The days of the old-fashioned bank robbery with the team of gunmen rushing into the lobby guns blazing and the getaway driver hunkered over the wheel, engine running, keeping an eye out for the cops’ early arrival are over. For any serious score of cash, it used to be that the crook would go where the most money was, and that used to be the banks. Today, it isn’t the physical location that has the real money; it’s the bank’s cyber location.

And it’s that cyber location where eight cybercriminals hacked in to access $45 million dollars in prepaid debit cards. These cards exist for banks to offer them with certain facilities and they come pre-loaded with cash. The banks have a central location for storing the magnetic coding for these cards, their respective PIN numbers and the amount of cash available on them. And it is this cyber location that these eight next-gen criminals burst into, weaponless, and stole that information.

Once they had the magnetic code, and the PIN, they created fake debit cards using various things. The information was then distributed to a network of accomplices worldwide that they called, ‘cashers’. This group even went so far as to use their hacking expertise to remove withdrawal limits to maximize their take. Then, the group and their cashers went on a shopping spree at ATM machines pulling out as much cash as they could. Their first target was the Rakbank in UAE where they were able to swiftly create 4,500 different transactions totaling a value of close to $5 million dollars.

In February, this same group targeted the Bank of Muscat in Oman. This time their network was larger, with cashers in 24 countries, who were able to withdraw 40 million dollars in 36,000 transactions. And they did this in less than eleven hours. Seven of the eight member team were arrested in New York, the eighth member was murdered in April. The remaining seven were charged for various reasons including fraud and money laundering.

The Syrian Electronic Army has done it again. This is the same group that hacked the Associated Press’s Twitter account in March to announce an attack on the White House that injured the President. They also hacked the Twitter accounts of CBS, NPR and BBC. This time their target was E!Online, the entertainment channel and for some inexplicable reason they focused their wrath on Justin Bieber and Angelina Jolie. The Tweet they issued claimed an exclusive news story that said that Bieber admitted to them that he was “a gay”. A later Tweet claimed that Jolie blames Jordan for the living conditions of Syrian refugees.

The SEA group has mainly attacked opponents, or those they saw as opponents, to the Syrian President. Their posts, while seemingly innocuous made their political points clear. And while this may seem to be an innocent joke, annoying as it is, these hackers have caused panic. The Tweet they issued via AP regarding the fictional attack on the White House caused a slight panic in the New York Stock Exchange resulting in a 150 point drop.

When they hacked BBC’s weather channel they issued Tsunami warnings to inland countries, had there been a normal course of the day, or this information had not been retracted in time, there could have been a massive panic. There are companies now that rely a great deal on social media for distributing information and having a group like SEA take control and begin sending Tweets is more than just a joke, it can affect company credibility and lead to serious negative consequences for the company in question.

The group claims responsibility when they do successfully hack into an account with a usually self-aggrandizing statement. The statements usually read, “SEA We did it again.” Or something equally as obnoxious. It has progressed now beyond the point of this being an innocent prank or political statement and has reinforced the need for companies to maintain tight controls on their social media accounts. If the Bieber Tweet hadn’t been retracted, think of the panic it would have generated for millions of teen girls.

The anti-Israel group known as Anonymous created a video claiming that on the 7^th of April that there would be a coordinated cyber-attack against Israel in an attempt to “wipe Israel off the Internet”. A not-so-vague reference to the goal of Hamas and several other Muslim leaders to “wipe Israel off the map”. What Hamas and the others desire is a full scale slaughter of all Israelites, and in this the Anonymous group attempted to do symbolically what the Muslim groups hope to accomplish for real. The group’s main complaints against Israel included unnamed human rights violations, illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip, not respecting the ceasefire and ignoring international law. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook continues to become more and more popular every year. Individuals, businesses and the entertainment industry have latched on to the popularity and are reaching millions of users every day. As with any website, however, Facebook has had an issue with hacking, viruses, phishing and malware. Facebook is particularly a dangerous place to have your account hacked because of the wealth of personal information that is available on that page about those who are regular Facebook users. Recently, a security firm was hired by Facebook to find holes in their security, after all, it is in their best interest to keep their users information safe. Read the rest of this entry »

In the world of computer hacking, of all nations with a serious problem, China leads the pack with an estimated 41% of attempted hackings originating in Mainland China. These hackings take the form of either malware infected sites or phishing sites that emulate a legitimate business and get users to type in their sensitive information.

The “phishers” then go in and clean out bank accounts, apply for credit or other underhanded motives. Hong Kong has its own share of hackers, and even though it is an island governed by China, it has a different culture and way of life there. Read the rest of this entry »

The Syrian Electronic Army, SEA has struck again! The Pro-Assad group responsible for hacking BBC’s Twitter account earlier in the week hacked into the Twitter account of CBS’s 60 Minutes News program. In the past, this same group has hacked Reuters Press Corps, Associated Press, and even Al-Jazeera posting pro-Syrian President Assad posts. The fake message tweeted at AP involved an explosion at the White House that injured President Barack Hussein Obama. That message caused a temporary dip in stock values until deemed false. In this hacking, the SEA group sent tweets reading, “Exclusive: Terror is striking the #USA and #Obama is Shamelessly in Bed with Al-Qaeda” and “New Evidence of CIA Arming Al Qaeda Terrorists in #Syria” as well as “WMD’s Provided by NATO to Al-Qaeda for a False Flag Operation in #Syria” Read the rest of this entry »