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Tri-County Sentry
Friday APRIL 11, 2014
Tech News
Forget Stealing Credit Cards, Now Amazon to Release FREE Hackers Just Straight-Up Blackmail You Netflix Competitor
While hackers tried to get rich by stealing millions of credit cards from Target, other cybercriminals have quietly tried another method to make a quick buck: Asking companies to pay them to go away. In recent weeks, two companies have publicly described their experiences with what has become a popular hacker tactic: cyber extortion. Cybercriminals have threatened to disclose sensitive data or cripple websites unless their victims pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars in ransom. Like kidnappers and terrorists, cyberciminals have been demanding ransoms for years. But cases of digital extortion appear to have grown more frequent in recent months and involved more high-profile victims, according to Matthew Prince, chief executive of the security firm CloudFlare. “The brazenness of the attacks has increased and they are targeting household names,” Prince said in an interview. Last month, an unidentified hacker threatened to cripple the website of Meetup, a social networking site with 16 million members, unless the company paid $300 in ransom. Then employees at
Basecamp, a software development firm, also got an email from an unidentified hacker who made a similar threat unless the startup paid “a relatively low amount in Bitcoin,” according to David Heinemeier Hannson, a partner at the company. Both companies refused to pay. In response, the hackers crashed Basecamp's service for two hours and Meetup's site for 24 hours. There are no statistics on how often hackers try to extort their victims because few companies ever admit it. The rare victims who do go public say they refused to pay because it would have set a dangerous precedent. Many victims do pay, albeit quietly. More than $5 million is extorted from
hacking victims each year, according to Symantec, the cybersecurity firm. In most cyber extortion cases, victims' websites are knocked offline for about 15 minutes. Then their site comes back online and they get an email from a hacker offering to stop the attack if the victim wires money. “Any victim that is perceived as being able to pay is a potential target of an extortion threat,” Aquilina James Aquilina, a former federal cybercrime prosecutor said. But he said victims should contact law enforcement instead. “I’ve never heard of a company actually surviving a cyber extortion by paying the money,” he said. “It just delays the inevitable. It doesn’t make it go away.”
By Tyler McCarthy Pinterest users should be aware of a recent hack that will fill up boards with several weight loss ads that are almost exclusively im-
ages of women’s butts. TechCrunch's Catherine Shu first reported on the scam and said her co-editor Hermione Way noticed her account had been overtaken
by several booty pics. Several other people were apparently affected as well. “Our systems were alerted to some incidents of spam yesterday evening. These reports did not come in at a large scale. We began working on cleaning up and placing the accounts in safe mode immediately. The accounts have since been secured,” a Pinterest representative told The Huffington Post. A rep told the Daily Mail that users have the power to remove the photos on their own at any time. Pinterest has also urged users to change their passwords as a precaution. “When we see that compromised e-mail credentials are being used to attempt access to Pinterest accounts, we immediately notify the at-risk Pinner and remind them to reset their password. The best precaution is to use a strong and unique password that is not used on other sites," told HuffPost. It seems Pinterest's popularity has made the site an increasingly larger target for hackers. As TechCrunch points out, earlier this month the Better Business Bureau issued a scam alert to warn users of the various ways in which hackers can infiltrate Pinterest users' personal accounts. However, these sorts of hacks have been making headlines for several years. In 2012, the New York Times reported that security software maker McAfee discovered several moneymaking scams aimed at Pinterest users. A number of other incidents were also discovered that year.
No Butts About It, Some Pinterest Users Have Been Hacked
By Drew Guarini Watch out, Netflix. Amazon is planning to launch a free, ad-supported streaming service in the coming months, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The move would allow customers to obtain Amazon streaming services without purchasing Amazon Prime, the $99 annual membership service that gives users access to Amazon's library of streaming television shows and films, in addition to free two-day shipping. Sources familiar with Amazon's plan also indicated to the WSJ that the service would offer free music videos. Such a free service would more directly pit the e-commerce giant against Google's YouTube and Netflix, which charges $7.99 per month for unlimited streaming.
Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, at the introduction of the new Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Paperwhite personal devices. (Photo Credit: Reed Saxon) The report comes amid made into original series. an intensifying race to ob- Five were chosen. tain content rights and creThe news also follows ate original programming months of speculation that for an online audience. Amazon will release its Amazon last year made a own set-top box next week $1 billion investment in at an event in New York original content, when it let City. Amazon Prime curviewers decide which of 14 rently relies on third-party original pilots made specif- set-top boxes such as a ically for Amazon would be Roku or Xbox One.
LOS ANGELES — A week after saying it was justified in snooping through a blogger's Hotmail account to track down a leaker of company software, Microsoft has changed course, saying it will refer such matters to law enforcement starting immediately. The reversal, explained by general counsel Brad Smith in a blog post Friday, follows last week's revelation that it searched through emails and instant messages of a blogger who Microsoft believed had received proprietary code illegally. The search, in 2012, led
to Alex Kibkalo, a Russian native who worked for Microsoft as a software architect in Lebanon. Microsoft turned over the case to the FBI in July 2013.
Smith now says the company "will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves" and will refer the matter to law enforcement if action is needed.
By Alexis Kleinman It's not often that you read the words "fun" and "glitch" in the same sentence, but a newly discovered glitch in the recently updated software for iPhones and iPads is actually pretty fun. Apple's phones or tablets come with certain built-in apps, including rarely used programs like Stocks and Newsstand. Until now, you couldn't keep them from taking up valuable screen space on your devices, whether or not you've ever opened them. But now, an Apple expert on the iDeviceHelpus YouTube page found a glitch in iOS 7.1 that lets you hide those useless apps. Goodbye, clutter! We tested it out, and it works. You need to download the latest version of iOS 7.1 to begin. Here's how you do it. First, find the apps you'd like to hide and put them all into one folder by dragging them on top of one another. Then, make sure the dock at the bottom of your iPhone or iPad is completely full with icons. Also, make sure there are no other folders on the home screen and that it, too, is full of icons. Then press down on an app icon to turn on "wobble mode,"
wherein all the icons wiggle around. Here comes the tricky part: making a folder within a folder. Create the first folder by dragging any two app icons on top of each other. Then quickly drag the folder of unwanted apps into that folder. It may take a few tries. Then you'll have a folder within a folder. Remove the rest of the apps from the larger folder, so that the only thing in the larger folder is the smaller folder of useless apps. When you go back to the home screen the folder will look empty. Now make sure your home screen is full and has no other folders except for the empty-looking one you just made. Go into the folder again and pull the small-
er folder out to the home screen. It should disappear. Now all of those pesky apps are nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, although the apps are no longer taking up space on your screen, they're still taking up space in your device. When you look at your data usage, you'll see that the apps you've hidden are still using data. Also, if you turn your iPhone or iPad off, the apps you sent away will return when you turn it back on. In all likelihood, Apple will nix this awesome glitch with its next iOS update. Mobile software makers like to make it impossible to delete preinstalled "bloatware" apps, the idea being that you'll want to use them eventually.
Microsoft Takes it Back, Promises Not to Snoop on Emails
Wonderful iOS 7 Glitch Lets You Hide Useless Apps