Hackers claim to have card data of 2.2 million PlayStation Network users

News broke out last week that the Playstation Network has been compromised and user information including names, passwords, addresses have been stolen. While Sony doesn’t believe that any credit card information was stolen, hackers claim they have it.

According to The New York Times, security researchers said that they had seen discussions and comments on underground Internet forums that suggest the hackers have a database that included customer names, addresses, usernames, passwords and as many as 2.2 million credit card numbers.

Kevin Stevens, senior threat researcher at Trend Micro, said that one forum member told him the hackers had offered to sell the data back to Sony but did not receive a response from the company.Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications and social media at Sony, claims the company hasn’t received such such an offer.

While Sony pointed out that the entire credit card table was encrypted and there is no evidence that credit card data was taken, the company also said that it could not rule out the possibility that hackers might have obtained credit card data.

Although several researchers confirmed the existence of the forum discussions, it’s still impossible to verify the contents or the existence of the alleged credit card database.

Adobe has found a critical security hole in Flash

Adobe has found a critical security hole in Flash that affects all Android versions.


If there's a Flash file embedded in a Microsoft Word document and you open it, a malicious user can run code on your computer.

The consequences of this one aren't too bad because most document viewers on Android don't support Flash, but it shows one of the problems of running Flash on smartphones: it's yet another layer of security to worry about.

Read Security Advisory by Adobe

Skype for Android exposes your phone number, chat logs, your profile and more

There's a huge security hole in Skype for Android that exposes your phone number, chat logs, your profile and more, Android Police reports.
Any app can access that sensitive data with the proper exploit, and it affects all 10 million users of Skype for Android, escept "Skype Mobile for Verizon." Skype has said they're investigating the issue.

Watch how the exploit works-

Hacker Group Attacks Security "Expert,"

A lesson for security researchers: check your own security before you mess with hackers.
Aaron Barr, the CEO of security firm HBGary, told the Financial Times that he had identified some members of the group Anonymous, which is being investigated by the FBI and U.K. authorities for its role in denial of service attacks that took down MasterCard and some other sites last year. (Anonymous members attacked the sites in retaliation for their actions against WikiLeaks.)

Barr said he wasn't planning on sharing what he'd uncovered with authorities, but his statement was enough to "anger the hive" as Anonymous put it.

So they hacked HBGary's Web site, posted 60,000 of Barr's emails to BitTorrent, and posted nasty messages and personal info to his Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. The group also apparently hacked into the LinkedIn account of HBGary's COO, Ted Vera.

Leaving aside the moral and legal arguments, this is totally embarrassing for HBGary, which makes its living selling security consulting services. As Anonymous quipped in a note posted with the leaked emails: "It would appear that security experts are not expertly secured."

Read more here.

Facebook is the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented!

I have been concerned about the web and social security from the days social media emerged.
Recently, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange expressed his thoughts regarding facebook and asociated security risks. Here is what he said-

 In his interview, Assange focuses particularly on Facebook calling it the “most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented”.


Explaining in more detail, Assange affirms:

Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence.”

According to Assange, it doesn’t stop with Facebook. He believes the social network is joined by Google, Yahoo and other major US organisations that have “built in interfaces for US Intelligence”:

It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena, they have an interface they have developed for US Intelligence to use. Now, is the case that Facebook is run by US Intelligence? No, it’s not like that. It’s simply that US Intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure to them.

It’s costly for them to hand out individual records, one by one, so they have automated the process.

 The Wikileaks founder then warns Facebook users, stating that if a user adds their friend to Facebook, they are “doing free work for US Intelligence agencies, in building this electronic database for them”.

The full video has been embedded below, Assange’s thoughts on Facebook, Google and Yahoo begin around the two minute mark:

Assange says his website’s revelations are “just the tip of the iceberg”, adding that it’s only a matter of time before more damaging information becomes known.

Read the full article and watch his interview here