FBI puts a $100,000 bounty on Syrian Electronic Army hackers!

 FBI adds Syrian Electronic Army hackers to its most wanted list and offers a $100,000 bounty for their information

If you are following Tech worm or any other security news related portal, you will probably know about Syrian Electronic Army, This hacking group which forms part of Techworm’s  top 10 hacking groups of all times, is self confessed Assad regime supporter in Syria has been at the forefront of attacking websites attached to anyone who opposed President Assad’s regime in Syria.

Lately they have been subdued but over the years, SEA as they are popularly called, have been causing serious trouble to Western media outlets like Forbes, Independent, Daily Telegraph etc. The hacking group also attacked US army online assets during its hacking operations.

But so far the SEA members had managed to evade being on US government’s radar. However, today, the FBI has filed charges against three individuals it believes were key in perpetrating SEA’s hacking attacks.

The seriousness about the cyber hacking escapades can be judged from the fact that FBI has placed two of the three men, Ahmad Umar Agha, Firas Dardar and Peter Romar, on it’s Cyber Most Wanted list with $100,000 rewards on offer for anyone who helps catch them.

The three have been charged with a range of offences, from hacking, to engaging in a hoax regarding a terrorist attack, to attempting to cause a mutiny within the U.S. armed forces.

SEA’s most daring hacking attack came after it had hacked Associated Press Twitter account. After hacking the Twitter account, the hackers tweeted that a bomb had exploded at the White House and injured President Obama. The tweet was enough for Dow Jones to collapse that day and investor wealth of almost $90 billion was wiped off the U.S. stock market.

The complaint filed today shows that SEA targeted Harvard University, Washington Post, White House, Reuters, Human Rights Watch, NPR, CNN, Onion, NBC Universal, USA Today, New York Post, NASA, and Microsoft during their hacking operations.

The complaint also notes that all the three SEA members conducted their hacking operations using Google Gmail and Facebook. They also used Facebook to coordinate and pass around stolen data. The filing noted that FBI and other U.S. agencies were able to track the alleged SEA members after acquiring court warrants to search their online accounts.

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‘We will strike back’ says Anonymous to ISIS for Brussels attack!

 Anonymous vows to take revenge on ISIS after ghastly Brussels attacks

In the wake of the Brussels terror attacks, activist hacker group, Anonymous is calling for people to stand up against discrimination as part of its fight against the Islamic State. Anonymous has launched a “total war” on ISIS, with a pledge to try and wipe it off the internet and take its money.

The so-called ‘Op Brussels’ was declared in a video and posted to YouTube following Tuesday’s bombings, an Anonymous member donned a Guy Fawkes mask to condemn the deadly attacks which were launched by a network tied to the ISIS. The bombings that targeted the city’s main airport and metro left 31 people dead and hundreds injured in Brussels on Tuesday.

While the group is best known for hacking its targets, this time Anonymous is also calling for compassion.

“You don’t have to hack them. If you stand up against discrimination in your country, you harm them much more than by hacking their websites,” the video said.

“The Islamic State cannot recruit Muslims in Europe if they are accepted and included in the society. So we want all of you to stand together against discrimination.”

“We do not forgive,” the video continued. “We do not forget. … Expect us.”

Further, the video also stated that the attacks will include attempting to keep ISIS accounts off social media sites and taking money from them. The group has vowed to keep “hacking their websites, shutting down their Twitter accounts and stealing their Bitcoins”.

The group claimed that it has already been successful in silencing Twitter accounts and other communication and propaganda tools online.

“We have silenced thousands of Twitter accounts directly linked to ISIS,” the speaker says in a video shot in the usual way of Anonymous, with a computer voice overlaid on an image of the famous mask. “We severely punish Daesh on the dark net, hacked their electronic portfolio and stolen money from the terrorists.

“We have laid siege to your propaganda websites, tested them with our cyber attacks, however we will not rest as long as terrorists continue their actions around the world.

“We will strike back against them… we will defend the rights of freedom and tolerance.”

Anonymous released a similar threat after the Paris attacks last November pledging to hunt down those responsible online and expose them. However, the group has sometimes been criticised for being overly enthusiastic about its methods, which tend to involve simply shutting down Twitter accounts.

