Archive for June 2012

Cyber Bank raid ongoing – according to #McAfee Researchers

Cambridge University Press (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

McAfee Virus researchers have uncovered a series of attacks on financial services industry on high balance accounts, some transfers of over 100,000 Euros have been reported…….estimating that over 60 million euros has already been stolen from Dutch, Italian and Germany banks……

This comes a week after a Cambridge University study said money being spent on tackilng online crime would be better off spent on Policing. Measuring the Cost of Cybercrime , the study , from a respected group of academics including Ross Anderson and Richard Clayton, claims that the world has over-invested in defence and clean-up at the expense of old-fashioned retribution.

The Study explains – “The cost of cybercrime results from three calculations; the direct cost of the frauds themselves (relatively small), the money spent on defending against those frauds (much larger) and the cost of cleaning up the mess when defences fail (also relatively high).”

I have been the same thing for some time now, that our Governments have been spinning ‘Cyber War’ and ‘Cyber Attack‘ stories via the media and online – to justify huge budgets and helping to create an Industry based around expensive ‘Certificates’ and ‘Courses’ for people (including white-hat hackers) who may wish to become a part of it…

A prime example of this is the recent statement by the head of MI5 -

There are industrial-scale processes involving many thousands of people lying behind both state-sponsored cyber espionage and organised cyber crime,’ he said in his first public speech for two years.

‘Vulnerabilities in the internet are being exploited aggressively not just by criminals but also by states.

‘So far, established terrorist groups have not posed a significant threat in this medium, but they are aware of the potential to use cyber vulnerabilities to attack critical infrastructure and I would expect them to gain more capability to do so in future.

‘This is a threat to the integrity, confidentiality and availability of government information but also to business and to academic institutions’ said Mr Evans, who went on to sum up his speech with the phrase – “some of the areas of concern might turn out to be “dogs that don’t bark” but added: “The dog you haven’t seen may turn out to be the one that bites you.”

Related articles

• BREAKING ALERT: Huge Worldwide Cyber Bank Raid Ongoing, Confirmed €60M Taken By 1 Server, Estimated €2 Billion Taken By Another 59 Servers…This Is Huge!!! (investmentwatchblog.com)
• BREAKING NEWS: Huge Worldwide Cyber Bank Raid Ongoing- Estimated €2 Billion Stolen (sgtreport.com)
• UPDATED!!! Fraud Ring In Hacking Attack On 60 Banks – thanks to D. (jhaines6.wordpress.com)

PC Insecurites

This is a simple post for testing out the capabilities of WordPress, my favourite blogging platform, to help SEO mybusiness website.
I googled the term ‘PC Insecurities’ lately, having resurrected my site. I was amazed at how many old and useless links it returned and decided I had better try and do something about this.
Initially I was running at pc-insecurities.com , but given recent events, namely the prosecution and extradition threat of Sheffield student, Richard O’Dwyer for sharing links on a ‘dot com’ website – I decided I would switch to a dot co.uk address.
The ‘jurisdiction’ of my website – i.e. What laws I and my customers are bound to is of importance to me, and seeing as the U.S.A has now ‘claimed ownership’ of dot com, I feel my move was justified.
My Business website is based here, and is aimed at UK people.
Most will not have noticed that I have added a feed to my blog lately from the site, and this was done as part of my SEO attempt to drown out the old references and to reclaim the top spot for the term ‘PC Insecurities’. The name was chosen for a reason too, and while it can be seen as Personal Computer Insecurities, it can also stand for Political Correctness Insecurities.
I shall keep my followers up to date with my SEO efforts and hopefully it won’t bore too many of you!
Why use my wordpress blog for this purpose?
Well, a great example of this can be found if you google the term ‘Salisbury Tweetup’ – You will see that the 1st result refers to my blog post about ‘Can a Tweetup be stolen’ in which I vented about how a local PR company had basically cut me out of something I’d worked hard to get off the ground.
Ironically, the second result takes you to the site of the PR company who stabbed me in the back….
SEO optimisation can be a funny thing, eh?
If you have any good SEO tips, I would really love to hear them…….

Equality for #Freegary – thats all we ask @ukhomeoffice – no more DOUBLE STANDARDS!

Ryan Cleary and Jake Davies appeared earlier today at a short trial at Southwark Crown Court , in London on charges of hacking/attacking(DDoS) US Sites .

A full list of the sites involved reads like a who’s who of ‘Don’t go there’ zones.

HBGary, HBGary Federal, Westboro Baptist Church, Bethesda, Eve Online, PBS Inc , National Health Service, News International, Sony, Nintendo, Arizona State police, 20th Century Fox and Infragard

But – they are to be tried here in the UK for the attacks (which is right and proper) and am sure they will be quite relieved – as their families and friends will be.

Contrast this with Gary Mckinnon and Richard O’Dwyer, both of whom are facing Extradition to the United States for ‘Computer Related Offences’.

Gary has been on Bail for 10 YEARS! Without Trial, and is still under Bail conditions.

Tonight his Mother spoke to me via Twitter and said ‘I AM ANGRY’ – I could think of no words to respond adequately to this.And am not often lost for words. It displays an amazing Double Stanndard being exhibited by the UK Home Office.

If you are not Angry too – then You should be – it could be your SON NEXT…

Related articles

• US Embassy – More lies about Gary Mckinnon #FreeGary (cliffsull.wordpress.com)
• @amnestyUK – #Freegary – not found? (cliffsull.wordpress.com)
• Janis Sharp, Gary McKinnon’s Mum on Anonymous v the Home Office #FreeGary (cliffsull.wordpress.com)
• #RANT – @AmnestyUK respond about UK Citizen – Gary Mckinnon #Freegary (cliffsull.wordpress.com)
• LulzSec ‘hacker’ Ryan Cleary unlikely to be extradited to US because he has Asperger’s syndrome (telegraph.co.uk)
• LulzSec hack suspect Ryan Cleary ‘won’t face US court’ (independent.co.uk)
• Two Lulzsec members plead guilty to hacking charges (panarmenian.net)