Category: Hackers

Impact Lab > Hackers
Big Problems, Bitcoin, government, Hackers, Science & Technology News

Florida city gives in to $600,000 bitcoin ransomware demand

Cybercrime

But there’s no guarantee hackers will actually restore Riviera Beach’s systems.

Riviera Beach, a city in Florida, is set to pay hackers $600,000 in bitcoin with the hope of having its systems restored. Hackers took over the systems several weeks ago, when a police department employee opened a malicious email that allowed them to inject the city’s network with malware. Now the council has voted to pay the ransom in the hopes of getting Riviera Beach’s encrypted records back — even though there’s no actual guarantee the hackers will restore them.

Continue reading… “Florida city gives in to $600,000 bitcoin ransomware demand”

Big Problems, Blockchain, Hackers, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked

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More and more security holes are appearing in cryptocurrency and smart contract platforms, and some are fundamental to the way they were built.

Early last month, the security team at Coinbase noticed something strange going on in Ethereum Classic, one of the cryptocurrencies people can buy and sell using Coinbase’s popular exchange platform. Its blockchain, the history of all its transactions, was under attack.

An attacker had somehow gained control of more than half of the network’s computing power and was using it to rewrite the transaction history. That made it possible to spend the same cryptocurrency more than once—known as “double spends.” The attacker was spotted pulling this off to the tune of $1.1 million. Coinbase claims that no currency was actually stolen from any of its accounts. But a second popular exchange, Gate.io, has admitted it wasn’t so lucky, losing around $200,000 to the attacker (who, strangely, returned half of it days later).

Continue reading… “Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked”

Crime Prevention, Employment, Hackers

This is the industry to enter if you want to basically be guaranteed a job

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“If you are ambitious, if you’re thoughtful, if you understand yourself, and how to grow yourself, and how to learn, you will be wanted and needed, and you will find yourself progressing in the field,” an expert says.

When companies such as Marriott International, Yahoo! and Equifax experience a data breach, the consequences are huge for customers whose personal information has been accessed by criminals or enemy states. And so it’s no surprise that major players in the private and public sector are boning up their cybersecurity to avoid such PR and real-life disasters.

Continue reading… “This is the industry to enter if you want to basically be guaranteed a job”

China, Computer Security, government, Hackers, Hot Issues, Science & Technology News

The big hack: How China used a tiny chip to infiltrate U.S. companies

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The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America’s technology supply chain, according to extensive interviews with government and corporate sources.

In 2015, Amazon.com Inc. began quietly evaluating a startup called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help with a major expansion of its streaming video service, known today as Amazon Prime Video. Based in Portland, Ore., Elemental made software for compressing massive video files and formatting them for different devices. Its technology had helped stream the Olympic Games online, communicate with the International Space Station, and funnel droone footage to the Central Intelligence Agency. Elemental’s national security contracts weren’t the main reason for the proposed acquisition, but they fit nicely with Amazon’s government businesses, such as the highly secure cloud that Amazon Web Services (AWS) was building for the CIA.

Continue reading… “The big hack: How China used a tiny chip to infiltrate U.S. companies”

Computer Security, Corporate Manipulation, Entertainment, Hackers, Hacking

Your smart TV is watching you watching TV, Consumer Reports finds

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Consumer Reports reported that Samsung and Roku Smart TVs were vulnerable to hacking through a web-based attack.

Millions of smart TVs sitting in family living rooms are vulnerable to hackers taking control — and could be tracking the household’s personal viewing habits much more closely than their owners realize, according to a new Consumer Reports investigation.

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Computer Security, Crime, Hackers, Hacking

Revenge hacking is hitting the big time

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The plan was to hack the hackers. Cybercriminals had targeted a global bank’s customers with phishing emails to break into their accounts. The legal option—waiting for law enforcement to investigate and perhaps apprehend the hackers—would have taken too long. So the bank was willing to try something else, and a team of security consultants offered to strike back.

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Computer Security, Hackers, Hacking, security

Biometric ring to replace your passwords, cards and keys

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Smart rings aren’t a new idea: There are plenty of fitness tracking, notification-sending, payment or even protective finger ornaments around. But none have the ability to identify you and authorize your transactions wherever you go. That is, until Token hits the market. It’s a biometric ring that can be used to open house doors, start cars, make credit card transactions and sign in to your computer.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, brain hacking, brain-computer interfaces, Breakthrough Thinking, Hackers, Hacking, Robotics, Robots

When computers refuse to obey: Will this be our terrifying future?

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Cory Doctorow: In the Foundation series, Isaac Asimov posited three rules to protect humans from robots. As our own technology advances exponentially every day, how can will we make technology that frees us, rather than enslaving us?

Let us begin by cleaving this problem into two pieces, only one of which I am qualified to address:

  1. How can we make technology that works well?
  2. How can we make technology that fails well?

I only know about #2.

Continue reading… “When computers refuse to obey: Will this be our terrifying future?”

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