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This 16-Year-Old Hacker Releases A Silly Game By Hacking Into Steam

  This 16-year-old hacked into Steam to promote his rather silly game on its system

A 16-year-old hacker exploited vulnerability in Steam and went on to publish his 45-second-long ‘game’ onto Steam without a single person at Valve setting eyes on it.

Ruby Nealon, who created the game called Watch Paint Dry, is a game about watching paint dry. It made its way onto Steam without going through Greenlight or acquiring an elusive Valve stamp-of-approval. Thanks to Nealon, the vulnerability he exploited has now been fixed.

He helped them fix this backdoor into Steam, which was his agenda from the start.

“I have been in contact with Valve who have now fixed the vulnerability”, wrote Nealon at the end of his post. “TL;DR — I was responsible for Watch paint dry. Getting caught was part of my plan. It’s just a prank, bro!”

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One million Gmail accounts might have been targeted by government hackers says Google!

Google says 1 million Gmail accounts might have been targeted by government hackers

Intelligence agencies all over the world look to gather information relevant to their various operations, which also includes hacking emails accounts. For a while now, Google has been able to recognize such government-backed hackers, and alert customers who are possibly affected by it so that they can take instant action.

In order to make the already secure Gmail more safe, Google yesterday announced that it will notify users if they are being targeted by a state sponsored hacker using a new warning. The company said it will also be increasing the visibility of other types of Gmail security warnings to try and help people better protect themselves.

Until now, as many as 1 million Gmail accounts may have been targeted by government-backed attackers disclosed Google. While the search giant did not reveal the exact number, it also did not clarify how it knows when these hacks take place. However, the company did acknowlegde that it knows who the targets are.

“Since 2012, we’ve warned Gmail users when we suspect they’ve been targeted by state-sponsored attackers,’ Google said in a blog post. “The users that receive these warnings are often activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world.”

A pink Warning tab appears on top of Gmail when a hack is detected, advising the affected users to protect themselves in a much better way.

In addition to that bar, Google will now provide full-page warning with instructions about how these users can stay safe. Users may see these new warnings instead of, or in addition to, the existing ones, Google added.

Google says, “These warnings are rare – fewer than 0.1 per cent of users ever receive them – but they are critically important.” In other words, as many as about 1 million users might have received warnings about their email being hacked by a state sponsored hacker.

In recent months, Google has been increasing its Gmail security.

Last month, it introduced a security measure in the form of a small red padlock next to a sender’s email address to highlight if the message is potentially unsafe.

In its security update, one of its recent changes is the expansion of the ‘safe browsing’ notifications.

“Safe Browsing already protects Gmail users by identifying potentially dangerous links in messages,” Google wrote in a recent blog post.

“Starting this week, Gmail users will begin to see warnings if they click these links, further extending this protection to different web browsers and email apps.”

If users receive a message that cannot be validated, they will also see a question mark where they may otherwise see a profile photo or logo, Google said.

This is what it looks like, so don’t be surprised if you see it in Gmail in the future:

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Hacker Weev hacked 29,000 college printers and spewed them with anti-Semitic messages!

Infamous Hacker ‘Weev’ takes responsibility for anti-Semitic flyers on college campus

The infamous black hat hacker and internet troll has taken credit for anti-Semitic racist flyers that appeared on computer printers at more than dozen universities across the country.

Andrew A.E. Auernheimer, 30, also known as “Weev”, explained in a blog post how he was able to exploit vulnerability in 29,000 printers and print out multiple copies of racist and anti-Semitic flyers between Thursday to Friday 24-25 March.

Auernheimer claims that he used a single line of Bash script code to search most of the Internet for vulnerable Web-connected devices that could be exploited through an open port 9100, and then created a PostScript file containing a flyer advertising a white supremacist news website called Daily Stormer. Since, the printers were programmed to automatically print this file format out, they immediately complied.

In bold, black capitalized font, and decorated with swastikas and the web address of a neo-Nazi group, the single-page messages read, “White man, are you sick and tired of the Jews destroying your country through mass immigration and degeneracy? Join us in the struggle for global white supremacy at The Daily Stormer.” The hacker confirmed that the flyer was specially made for him by Daily Stormer staff.

“It turned out to be upwards of a million devices,” Auernheimer wrote in a blog post last week.

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