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26,000 sex website passwords exposed by LulzSec

Stargate used hieroglyphs for passwords.

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The notorious LulzSec hacking group has published login passwords for almost 26,000 users of an x-rated porn website.

The hackers compromised the database of the hardcore website (called “Pron“), exposing not only the email addresses and passwords of over 25,000 members but also the credentials of 55 administrators of other adult websites.

Furthermore, LulzSec drew particular attention to various government and military email addresses (.mil and .gov) that appeared to have accounts with the porn website.

That must be an embarrassing one to explain to the boss..

To add insult to injury, the LulzSec group called on its many recent Twitter followers to exploit the situation, by logging into Facebook with the email/password combinations and tell the victim’s Facebook friends and family about their porn habit.

Porn passwords

It should go without saying that logging into someone else’s account without their permission is against the law in most countries around the world.

Fortunately, it’s reported that Facebook’s security team responded quickly to the threat – and reset the passwords for all of the accounts it had which matched the email addresses exposed. Of course, it’s still possible that those email address/password combinations are being used on other websites.

If anything should be a reminder to internet users of the importance of using different passwords for different websites, this should be it.

The danger is that once one password has been compromised, it’s only a matter of time before the fraudsters will be able to gain access to your other accounts and steal information for financial gain or, in this case, potential embarrassment.

If you believe there might be a chance that your username/password were exposed, or if you’re simply in the habit of using the same password for multiple websites – now is the time to change your habits.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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Twitter Launches Follow Button for Websites

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Twitter has launched a Follow button, enabling users to subscribe to the Twitter feeds of companies and individuals directly from their websites with a single click.

Previously, website publishers had to redirect users to their respective accounts on Twitter.com before users could opt to follow them. The new feature will likely encourage publishers to increase the number of “follow us” prompts on their sites, because they won’t have to risk redirecting their audiences off-site.

Users will still be able to preview profiles before opting to follow them by clicking the username next to the Follow button.

Those who are interested in adding the button to their own sites can set one up here.

Source :- http://mashable.com

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Google Unveils +1 Button For Third Party Websites

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

It is just like Facebook Like , but can do more

After unveiling the +1 button in March, Google has started rolling out the button for third party websites. Google previewed this button, which works like the Facebook Like button, at the Google I/O conference and confirmed that this button will be launched within this week.

The +1 buttons will be in different sizes – Small, Medium, Standard and Tall, with and without the +1 counter, and websites can tie the buttons into their own site logon systems to know which pages are accessed more by users, to keep a record of this. After sufficient number of people have the +1 page on their website, users can view different data such as age and sex of people who recommend those particular pages. This can be done using Google s Analytics system.
Is Google stepping up its social networking strategy? Yes, it is doing it steadily and surely. They tried it with Buzz, not long ago, and it didn t quite succeed. Now they are trying other ways to step up to Facebook in Facebook s backyard. Will they succeed? Only time will tell.

Source :- http://www.techtree.com

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Eidos confirms website hack, email addresses and resumes stolen

Eidos Interactive

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Eidos has revealed that resumes of job hunters and email addresses of video game fans have been stolen by hackers in an attack on the Eidos and “Deus Ex: Human Revolutionwebsites.

Square Enix, the parent company of Eidos, confirmed the hack in a PDF press release. (Why do companies publish their press releases as PDFs, anyway? That’s just daft.)

Here’s part of the statement from Square Enix:

Square Enix can confirm a group of hackers gained access to parts of our Eidosmontreal.com website as well as two of our product sites. We immediately took the sites offline to assess how this had happened and what had been accessed, then took further measures to increase the security of these and all of our websites, before allowing the sites to go live again.

Eidosmontreal.com does not hold any credit card information or code data, however there are resumes which are submitted to the website by people interested in jobs at the studio. Regrettably up to 350 of these resumes may have been accessed, and we are in the process of writing to each of the individuals who may have been affected to offer our sincere apologies for this situation. In addition, we have also discovered that up to 25,000 email addresses were obtained as a result of this breach. These email addresses are not linked to any additional personal information. They were site registration email addresses provided to us for users to receive product information updates.

There are two main risks here.

One threat is that if your email address is one of the 25,000 that has been stolen, you could receive a scam email (perhaps containing a malicious link or attached Trojan horse) that pretends to come from a video game company. After all, the hackers know that you’re interested enough in video games to give your email address to Eidos.

Secondly, the resumes from job hunters. This is a more serious problem. Just think of all the personal information you include on your CV: full name, date of birth, email and home address, telephone number, job history. This kind of information is a god-send to identity thieves interested in defrauding internet users.

So, it seems Sony is not the only video game company to be having problems with its computer security.

Lets hope the continuing stream of stories of companies having customer data stolen from them makes them take security more seriously in the future.

More information about the hack can be found on the KrebsOnSecurity blog.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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FBI says you’ve been visiting illegal websites? It’s a malware attack

The Seal of the United States Federal Bureau o...

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Cybercriminals have spammed out a malicious attack, posing as a notification from the FBI that you have been visiting illegal websites.

Illegal websites email claiming to come from the FBI

A typical message reads as follows:

Subject: You visit illegal websites
Attached file: Document.zip

Message body:
Sir/Madam, we have logged your IP-address on more than 40 illegal Websites. Important: Please answer our questions! The list of questions are attached.

If you make the mistake of running the program in the attached ZIP file, you’ll find that your computer is hit with a fake anti-virus attack – designed to scare you into handing over your credit card details.

Sophos products intercept the email messages as spam, and also detect the attachment as Mal/Bredo-K and Troj/BredoZp-DM.

Of course, if you have your wits about you you would realise that the email looks very suspicious in the first place. But there’s always the danger that some folks will be so worried that the FBI believes they might have been visiting naughty websites, that they’ll click on unsolicited email attachments without thinking.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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Google bug disables 150000 Gmail accounts

Yesterday around 150000 Gmail users account were disabled by the Google system. They lost all their emails, attachments and chat logs. Google explained that approximately 0.08% of its users were affected by this bug. This bug reset all these accounts and even sent them the Google start up mail that any new user of Gmail receives.

Google reported on its dashboard that the engineers are working to get the problem fixed and restore full access. When the Google spokesman was contacted, a clear message was sent across stating that all the mails and accounts would be restored. Though many users are still apprehensive about the fact that all their messages would be restored.

Meanwhile others are advised to take precautions and store a backup of all their emails. There is a free application for Mac, PC and Linux called Gmail Backup. This is quick and easy to use. After downloading this software, Google asks for your account details and begins backing up your emails securely. Users have suggested various other sites for backing up their emails as many found that this software is not supported with Mac. Some of the popular ones are backupify.com and eternos.com.

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