Online propaganda war escalates
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
More than 10,000 websites have been defaced or compromised by hackers in an effort to show their pro-Palestinian support during the ongoing Gaza Strip conflict.
Though the campaign to attack websites with anti-Israeli and anti-American messages was first reported last week, the number of infected sites has significantly increased since the weekend, including some high-profile Israel-based sites, SCMagazineus.com reports.
Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama, told the news provider a hacker named ColdZ3ro runs an Arabic language hacking school and has claimed responsibility for thousands of website defacements, which suggests this may only be the beginning.
"You can have almost no skills on the computer, and take one of his tools, start using it and be productive. People are wanting to participate and support Palestine and they're finding ample opportunities in these tools," said Warner.
In response, Israeli hackers encouraged users to download a tool to launch denial-of-service attacks against Hamas websites, though it appears the original site has been taken down, states SCMagazineus.com.
On Tuesday, Israeli military surrounded Gaza city with ground forces after administering more than 40 air strikes the night before, CNN.com reports.
Related News:
The Pirate Bay hit by DDOS attacks on news of sale - 7.2.2009
Global Gaming Factory's announcement Tuesday that it plans to purchase the file-swapping BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay for $7.8 million has set off distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks on the Swedish company's website, likely from disgruntled members who have cast the founders as sell-outs.
Mozilla will issue security fixes for Firefox 3.5 - 7.2.2009
Mozilla, which just released the latest version of its Firefox browser on Tuesday, is already planning to release web security fixes for bugs in Firefox 3.5, according to Computerworld.com.
Online security fears affect consumers more than economy - 7.1.2009
Seventy-two percent of consumers said the economy has not changed the way they shop online, but nearly half of consumers have terminated an online order due to security fears, according to a new survey by web security vendor McAfee.
Cyber vigilante arrested for DDOS attacks on news sites - 7.1.2009
Federal authorities have charged Bruce Raisley, of Monaca, Pennsylvania, in connection with a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks on news websites hosting articles that detailed embarrassing facts about his online relationship with a man pretending to be a woman.
Web security report: Q2 spam averaged 88 percent - 6.30.2009
Spam levels for Q2 2009 averaged 88.7 percent compared with 74.5 percent for Q1 2009, according to the June 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence Report from security vendor Symantec. The global ratio of spam was 90.4 percent in June, reflecting no change since May.
|
