The National Security Agency has announced it’ll be taking part in a pilot program where it will team up with Internet Service Providers to scan emails and other digital traffic to stop a cyber attack, before it happens. But hypothetically the government can keep tabs on what you’re doing online, read your emails, and even who you interact with on social media sites. is this pilot-program announcement merely a PR move by the government to pretend like they haven’t already invaded your privacy?
Anonymous deploys trickster DDoS sites to fuel online attacks
Although until now Anonymous has focused on the so-called LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Canon) tool to carry out DDoS attacks, a freely downloaded app that helps bombard sites with hits until they are overwhelmed and unresponsive, a new browser-based strategy …
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San Jose, CA (PRWEB) April 6, 2011
ICONIX, Inc., the industry leader in visual email solutions, announced today that it has released the initial version of a product that defends against spear-phishing. The product, called SP Guard, allows email recipients to differentiate real email from spear-phishing emails though the display of an authenticity indicator in the inbox and in the open message.
Recent security breaches at many major enterprises were revealed in the documents stolen from HBGary by Anonymous.com. The HBGary documents revealed that hackers routinely bypass firewalls and other technical security measures by using spear-phishing emails that target executives, tricking the recipients into downloading malicious software and infecting their own networks. Additional breaches initiated by spear-phishing include attacks on government organizations such as the widely-publicized G20 document theft at the French Finance Ministry, and attacks on service providers such as the recent email address theft at Epsilon.
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D. RI), who chaired a U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence task force on U.S. cybersecurity in 2010, observes on his Senate webpage, Cybercrime has put our country on the losing end of what could be the largest illicit transfer of wealth in world history.
“At Iconix our core expertise is combining email authentication methods with display technology to identify legitimate email senders, said Jeff Wilbur, vice-president of marketing at Iconix. SP Guard is the first release of our technology specifically designed to be deployed by business and government enterprises in the fight against spear-phishing. Academic research starting in 2004 at the U.S. Military Academy has demonstrated the power of well-crafted spear-phishing emails to deceive intelligent and well-trained individuals into taking steps that compromise cyber-security. The concerns identified in the academic work have now become an unfortunate reality. Because SP Guard allows email recipients to easily and accurately distinguish real email from fake email, we believe that it is an important addition to any comprehensive enterprise security solution.
SP Guard is available immediately from Iconix, Inc. More information is available at http://www.iconix.com/business/spearphishing.php.
About ICONIX, Inc.
ICONIX, Inc. is the leading provider of trusted email identification solutions. ICONIX provides the industry’s first visual solution for businesses and consumers. The patented Iconix
(PRWEB) January 30, 2012
The second annual NYC Turing Fellows Program, which matches outstanding students to paid summer internships with leading technology startups, is now accepting applications from undergraduate and graduate students across the U.S. and Canada. The program is open to students studying computer science, engineering, or mathematics who are looking for a competitive summer internship at one of New York Citys top startups.
Last year, the Program offered fellowships to 19 of more than 750 applicants, or less than 2.6 percent. Students from 113 schools and universities in North America applied to the Program.
The final application deadline is noon on Monday, February 6, 2012. Semi-finalists who are selected by the startups will earn a paid summer internship and a $ 5,000 scholarship. The students also benefit from a summer curriculum consisting of networking and educational events. Last years program included: a tour of the Museum of Modern Art, a Yankees game, networking lunches with some of the citys leading chief technology officers, and lectures from Dennis Crowley of Foursquare, Esther Dyson, and other leading startup CEOs. To apply, visit http://www.nycturingfellows.org/apply.
By connecting the top engineering and computer science talent from around the country with New York City-based businesses, the NYC Turing Fellows Program will continue to make an important contribution to the city’s economy, said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “Our thriving technology sector is bolstering New York City’s position as a global center for innovation, and along with the selection of Cornell and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a brand-new applied science engineering campus on Roosevelt Island, we will ensure that we educate the next wave of entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future.”
