TechEye |  |
- Fly swatted by security consultant
- Malaysia arrests US IS hacker
- AMD sells family silver after poor results
- UK cybercrime figures soar
- Chips face tough 2016
- TSMC cuts chip equipment plans
- IBM develops app to help blind navigate better
| Fly swatted by security consultant Posted: 16 Oct 2015 01:02 AM PDT
Sergey "the Fly" Vovnenko had heroin sent to Kreb's Virginia home and then alerted police when the drugs arrived, it is alleged. Vovnenko faces charges of stealing and selling credit card and banking data, emptying bank accounts, and running a botnet of more than 12,000 hacked computers and servers. Krebs became aware of Vovnenko when he started sending taunting tweets and trying to get him to visit poisoned websites. He posted copies of his credit report, directions to his home and pictures of his front door, it is said. Slightly miffed Krebs asked his mates at Russian security firm Group-IB and discovered that Vovnenko was the administrator of a defunct cybercrime forum dedicated to financial fraud. He gained access to his forum and found that Vovnenko had solicited donations from fellow fraudsters on the forum to donate Bitcoin currency for a slush fund Fly created for the express purpose of purchasing heroin off of the Silk Road. Vovnenko told the group that he arranged to have the heroin delivered to Krebs and spoof a call from one of his neighbours to the local police informing them that he was a druggie and having drugs delivered to his home, it is aid. Krebs was ahead of him and contacted the local police about the plan before the package arrived. When 12 packets appeared the cops knew all about the plan. Krebs wrote a story about how he foiled Vovnenko who was cross that he had wasted so much dosh on heroin and still not been arrested for possession. He had a local florist send a gaudy floral arrangement in the shape of a giant cross to his home, complete with a menacing message that addressed his wife and was signed, "Velvet Crabs", it is alleged Needless to say, this got Krebs interested in the character and he became more interested in tracking him down. Using various tools Krebs tracked the Fly through his girlfriend. Vovnenko does not appear to have been a trusting soul and had installed a keylogger on his girlfriend's account so he could read her emails. He forgot to delete the information after he read it and this gave Krebs shedloads of information about the couple. Apparently they were in Naples and were arrested in a joint action between the US and the Italian coppers. It seems that the Italians were happy to extradite him to a place where private jails encourage judges to lock people up for many years. The case continues. |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2015 12:59 AM PDT
He is supposed to have hacked into the personal information of more than a thousand US security officials and given the data to the IS so they can bump them off. Ardit Ferizi, a citizen of Kosovo arrived in Malaysia in August 2014 to study computer science and forensics at a private institute in Kuala Lumpur. He will be extradited to the United States. Inspector Knacker of the KL Yard said that the suspect communicated with one of the right hand man (leader) of IS terrorist group in Syria to hack a few servers containing information and details of U.S security personnel. “The details were then transferred to the operation unit of the IS group for further action.” Ferizi was a leader of a Kosovar internet hacking group called Kosova Hacker's Security (KHS). He hacked the computer system of a US company and stole the personal identification information (PII) of thousands of individuals. Between June and August 2015 Ferizi allegedly provided the PII to an Islamic State member, who in turn posted a tweet titled “NEW: U.S. Military AND Government HACKED by the Islamic State Hacking Division!" which contained a hyperlink to a 30-page document. The tweet said that information would be passed on to Islamic State fighters “who soon with the permission of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands!” Malaysia has not seen any significant militant attacks, but it has arrested more than 100 citizens this year on suspicion of links to Islamic State. |
| AMD sells family silver after poor results Posted: 16 Oct 2015 12:58 AM PDT
The chipmaker said it will sell 85 percent of its assembly, test, mark and pack operations in Suzhou, China and Penang, Malaysia to China’s NFME for $320 million. The company also said it would create a joint venture with NFME as part of the deal, to which it will contribute 1,700 employees. It said it did not plan to cut any more jobs. AMD earlier this month said it would cut five percent of its global workforce. It had 9,700 employees globally, according to its annual report in February. The company reported its fifth straight fall in quarterly revenue and forecast current quarter revenue that fell short of analysts’ average expectations. Chief Executive Lisa Su said that PC demand, particularly in the consumer market, continues to be somewhat muted. AMD posted a net loss of $197 million in the third quarter ended September 26 compared with net income of $17 million a year earlier. Revenue fell 25.8 percent to $1.06 billion. Analysts on average had expected a revenue of $995.9 million. AMD forecast current quarter revenue to fall 10 percent. The midpoint of the range translates to about $955 million, which was short of analysts’ estimate of $996.3 million.
|
| Posted: 15 Oct 2015 06:45 AM PDT
Fraud offences in general were up, but the ONS thinks that cybercrime, including hacking, is on the rise. The ONS sampled 2,000 people to come up with its cybercrime figure, which includes frauds committed online. It is the first time the ONS has delivered data about cybercrime, which includes not just hacking and phishing but virus infection too. It also includes email hacking or hacking of social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter. The ONS said that its figures don't necessarily indicate a massive rise in crimes because of the number of offences that previously weren't part of its counting methods. |
| Posted: 15 Oct 2015 06:36 AM PDT
Trendforce said weak demand was slowing down DRAM prices, coupled with a glut of memory chips. It estimates PC DRAM prices have fallen close to 40 percent this year and the server DRAM market will show steep declines during the second half of this year. And while demand for NAND flash memory has been strong, but Trendforce is predicting that demand in 2016 will be conservative. On the optoelectronic side, Trendforce thinks that the market for high brightness LED products will only grow by two percent in 2015, creating the right conditions for industry consolidation. Average selling prices for this category of LED products has dropped by 30 to 40 percent during 2015, because of oversupply. On the photovoltaic solar panel front, the outlook is better with demand to grow by nearly 10 percent in 2016. But there's oversupply of PV too, which is expected to drive down prices considerably during the course of next year. |
| TSMC cuts chip equipment plans Posted: 15 Oct 2015 06:29 AM PDT
TSMC had planned to spend $11 billion on equipment but has now cut that figure to $8 billion, with its net profit falling by 1.3 percent. The company said in a financial statement that while revenues in its third quarter were essentially flat compared to the previous quarter, revenues were 4.3 percent down compared to the same quarter in 2015. Net profit margins amounted to 35.4 percent for the quarter. Twenty one percent of wafer revenues are now drawn from shipments of 16/20 nanometre silicon wafers, while 28 nanometre technology amounted to 26 percent of its total revenues. Earlier this week, chip giant Intel warned that its data centre business for server chips wasn't as buoyant as Wall Street had expected. |
| IBM develops app to help blind navigate better Posted: 15 Oct 2015 06:21 AM PDT
The pilot app, called Navcog uses existing sensors and other technologies to help people on the CMU campus move around by "whispering" information through earbuds or by creating vibrations. CMU has Bluetooth beacons along walkways and also smartphone sensors within campus buildings. IBM will soon put the app at no charge on the App Store. Big Blue said it has made cognitive assistance for developers available on the cloud through IBM Bluemix, with the open toolkit made up of an app for navigation, a map editing tool, and localisation algorithms. Future developments will include localisation technology integrating data from different sensors and include facial recognition software too. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechEye. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.