Emergency siren hacking in Dallas brings ‘Watch Dogs 2’ scenario to life

Fisherman’s Wharf in Watch Dogs 2 (Image Credit: Ubisoft)

It can be amusing when life imitates art. But that’s not always the case, especially if seen as a possible threat to security. On Friday night, Dallas found itself under attack by hackers who took control of all emergency sirens in the city. All 156 sirens in the city started blaring at 11:40 p.m. and continued to do so for the next 40 minutes. Of course, this caused panic in the city with residents worried about the attack. Dallas officials won’t name the nature of the breach for security reasons but they acknowledged that the attack originated locally and that they were being “continuously” hacked because every time they turned it off, the alarm would sound again after.

This type of attack seemed to have taken inspiration from Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs 2 video game. Debuted back in December, the game showed how it was possible to hack “smart cities” and the Internet of Things. And while the game seem to have taken a simplistic approach to this, this attack on the US city shows that it is possible. And we have to be on alert now more than ever.

Source: VentureBeat

Sony Music’s Twitter account gets hacked, falsely reports death of Britney Spears

Looks like hacker group #OurMine is at it again and this time it targets Sony Music Global’s Twitter account. An early morning tweet showed up on its account saying Britney Spears died “by accident” and followed by the #RIPBritney. A retraction was later tweeted saying a “new IP” address was spreading the false rumour. The hashtag #OurMine was in the retraction tweet suggesting the group is the one responsible for the erroneous tweet. Both of the tweets you see above have been taken down but not before people have managed to take screenshots of it.

#OurMine previously hacked Twitter accounts of Netflix, NFL, and even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. We won’t be surprised if the group targets another high profile account in the future.

Source: CNET

Yahoo discloses a second major hack that affected over 1 billion accounts

Looks like the late 2014 hack of over 500 million Yahoo user accounts isn’t the only big security issue the company has to deal with. Yahoo just disclosed that more than one billion accounts might have been compromised by a hack of an unauthorized third party back in August 2013. The information stolen from the affected accounts include names, email addresses, birth dates, hashed passwords, encrypted and unencrypted security questions and answers, as well as telephone numbers. The only information believed to not have been accessed by the hackers include clear text passwords, bank account information, and credit/debit card details.

The hack was discovered after law enforcement officials gave the company what looked like user data from an unknown source. Yahoo hasn’t been able to identify the specific breach yet but says it’s “likely” distinct from the 2014 hack. If you’re affected by this hack, Yahoo will be reaching out to you to help secure your account, including implementing mandatory password changes and invalidating unencrypted security questions and answers. Now, is probably the best time for you to change those passwords and use two-factor authentication when you can—not just with your Yahoo accounts but also double up on your other online accounts.

Source: MacRumors

Yahoo finally confirms 2014 breach that affected over 500 million users

The Yahoo breach first broke in August when a hacker called Peace was promising to sell 200 million usernames, passwords, birthdates, and email addresses for less than US$2,000. Yahoo wouldn’t confirm the legitimacy of the attack but now we finally get confirmation that the company was victim of a “state-sponsored” attack back in 2014. Yahoo elaborated on a statement on its investor relations site the types of data the hackers might have had access to. "The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers," the statement reads. This doesn’t include sensitive payment information but the hack is considered large enough that Yahoo is working with law enforcement to see what happens.

There is no word yet if there will be a government investigation brought about by this incident. Yahoo hasn’t also said why it took so long to publicly confirm the report. It could do with the fact that the beleaguered company is selling itself to Verizon and the news could cause harm to the deal before it officially closes in early 2017.

Source: Engadget