At a rare open hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that threats from cyber-espionage and cyber-attacks will surpass terrorism as the number one threat facing the United States. Not three days later, hackers released a recording of an intercepted call between FBI agents and their U.K. counterparts investigating the Anonymous and LulzSec collectives.
A sensitive conference call between FBI and British police’s cybercrime investigators was recorded by the very people they were trying to catch, officials and hackers said Friday.
By the time East Coasters were finishing dinner last night, 10 websites had fallen to what hacktivist group Anonymous calls its “low orbit ion cannon,” or LOIC — a public domain software tool named after a weapon in a popular sci-fi real-time strategy game that’s designed to stress test whether a network can handle a distributed denial of service attack.
A botnet of more than four million infected computers has been shut down by a joint operation between the FBI and Estonian police, ending a scam that’s run for more than three years and taken an estimated $14 million from those affected in what’s been called “the biggest cybercriminal takedown in history.”
It looks like the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s been especially busy over the past 48 hours, because they’re suddenly snatching up alleged members of hack collectives LulzSec and Anonymous across the United States.
The FBI has released a free iPhone app that can be used if your child goes missing. Called “Child ID,” the app “provides a convenient place to electronically store photos and vital information about your children so that it’s literally right at hand if you need it,” according to an FBI press release.
The FBI arrested 14 people earlier today suspected of being involved with the hacker group Anonymous. They are being charged on “various counts of conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer,” and participating in an attack against PayPal late last year.
Of all the server hosting contingency plans on the books, here’s one you probably missed: web server takedown and seizure by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A 19-year-old man has been arrested in Wickford, Essex by local authorities “working in co-operation with the FBI.”
If you’re worried about being attacked by computer hackers, here’s a curious piece of information that might put your mind at ease: 25% of them are working for the FBI.
Wondering why the FBI doesn’t name phone and internet service providers that help them in surveillance programs? They’re trying to protect those companies from the wrath of the snooped-upon customers.
