Sedulity Groups | Ban on bulk SMS lifted

The Centre on Thursday lifted the ban on bulk SMS and MMS that was imposed to check the spread of rumours and inflammatory content related to the ethnic violence in Assam that had led to the exodus of northeastern people from Bangalore and other cities.

The decision was taken as the social unrest that gripped various cities due to these rumours has subsided and the flow of hate content has also reduced to a large extent in the last few days, a Ministry of Home Affairs spokesperson said.

Following the exodus from Bangalore and other cities due to rumours generated through SMS and MMS, the MHA banned bulk SMS/MMS on August 17. Initially, the Department of Telecommunications had allowed only five SMS per day, per mobile, that was increased to 20 per day on August 23.

Sedulity Groups | AVX Corporation Hacked by Anonymous #OpColtan

Anonymous Operation #OpColtan have announced another attack in the name of this operation and this time its on a Manufacturer and Supplier of Electronic Components AVX Corporation (www.avx.com). AVX It's a big firm which produce ceramic and tantalum capacitors, connectors, thick and thin film capacitors, resistors and integrated passive components. 

Sedulity Groups | Team "GhostShell" leak One Million Records

TeamGhostShell a team linked with the Activist group Anonymous, is claiming that they have hacked some major U.S. institutions including major banking institutions, accounts of politicians and has posted those details online.

The dumps comprising of millions of accounts has been let loose on the web by the hacking collective. The motivation behind the hack, the group claims, is to protest against banks, politicians and the hackers who have been captured by law enforcement agencies.

The group justifies its operation, Project HellFire, as a “final form of protest this summer against the banks, politicians and for all the fallen hackers this year”.

Sedulity Groups | Trojan steals Linux and Mac OS X passwords

Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web reported about the first cross-platform backdoor to run under Linux and Mac OS X identified as "BackDoor.Wirenet.1". This malicious program designed to steals passwords entered by the user in Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Chromium, and passwords stored by such applications as Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Pidgin.

Sedulity Groups | Saudi Aramco Oil Producer's 30,000 workstations victim of Cyber Attack

Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest oil producer, has resumed operating its main internal computer networks after a virus infected about 30,000 of its workstations in mid-August.

Immediately after the Aug. 15 attack, the company announced it had cut off its electronic systems from outside access to prevent further attacks. Saudi Aramco said the virus "originated from external sources" and that its investigation into the matter was ongoing. There was no mention of whether this was related to this month's Shamoon attacks.

Sedulity Groups | Hijacking Servers Remotely with Hikit advanced persistent threat

Security researchers have revealed the existence of an advanced persistent threat that has been making the rounds since April 2011. Backdoor.Hikit  is a dangerous backdoor Trojan that will damage infected system and files. Usually, Backdoor. Hikit will open backdoor to allow remote attackers to connect to the infected system and carry out harmful activities, such as stealing information  or destroying files and programs.

It is really stubborn those antiviruses often fail to delete it for good, for it runs secretly and automatically when Windows boots without your knowledge or consent and can disguise it as fake system files or processes. Besides, many other threats, such as adware, redirecting virus, Trojan variants from family, such as Trojan Horse Generic 27.PN, BackDoor.Hupigon5.CJMY, Trojan.Zeroaccess.C, Trojan:win64/Sirefef.E and so on, which is really a threat to system and data security.

Sedulity Groups | Google engineers Warn Of Serious Unpatched Adobe Reader Flaws

Adobe has missed dozens of vulnerabilities in Reader in this week’s Patch Tuesday run according to Google engineers who reported the flaws. Sixteen vulnerabilities still affected the Windows and Mac OS X versions, while 31 critical and “trivially exploitable” bugs were found in the Linux application.

Of particular concern to Google’s Mateusz Jurczyk and Gynvael Coldwind are bugs in Reader for Linux, although other issues affect versions for Windows and OS X. For the Linux version, which went completely unpatched, Adobe and Google have been working together to counter 14 “new unique crashes” and nine “test-cases” that were potentially exploitable for remote code execution.

Sedulity Groups | Your Friend can help Investigators to Access your Facebook Profile

If you’re not already particularly picky about who you friend on Facebook, you might want to think about rejiggering those privacy settings. It's not the backdoor access that the FBI has been pushing for, but US District Judge William Pauley III has now ruled that it and other law enforcement agencies are entitled to view your Facebook profile if one of your "friends" gives them permission to do so.

