Read more

The Department of Homeland Security is disputing a government memo obtained by Nextgov.com that said a targeted attack on the computer network of a railway company in the Northwest disrupted train service in early December.

"Following more in-depth analysis, it appears that the potential cyber incident did not in fact target a transportation entity," a senior DHS official told CNET today. "DHS worked with the affected entity, the FBI, and the Transportation Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) to resolve the issue and send alerts to notify the community of the anomalous activity as it was … Read more

Hackers in Israel and other Middle Eastern countries are in the middle of a cyberwar that has led to disruptions of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, several Israeli banks, and an airline. As a result, some Israeli banks have blocked or are threatening to block international access to their sites to avoid attack.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks Monday that crippled the Web sites of the Tel Aviv bourse Web site and El Al Airlines, as well as the marketing sites of the First International Bank of Israel (Fibi), Massad bank, and Otzar Hahayal bank, according to … Read more

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI today dismissed the conclusions of a report that a cyber intrusion caused a pump at an Illinois water utility to burn out. But the statement doesn't explain why an Illinois state terrorism intelligence center would say it was a hacker when it wasn't.

In the meantime, the DHS is investigating a claim by a hacker who goes by "pr0f" who claimed to have compromised a Texas water utility last week.

"After detailed analysis, DHS and the FBI have found no evidence of a cyber intrusion into the SCADA … Read more

Intruders compromised a water utility network last week and destroyed a pump, according to a state government report cited by a critical infrastructure security expert today.

It appears that hackers breached the network of a company that makes SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) and stole customer usernames and passwords, said Joe Weiss, managing partner of Applied Control Solutions. "There was damage--the SCADA system was powered on and off, burning out a water pump," he wrote in a brief blog post.

The report did not identify the water utility attacked or the SCADA software vendor compromised, Weiss said … Read more

Some Adidas Web sites remain offline today as a result of a "sophisticated" cyber attack discovered last week, the German sportswear company said.

"On November 3, 2011, the adidas Group found out that it was the target of a sophisticated, criminal cyber-attack. Our preliminary investigation has found no evidence that any consumer data is impacted," the company said in a statement on its news stream site. "But, while we continue our thorough forensic review, we have taken down affected sites, including adidas.com, reebok.com, miCoach.com, adidas-group.com and various local eCommerce shops, in … Read more