“Most internships I know take a science experiment or busy work approach, said Ricky Hussman, West Virginia University Graduate student and 2011 Turing Fellow at Foursquare. “The NYC Turing Fellows Program was a defining experience in my career and gave me a chance to make a real impact on a service used by millions. Through the program, I met an incredible group of peers from around the country, learned about the challenges and opportunities working at a startup, and discovered the incredible resources that a city like New York offers. If you want to work at a startup and are passionate about technology, it would be foolish not to apply to the NYC Turing Fellows Program.”
2012 Sponsors and Partners Include:
-Startups: AppNexus, Birchbox, Blip, BuzzFeed, Conductor, Crowdtap, Cross Commerce Media, CrowdTwist, Etsy, GetGlue, H.BLOOM, Kickstarter, Knewton, Lot18, On Deck Capital, OpenSky, Pontiflex, Quirky, SecondMarket, ShopKeep, SinglePlatform, Squarespace, Sulia, Tapad, Tremor Video, Vook, and ZocDoc.
-Corporate Partners: Amazon (Web Services), Cooley LLP, Ernst & Young, Goodwin Procter, Gunderson Dettmer, Lowenstein Sandler, The New York Times Company, Silicon Valley Bank, SNR Denton, Sorin Royer Cooper, Square 1 Bank, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and Wollmuth Maher & Deutsch.
-Venture Capital: Canaan Partners, FirstMark Capital, First Round Capital, General Catalyst, RRE Ventures, SV Angel and Tribeca Venture Partners.
-Individuals: Benjamin Barokas (Admeld), Dan Ciporin (Shopping.com), Ron Conway (SV Angel), Esther Dyson (EDventure), Jason Finger (SeamlessWeb), Brad Hargreaves (General Assembly), Scott Kurnit (AdKeeper), Dave Morgan (TACODA, Simulmedia), David Tisch (TechStars NYC), Nat Turner (Invite Media), and Zach Weinberg (Invite Media).
-City Partners: NYCEDC and NYCIF.
We are excited to participate in the NYC Turing Fellows Program because it is a great way to attract the top talent that were looking for, said Cyrus Massoumi, Founder and CEO, ZocDoc. Hiring the best engineers and developers in New York City is becoming more competitive by the minute and the NYC Turing Fellows Program is a terrific way for us to attract the people whom we need to continue successfully building ZocDoc.
Peter Miron, CTO of Knewton, added, The startups participating in the Program this year have raised more than $ 500 million in venture capital to date and are leaders in their respective areas. We are extremely gratified by the strong support of our many new and returning sponsors.
The Program was founded in 2010 and is co-organized by Warren Lee, general partner at Canaan Partners; Amish Jani, co-founder and managing director at FirstMark Capital; Brian Hirsch, managing partner at Tribeca Venture Partners; Peter Miron, CTO of Knewton; Phin Barnes, Principal at First Round Capital; Brendan Dickinson, Canaan Partners; Abe Geiger, Columbia Business School.
About the NYC Turing Fellows Program
The NYC Turing Fellows Program seeks to support the rapidly growing technology ecosystem in New York City by matching outstanding computer science and engineering students from across the U.S. and Canada to paid summer internships with leading technology startups. The fellowship is named after Alan Turing who was an early pioneer in computer science and the quintessential hacker who invented a number of critical techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the Enigma machine, during WWII. Details on the NYC Turing Fellows Program can be found at http://www.nycturingfellows.org. Follow us: http://www.twitter.com/NYCTuring
Media Contact:
Jessica Fletcher / NYC Turing Fellows Program / 817-707-8429 / Jessica(at)nycturingfellows(dot)org
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3typen visited the Roleplay Convention (RPC) in cologne, germany. Finally there, we entered some public terminals to get into the matrix of the Roccat main system and hacked the RPC supercomputer (Gibson). Once in, we uploaded our Jumpgate Evolution, Fuel and Dirt 2 Trailers and got away without being recognized. Resistance is futile! sincerely yours, 3typen www.3typen.com
On January 10th 2012 Stanford Law School welcomed HLS Professor Jonathan Zittrain for a Q&A on Hacktivism. The event was sponsored by CodeX: Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
Louisville, Kentucky (PRWEB) February 01, 2012
Just days after online retailer Zappos announced that hackers had stolen account information from 24 million customers, the Louisville, Kentucky law firm Gray & White filed a class action suit against the websites parent company, Amazon (United States District Court for the Western District Kentucky, Theresa D. Stevens v. Amazon.com, Inc. d/b/a Zappos.com, Class Action Case No. CV 3:12cv-32 M). The lawsuit alleges that Amazon violated federal consumer credit laws by not protecting private customer data.