As GigaOm reports, a New York City federal judge ruled in a recent racketeering trial that it’s legal for police to view your Facebook profile if one of your friends grants them permission. Better start sniffing out the rats on your friends list.

That’s because all of that data that you think is personal really isn’t that personal after all, according to the Judge. "Colon’s legitimate expectation of privacy ended when he disseminated posts to his friends because those friends were free to use the information however the wanted including sharing it with the Government."

Sedulity Groups | AMD Official Blog Hacked by Crackers

A team of Hackers called, "r00tBeer Security Team" today hack into official blog of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) which is a American multinational semiconductor company. AMD is the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors based on the x86 architecture and also one of the largest suppliers of graphics processing units.

Hacker deface the blog page (http://blogs.amd.com/wp-content/r00tbeer.html) and also leak the complete user database of blog on his twitter account. Leaked database SQL file uploaded on Mediafire by Hackers which include 200 AMD user's Emails, Wordpress Blog Usernames and Passwords.

During the time of writing, Even at the Day end AMD is not aware about that they are the Victim of a Hack attack.

Sedulity Groups | Serious Security Flaw : iPhone Bug Allows SMS Spoofing

A rather serious security flaw in the iPhone’s SMS messaging system has been discovered and revealed by well-known security researcher and jailbreak extraordinaire ‘pod2g’. Security flaw affecting all iPhones that he says could facilitate hackers or thieves to access your personal information.

The researcher claims that the flaw has actually been present in Apple’s iPhone software ever since the first iPhone was launched in 2007, but has failed to have been picked up on by anybody, including Apple it seems.

Sedulity Groups | Virtual Private Network of Airport Hacked via Citadel Malware

It sounds like an air traveler’s nightmare, Researchers at Trusteer recently uncovered a variant of the Citadel Trojan targeting the virtual private network (VPN) credentials used by employees at a major airport.The firm would not disclose the name of the airport because the situation is being investigated by law enforcement.

Many businesses use VPNs to provide outside workers with access to secure data. Incursions on these networks often involve advanced “Man in the Browser” malware such as the Citadel, Zeus, and SpyEye programs. The man-in-the-browser (MITB) assault first used form-grabbing malware, which steals data entered into web forms before it is passed over the internet, to steal the airport employees' VPN usernames and passwords, Amit Klein, Trusteer's chief technology officer, said in a blog post.

Sedulity Groups | Anonymous hackers target Australian Intelligence

Hacking group Anonymous claimed to have shut down a computer server belonging to Australia's domestic spy agency ASIO, reportedly briefly closing down access to its public web page. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization acknowledged some disruption to its website.

The ASIO website was down for about 30 minutes after the attack and is now operating slowly or not at all. It appears the attack may be ongoing, but ASIO’s technical staff are recovering the situation.

Sedulity Groups | Internet Protocol a unique identity of a Computer

What is Ip Address?
You might have come across this term very often, haven’t you! Every machine on the Internet has a unique identifying number, called an IP Address. A typical IP address looks like this: 216.27.61.137, 921.168.1.6, 59.22.1.1 etc.

What is the use of IP Address?

Sedulity Groups | Man orders a TV via Amazon, gets a Military grade assault rifle

Seth Horvitz ordered a Westinghouse 39-inch LCD for about $320 from a third-party electronics seller on Amazon and was shocked to see what he got a military-grade assault rifle.

He received a delivery via UPS ground, a HUGE oblong box that arrived at this door step.

When I saw some metal parts inside the box, I thought, ‘Maybe this is a TV stand or mount or something,’” Horvitz said in a phone interview with Wired.

“When I realized it was an assault rifle, it was pure shock and disbelief.”

Horvitz immediately contacted D.C. police to inform them about the situation, they came in a confiscated the box which contained a semi-automatic Sig Sauer 716 patrol rifle. The police informed Horvitz that the gun was illegal in the District of Columbia.

Sedulity Groups | A student SMS her father, a minute before committed suicide

"I am sorry Papa. I am committing suicide," said a text message from Rekha Singh, second year polytechnic student in electronics stream, to her father Ranjeet, a WCL manager at Kamptee. The 22-year-old Rekha had been afraid to face her father since she had lied to him about her repeated failures. She jumped to her death from the third-floor balcony of her hostel within a minute of sending the SMS.

