Monday, January 31, 2011

FBI Issues Warrants For WikiLeaks Attacks

The FBI is on the hunt for the hackers responsible for a recent wave of cyberattacks launched in defense of WikiLeaks.

FBI agents yesterday executed more than 40 search warrants in the United States as part of their ongoing investigation. Pointing to the group Anonymous, which has taken responsibility for the attacks, the FBI said
that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults were facilitated by software the group makes available as free downloads.

Late last year, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and other companies were hit by DDoS attacks triggered by activists in support of WikiLeaks after the companies cut off sources of funding to the whistle-blowing site.

The FBI apparently started its investigation after it was contacted by PayPal in December and was able to trace two of the IP addresses provided by PayPal to physical locations, one of which was in Texas where the agency seized a server.

Looking beyond the United States, the FBI said it's working with other law enforcement agencies abroad. Officials in the Netherlands, Germany, and France are each conducting their own probes into the cyberattacks, while police in the U.K. arrested five people yesterday on suspicion of involvement in the attacks launched by Anonymous.

Additionally, an organization called the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance is lending a hand in the investigations. With a focus on cybercrime, the group provides a bridge between the private sector and law
enforcement agencies and has worked directly with the FBI in the past.

Those who facilitate or conduct a DDoS attack face up to 10 years in prison and civil fines over damages, according to the FBI.

Read more: CNET

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

How To Identify If Your Computer Has A Spyware

Is your pc been working slower than regular? Are you fearful somebody may be able to access your pc and steal your personal info and use it against you? If that's the case, then continue reading the article and identify if your computer has a spyware or malware.

A while back, my 3-year outdated computer was working so sluggish that I had to purchase a brand new computer. Or a minimum of I thought I wanted a brand new computer. Then within a matter of weeks of browsing on the Web, my new computer was additionally operating so slowly. As well as, some programs did not run nicely on my laptop, and I didn't recognize among the packages that have been operating on my computer. That scared me most. Were these programs that had been monitoring my keystrokes on my pc or programs I simply not remember installing? I knew I needed to find a reply and resolution fast.

The reality is, we can all put up with a sluggish laptop, but only a few of us would want others to have entry to the data on our computers, however that's precisely what can occur when adware or malware is loaded on our computers without our knowledge.

Based on Spyware and adware Nuker’s website online, “Spyware applications are applications and information that hide in your PC's onerous drive with out your direct knowledge. These applications enable hackers and promoting corporations to track your every transfer, each online and even whenever you work offline. They will monitor the websites you visit, the items that you just buy online, the emails you send and obtain, your Prompt Message dialog, and worst of all they can even file your bank card number, private identification numbers, and your entire passwords. In case you use dial-up to connect to the Web then spy ware can be used to invoice 900 numbers to your telephone bill. This is just a short list of the harm that spyware and adware can cause.”

The site additionally gives statistics that present spy ware is a large downside effecting many people. "27.three million Individuals have been victims of identity theft in the last five years, together with 9.91 million individuals or 4.6% of the inhabitants in the final yr alone."

In addition, it is rather simple in your pc to turn into contaminated with spyware as "The majority of all downloadable games, music, screensavers, etc., can infect your pc with SpyWare or AdWare. Most people have no idea that after merely clicking on a random "pop up" advert, their computer systems might have been infected with SpyWare or AdWare."

Irrespective of how we get spyware, listed below are 10 very real causes you don’t need spy ware in your computer.

1. Your laptop could start working slower
2. Some programs in your computer will not run appropriately
3. You could not acknowledge programs that at the moment are on your pc as a result of they could have been put in there by a spy ware related website or program you loaded in your computer.

In addition, you may be apprehensive that:

4. Somebody may be capable to learn your e-mails
5. Someone may have the ability to entry your e-mail checklist
6. Somebody might be capable to see you monitor the keystrokes you type
7. Somebody would possibly have the ability to entry your credit card data on your laptop
8. Somebody would possibly be able to access your passwords listing on your pc
9. Someone would possibly have the ability to steal your social safety number
10. Somebody may be capable of monitor all the web sites you visit

As I mentioned, most of those packages get on your laptop with out you even knowing, however one other frustrating half is I recognized just a few of those programs because I bear in mind installing AND uninstalling them! So now I do know that after we install some of these useful little utilities to trace passwords on-line or packages to help with e-mail or keep monitor of the weather, even when we uninstall them, they may not be gone from our computers. They are still in our computer systems, ready to spy on us, at the least.

A great way to seek out and remove adware is to run a spyware and adware detector and remover. Most adware detection and removing software in the present day gives a free scan to confirm that you do or shouldn't have spyware and adware on your computer.