The SKYNET program of NSA is flawed and could have killed thousands of innocent people

The analysis of one of the documents released by Edward Snowden on Wikileaks has revealed a startling fact. The SKYNET program of the NSA that works on metadata instead of human intelligence to identify and target terrorists could actually be flawed.

According to a data scientist Patrick Ball with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, in a testimony he gave to the war crimes tribunal is that the manner in which SKYNET operates is wrought with inaccuracies and inefficient manner.

How does the SKYNET work?

SKYNET uses computer algorithm to analyse the activities of the people who the NSA thinks could be the potential dangers. It collates the data from various sources such as the movements and actions of the people, their travel records, telephone records conversation and other sources of data. It is entirely raw data with little or no analytical information readily available. The SKYNET then analysis this raw data, churns it, traces the specific patterns in the algorithm and then matches the conclusions with the existing information regarding algorithms that classify the analysed persons into potential threats or innocuous persons.

This data is then fed to the drones that attack those who are classified as potential terrorists by this algorithm. Hence, practically there is no human judgement or analysis involved here. Even the attacks are carried out by unmanned drones that simply rely on the instructions based on the information supplied by the SKYNET. The system works just like a Big Data analytical application with the only difference is that the commercial applications are meant to sell products to the customers and any mismatch in profiling does not lead to killing them.

The system is highly flawed as revealed by these documents. These drone attacks have killed between 2500 to 4000 people in Pakistan in the last 12 years. It is now revealed that the data interpretation tagging people as terrorists was flawed meaning that there could be several innocent persons who could have been killed by these drone attacks.

This number can run into thousands. The program considered them as extremists making them a target for the drone attacks.

Time Warner Cable Support Service Hacked and Defaced by NullCrew 

Time Warner Cable Inc has had its main website for its cable service hacked and left defaced with its embarrassing administration password.

The attack has been carried out by members of NullCrew who have announced it on twitter and posted a screen capture to freezepage

The main target was TimeWarnerCable.com online support service administration area which is running on port 8888 for web access.

Null Crew members Orbit and Doc gained access via a exploit found in the systems ASP which allowed them further access to be able to escalate user permissions and as a result they found out the administration had an account with the password set as “changeme” which is just shocking to say the least.

The attack has also exposed what is said to be one of the systems SSL key passwords.

The website was also defaced with a dump of information and partial configuration files from the server and at time of publishing the websites defacement was still active via port 8888 which is the administration access.

In recent weeks we have seen more and more high profile targets come under attack by hackers who have left them shamed for lack of security on systems they use.

Gang arrested for hacking Dh7 million from Dubai exchange companies accounts

Gang arrested for hacking Dh7 million from Dubai exchange companies accounts

The Dubai Police have arrested a cyber crime gang who were able to transfer more than Dh7 million from exchange companies in Dubai. Abdul Hamid, a Pakistani heavy machinery dealer, said the hacker intercepted his UK suppliers’ emailed invoices for orders worth about £65,000 (Dh358,882). “I was stunned. The hacker had been stalking me online, waiting until I reached a price agreement with the supplier. He then sent me fake invoices and emails posing as the supplier, so he could get the money instead.” he said. According to police a gang of Asians and Africans work with hackers in order to enter different websites and systems of different companies here in Dubai in order to transfer money inside and outside the country.

61 Year Old Hacker found guilty in Corporate Hacking case by FBI

61 Year Old Hacker found guilty in Corporate Hacking case by FBI

(img is for fun)

A 61 years old Texas man 'Michael Musacchio' found guilty of conspiring to hack into his former employer's computer network by FBI this week.  According to the evidence submitted at trial, from 2002 to 2004, Musacchio was the president of Exel Transportation Services, a third party logistics or inter modal transportation company that facilitated links between shippers and common carriers in the manufacturing, retail, and consumer industries. Between 2004 and 2006, Musacchio along with fellow Exel employees Joseph Roy Brown and John Michael Kelly hack into Exel's computer system for the purpose of conducting corporate espionage.

Pakistan Intelligence agency hacked by Indian hacker

Pakistan Intelligence agency hacked by Indian hacker

While the rest of the world engaged in cyber security conferences and Anonymous operations, an Indian patriotic hacker used the time to attack Pakistan Intelligence agency ISI.

Hacker going by name "Godzilla" today claimed to hack into one of the server belongs to ISI website (http://isi.org.pk) and gets all possible secret information about Pakistan Intelligence.

According to the information shared by hacker with 'The Hacker News', he claims to have access to Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of the server located at 173.193.110.72.

He disclose that System installed with Windows 2008 server standard edition and having three derives i.e C,D,E with operating system in C and Hostname 'AHCORP'

He also claimed to hack into MSSQL server containing 3 databases, with 9 users and located at http://mssql.isi.org.pk, as shown in screenshot taken by him.

Some partial tables of the database 'msdb' as listed below:

• bakupfile
• bakupmediafile
• bakupmediaset
• backupset
• logmarkhistory
• restorefile
• restorehistory
• suspect_pages

Hacker also share the login credentials of the RDP, but because of the sensitive hacking scene, we preferred to not disclose further information. 

Chinese search engine Baidu launches free Antivirus Suite

Chinese search engine Baidu launches free Antivirus Suite

Chinese search engine Baidu has just launched a security product called Baidu Antivirus 2013. Described as a ultra light weight, easy to use, extremely fast anti-virus program that promises to protect your system from malware, viruses, spyware, adware and other malicious programs.

Most interesting thing is that Baidu Antivirus comes only in English. Back in January, Baidu launched Baidu PC Faster, a software suite designed to fix speed and performance issues.

The program combines the Baidu Antivirus Engine and Baidu Cloud Security Engine with the Avira Antivirus engine to provide you with complete protection against all online threats.

"Baidu Antivirus offers an easy to use interface with several advanced configuration options as well as quarantine of infected files. It also has an extremely small memory footprint, so you can actually do other things while it is running on your computer. Other features include automatic updates, Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS), scan reports and more." description reads.

You can download Baidu Antivirus 2013 here and please note that, its a Chinese product, so use at your own risk !

Snort 2.9.4.1 - Network intrusion detection system

Snort 2.9.4.1 - Network intrusion detection system

Snort is a free and open source network intrusion prevention system (NIPS) and network intrusion detection system (NIDS) . Snort having the ability to perform real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Snort performs protocol analysis, content searching, and content matching.

The program can also be used to detect probes or attacks, including, but not limited to, operating system fingerprinting attempts, common gateway interface, buffer overflows, server message block probes, and stealth port scans. Snort can be configured in three main modes: sniffer, packet logger, and network intrusion detection.

Improvements in Snort 2.9.4.1

• Updated File processing for partial HTTP content and MIME attachments.
• Addition of new config option max_attribute_services_per_host and improve memory usage within attribute table.
• Handle excessive overlaps in frag3.
• Stream API updates to return session key for a session.
• Reduce false positives for TCP window slam events.
• Updates to provide better encoding for TCP packets generated for respond and react.
• Disable non-Ethernet decoders by default for performance reasons. If needed, use --enable-non-ether-decoders with configure.

Download Snort 2.9.4.1