Sedulity Groups | Mariposa botnet creator goes on trial

26-year-old Slovenian hacker known as Iserdo stands thought to have been behind the Mariposa botnet is on trial in Slovenia, charged with having masterminded an international cybercrime gang.

At its height, the Mariposa botnet infected up to 12.7 million PCs, with more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies believed to have been compromised, including 40 major banks. Once a computer had been compromised and brought into the botnet, operators could steal information from innocent users - including credit card details and banking passwords.

Sedulity Groups | Account Hacked | Fake News Posted on Reuters's blog and Twitter account.

On Friday, Reuters blog platform was hacked with false posts and on Saturday, the @ReutersTech account on Twitter was taken over and renamed @TechMe. False tweets were sent before it was taken down.

The first attack came Friday after Syrian hackers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad allegedly gained access to Reuters’ blogging platform, which they used to post a fake interview with rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) leader Riad al-Assad. The interview essentially said the general was withdrawing troops after a battle.

Sedulity Groups | Researcher Demonstrate hardware based backdoor called Rakshasa

Security researcher Jonathan Brossard created a proof-of-concept hardware backdoor called Rakshasa that replaces a computer's BIOS (Basic Input Output System) and can compromise the operating system at boot time without leaving traces on the hard drive.

In short, firmware is software that is stored in non-volatile memory on a computer chip, and is used to initialise a piece of hardware’s functionality. In a PC, the BIOS is the most common example of firmware but in the case of wireless routers, a whole Linux operating system is stored in firmware.

Hardware backdoors are lethal for three reasons:

Sedulity Groups | Pakistani hackers deface inactive Southern Railways website

New Delhi: An inactive website of the Southern Railways www.southernrailway.gov.in has been defaced apparently by Pakistani hackers.

The hacker group that calls itself ‘Pak Cyber Pyrates’ replaced the home page of the website with a page with content that denounces India’s role in Kashmir.

The official Southern Railways website moved to a new domain www.sr.indianrailways.gov.in back in 2010.

Inactive websites are a soft target for hackers as they are not constantly monitored. Recently the hacker group Anonymous had targeted an inactive Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) website accusing the company of censoring content on the Internet.

Indian and Pakistani hacking groups are engaged in a cyber war of sorts with websites in both the countries being regularly attacked and defaced. 

Indian and Pakistani hacking groups are engaged in a cyber war of sorts with websites in both the countries being regularly attacked and defaced.

Sedulity Groups | Simple steps to avoid being phished

Never respond to emails that request personal financial information Banks or e-commerce companies generally personalise emails, while phishers do not. Phishers often include false but sensational messages ("urgent - your account details may have been stolen") in order to get an immediate reaction. Reputable companies don't ask their customers for passwords or account details in an email. Even if you think the email may be legitimate, don't respond - contact the company by phone or by visiting their website.

Sedulity Groups | The Hacker's Ethics

With the growth of the Internet, computer security has become a major concern for businesses and governments. They want to be able to take advantage of the Internet for electronic commerce, advertising, information distribution and access, and other pursuits, but they are worried about the possibility of being "hacked." At the same time, the potential customers of these services are worried about maintaining control of personal information that varies from credit card numbers to social security numbers and home addresses.

Sedulity Groups | Facebook has 83 million fake accounts

Facebook's latest figures showing growth in global users also suggest as many as 83 million may come from dubious sources -- duplicate accounts, pages for pets and those designed to send spam.

Facebook members grew to 955 million at the end of the second quarter, but some 8.7 percent may be dodgy, the company said in its quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

There are "inherent challenges" in measuring usage "despite our efforts to detect and suppress such behavior," the social network said.

It said duplicate accounts -- when a same user maintains more than one account -- may represent some 4.8 percent of active users.

Sedulity Groups | Facebook revamps photos section

In a move to make photo viewing more enjoyable on Facebook, the social networking giant has announced launching a re-designed version of its photos section. 

"We are announcing improvements to the photos section that make viewing photos more enjoyable," Facebook Product Manager Emily Grewal announced on the company's website yesterday. 

With this move, users would be able to access photos all at one place above the timeline. Earlier Facebook's users could view photos segregated into albums.