According to CNNMoney.com and other media sources, on January 16, Zappos informed its customers that millions of user accounts located on servers in Shepherdsville, Kentucky had been accessed by hackers and that their personal information had been stolen, including their names, addresses, email addresses, encrypted passwords, phone numbers and the last four digits of their credit card numbers. Theresa Stevens, a Zappos customer, has since filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, claiming that the data breach makes her more susceptible to unsolicited email, online scams, and phishing.
When we create accounts online, we expect that companies will keep our personal information safely stored and encrypted, said attorney Matthew White. When a consumers personal data is stolen, they suffer emotional distress, a loss of privacy, and a greater possibility of falling victim to other internet scams. In addition, they may need to spend money on credit monitoring and identity theft insurance.
As lead plaintiff, Stevens is seeking mental anguish damages and economic damages that include payment from Amazon for credit monitoring and identity theft insurance. Amazon has responded to the lawsuit by claiming that its customers credit card information was securely stored and encrypted on a separate server.
About Gray & White Law
Gray & White Law has won some of the largest court verdicts and settlements in Kentuckys historyfrom personal injury cases to class-action lawsuits. Located in Louisville, the law firm represents clients with car accident cases, medical malpractice cases, nursing home abuse and neglect cases, defective medical device cases, personal injury cases and wrongful death cases.
To learn more about Gray & White and their role in the Zappos data breach lawsuit, please visit http://www.grayandwhite.com. If you have questions or would like to discuss a possible claim, call 1-800-634-8767 for a private, free legal consultation.
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Youtube video news about anonymous hackers strikes over Megaupload takedown. Anonymous strikes back after FBI shut piracy hub Megaupload and launches largest attack ever. Anonymous motto is: We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us. United as one, divided by zero.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 03, 2012
From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movements, 2011 witnessed an incredible expansion of the use of the internet for social activism and change. But less frequently reported are the increasing cyber-attacks on human rights activists. From communications blackouts, to Denial of Service attacks, to the use of Western technology to track down political dissidents, activists of all stripes were at incredible risk in 2011, according to a new report released today by Access titled Global Civil Society At Risk: An Overview of Some of the Major Cyber Threats Facing Civil Society.
The events over the past year should serve as a global wakeup call to human rights activists and their allies. Civil society is very much under attack online, and the threats that we saw in 2011 are only going to increase in the coming year, said Brett Solomon, Executive Director of Access. It is imperative that we shine a light on the dirty practices of repressive regimes and equip civil society to defend against these attacks which would otherwise silence their voices.
According to Access in 2011, as members of civil society increasingly used the internet to organize, authoritarian governments responded by deploying new technology, exercising control over internet infrastructure, and sharing worst practices to manipulate the communications of their people. With a depth of information security knowledge, skill, and experience in short supply, civil society is now facing an unprecedented challenge when it comes to secure and trusted communications.
Access has identified some of the most significant threats currently faced by civil society, which include:
Communications Blackout: In 2011, the government of Egypt disconnected the country from the internet for five days. Iran announced a plan to disconnect the country from the worldwide internet and replacing it with a nationally controlled Halal Internet. In San Francisco, transportation authorities cut off cell phone coverage to prevent protests.
Denial of Service Attacks: DoS are difficult-to-identify attacks that flood a site with data requests so legitimate requests cant get through, paralyzing a website’s capacity to communicate with the world and rendering it inoperable for extended periods. In 2011, DoS attacks were often perpetrated at moments of heightened political activity such as elections.
Blocking and Filtering: Authoritarian governments are increasingly using filtering technology to keep their people behind a firewall, preventing them from accessing sites like independent news agencies, social networks, and search engines.
