http://www.pressherald.com/2015/04/10/police-departments-pay-hackers-to-unlock-computer-system/ By Staff Reports Portland Press Herald April 10, 2015 Police departments in midcoast and northern Maine said they have paid ransom to hackers to keep their computer files from being destroyed, WCSH-TV reported Friday night. The Portland station said the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and four towns paid $300 to the hackers after a virus, called a “megacode,” was downloaded on a computer system they share. Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Bracket said that the computer system was unusable until the fee was paid, and that the hackers claimed the program, called “ransomware,” would wipe the entire computer system clean if the fee wasn’t paid. The creator of the virus gave the sheriff’s office a code to unlock the computer system after the money was received. The county paid in bitcoins, an online currency. […]
http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/hacked-french-tv-network-admits-blunder-that-exposed-youtube-password/ By Dan Goodin Ars Technica April 12, 2015 The head of the French TV network that suspended broadcasting following last week’s hack attack has confirmed the service exposed its own passwords during a TV interview, but said the gaffe came only after the breach. “We don’t hide the fact that this is a blunder,” the channel’s director general Yves Bigot, told the AFP news service. The exposure came during an interview a rival TV service broadcast on the TV5Monde attack. During the questioning, a TV5Monde journalist sat in front of several scraps of paper hanging on a window. One of them showed the password of for the network’s YouTube account. As Ars reported last week, the pass code was “lemotdepassedeyoutube,” which translates in English to “the password of YouTube.” Bigot stressed that the passwords were broadcast only after the hack attack, which occurred overnight Wednesday when hackers compromised TV5Monde servers and social networking accounts. A TV5Monde manager told AFP that the gaffe came in the immediate aftermath of the hack attack, when network managers were scrambling to quickly hand out new temporary online access codes. […]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/03/18/target-hack-breach-10-million/24991847/ By Jay Knoll KARE-TV March 19, 2015 MINNEAPOLIS – Target Corp. is poised to settle a class-action lawsuit filed following the retailer’s massive data breach in 2013, court documents filed Wednesday in Minnesota show. A $10 million dollar fund will be established for victims of the breach, the 97-page settlement says. Victims will be eligible for up to $10,000 compensation each. Some aspects of the proposed class action settlement appear unique, said Mark Melodia, founder of the information technology, privacy and data security practice at the law firm of Reed Smith in New York City. “First, the amount of attorneys’ fees contemplated by this deal is at the high end of the historical range, even for multi-district litigation proceedings,” Melodia said, cautioning that he has not had time to study the settlement. […]
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2015/03/csi_cyber_review_patricia_arquette_cbs.html By Vicki Hyman NJ Advance Media for NJ.com March 04, 2015 Thank goodness Patricia Arquette just won an Oscar, because otherwise I’d really have nothing to say about “CSI: Cyber.” The newest “CSI” franchise, which debuts on CBS tonight at 10 p.m., is about the FBI’s cyber crime division, comes with all the series’ high-tech visual flourishes and stars “Boyhood” star Arquette, who, um, just won an Oscar. Yeah. Oh! This time, the Who theme song is “I Can See For Miles.” I’m not saying “CSI: Cyber” isn’t worth watching. I’m just saying there’s not a heck of a lot to say about it. (The original flavor “CSI” is still plugging away after 15 years, while the Miami and New York franchises lasted 10 and 9 seasons, respectively. The latest entry is a bit different in that there’s a lot of people peering at computer screens instead of into microscopes. […]
http://online.wsj.com/articles/sony-pictures-hack-reveals-more-data-than-previously-believed-1417734425 By BEN FRITZ and DANNY YADRON The Wall Street Journal Dec. 4, 2014 The hack at Sony Pictures Entertainment revealed far more personal information than previously believed, including the Social Security numbers of more than 47,000 current and former employees along with Hollywood celebrities like Sylvester Stallone. An analysis of 33,000 Sony documents by data-security firm Identity Finder LLC found personal data, including salaries and home addresses, posted online for people who stopped working at Sony Pictures as far back as 2000 and one who started in 1955. The hack and subsequent posting by a group calling itself Guardians of Peace illustrate the risks large companies like Sony take by amassing years of digital records on employees and customers on machines connected to the Internet. Much of the data analyzed by Identity Finder was stored in Microsoft Excel files without password protection. The documents, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, also contain the Social Security numbers or taxpayer-identification numbers of thousands of freelancers, including actors who appeared in movies and TV shows produced by the Sony Corp.-owned studio, one of Hollywood’s largest. Among them are Mr. Stallone, director Judd Apatow and Australian actress Rebel Wilson. Representatives for the three stars declined to comment. […]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/10/19/hackers-on-tv/17432191/ By Ann Oldenburg USA TODAY October 19, 2014 Hackers are hot. Yes, they tend to be villains in real life, making headlines for tapping into Target to steal credit card data, breaking into the cloud to snatch nude celebrity photos, and even breaching government firewalls to commit all sorts of top-level cybercrimes. But on TV? They’re the new heroes. “Hackers are often unfairly portrayed as super-bad people, super-evil people,” says Nick Santora, executive producer of Scorpion, CBS’s new hit about hackers who help solve high-tech threats. “The truth is, hackers can provide a valuable service. They can uncover government misdeeds, unfair corporate practices. Hackers have a skill set that most people don’t have. It’s a skill set that’s really useful and important. They’re the watchers of the watchers.” Scorpion, airing Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, premiered to a lot of its own watchers in September with a healthy 13.8 million viewers and is the No. 2 new show this fall, behind NCIS: New Orleans. And, according to a study released last week, the show has had the most positive word of mouth of all the new fall broadcast network series. […]
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141004/07211128727/mythical-almost-certainly-made-up-legend-walter-obrien-continues-to-grow.shtml By Mike Masnick Techdirt.com Oct 6th 2014 A few weeks ago, we wrote about “Walter O’Brien,” the guy who is supposed to be the basis of the CBS TV show Scorpion. The problem we had was that O’Brien made a ton of absolutely fantastical claims and, after doing a little fact checking, none of them seemed to check out. At all. Since a few people brought this up, let me make it clear: I have no issue with exaggerating on a TV show for the sake of good entertainment. I don’t even mind bogus claims like “based on a true story” because, hey, Fargo was pretty awesome. If that’s all that was going on, it wouldn’t be a big deal and everyone could get on with their lives. What concerns me about the bogus Walter O’Brien story is twofold: (1) Gullible reporters simply repeat his claims without even the slightest bit of skepticism, which is just shameful reporting and (2) O’Brien and his friends aren’t just making a TV show: they’re trying to spin the TV show (which, as far as we can tell has close to no basis in reality) into a way to promote O’Brien’s “business” with claims that are wholly unbelievable
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