Use of Surveillance Technology: In 2011, there were several high-profile cases of Western-made surveillance technology being sold to repressive regimes, which was then used to monitor and hunt down activists. These technologies, in use in places like Syria and Iran, include the interception, decryption, and storage of all electronic communications sent by activists and civil society.
“As the internet enables populations to converse, inform and organize, we see social change unfolding before our very eyes,” said Gustaf Bj
Scottsdale, AZ (PRWEB) October 14, 2010
Toolbox.com, the operator of online communities for professional knowledge sharing, and PJA Advertising + Marketing, three-time BtoB Agency of the Year winner, today announced results of Wave VI in the Social Media Index survey series.
A top finding: despite a 35% increase in social media consumption to 5.88 hours per week, more than half of respondents across IT, HR, and finance either do not have a social media policy at their company or are unsure if they do.
The survey of nearly 3,000 global IT, HR, and finance professionals found that although social media policies may be hard to come by in many companies, 40% of IT and finance respondents and 46% of HR respondents said that their workplace makes it easy or very easy to use social media on the job.
The majority of users choose work e-mail accounts for best practice communities such as Toolbox.com and StackOverflow and personal accounts for professional networks such as LinkedIn and Ryze.
Despite the increased utilization of social media on the job and its link to potential business advantage, this survey shows that most companies do not have a clear social media policy in place, if they have one at all, commented George Krautzel, co-founder and president of Toolbox.com. As user-generated content continues to make up a greater percentage of a professionals week, companies need to accelerate their thinking about two things: how to guide employees on properly representing their company when engaging, and how to make their own IP accessible in social channels.
“The news for me here is around integration, said Mike OToole, president at PJA Advertising + Marketing. Based on these results, its clear that you really need to bring social media and user-generated content into all the ways you communicate with your colleagues and customers to be effective. Theres a clear opportunity cost if you dont have a simple, clear policy that balances self-monitoring with company regulations. And since marketers are the owners of where social practices are moving for companies, these policies really ought to be coming out of collaboration between Marketing and Legal, with Marketing leading the charge.
Respondents showed insight about user-generated content that often runs in advance of their own companys leadership. In the words of one, We need a workplace policy that acknowledges the blurring of work and the personal, for example around the use of a single mobile device. We also need workplace policies that permit the use of social media sites and police content rather than content providers. For example, we need to address inappropriate use on an exception basis rather than banning it outright as a blanket policy.
Other information to come out of the survey:
Consumption of social media (user-generated) content was up across audiences compared to Wave V of the Toolbox.com/PJA survey, conducted in January 2010
IT professionals spend an average of 5.86 hours per week engaging with social media content, versus 3.81 with editorial content and 3.41 with vendor content
HR professionals spend an average of 6.02 hours per week engaging with social media content, versus 3.89 with editorial content and 3.10 with vendor content
Finance professionals spend an average of 5.50 hours per week engaging with social media content, versus 4.45 with editorial content and 2.75 with vendor content
To view complete survey results, click here: http://bit.ly/Toolbox-PJA
About Toolbox.com
Toolbox.com helps professionals do their jobs better by enabling them to easily share knowledge with experienced peers. The online communities at Toolbox.com include professional networking, blogs, discussion groups, wikis, and a vendor research directory through which executives and professionals collaborate to solve problems, make decisions, and increase workplace efficiency. Through the community, advertising partners can engage prospects and customers either directly or by integrating their message through a proprietary contextual matching engine. This combination of community and advertising value has made Toolbox.com a leading destination for professionals and a leader in online advertising. Toolbox.com is a division of Corporate Executive Board (NYSE: EXBD). For more information, visit http://www.toolbox.com.
About PJA
PJA is a $ 75 million advertising and marketing agency with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California. PJA serves a global roster of technology, life science and healthcare clients that includes: Novell, GE Healthcare, Boston Scientific, Limelight Networks, Pegasystems, Trend Micro, Infor, and TriZetto. For more information, visit http://www.agencypja.com.
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