Cyber Crimes Unit

Six people have been charged after an Indian woman, 37, from Hyderabad was allegedly trafficked to Britain and subjected to a series of sex attacks, Scotland Yard said yesterday. The six, who include an optician and a supermarket manager, will appear in court next month.

UK a world leader in cyber crime

The UK has leapt up the world’s cyber crime league table, and is now the seventh worst country for cyber attacks. Britain is responsible for 2.4 per cent of all hacking attempts worldwide, according to figures for
the first three months of this year compiled by IT security firm the NCC Group.

Anger over invites to Jubilee lunch

There was controversy over the guest list for the Queen’s Jubilee “Monarchs’ Lunch” at Windsor Castle. Autocratic rulers from Bahrain and Swaziland were among attendees, but the Foreign Office said invitations were issued to all of the world’s sovereigns. MORE

De Botton seeks the thinking man’s porn

Philosopher Alain de Botton is to bring together leading figures from
pornography and the arts to identify a “new pornography” which is ethical and “fit for thoughtful, good human beings”, including children.
His initiative is part of his School of Life movement, which offers advice on leading fulfilled lives.

President’s guerrilla past leads to apology

The Rio de Janeiro state government has said it will apologise to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff for the human rights abuses she suffered during the country’s 1961-1985 dictatorship. Rousseff is a former leftist guerrilla who spent three years in prison during the dictatorship.

Qatada may be freed by end of the month

Abu Qatada could be freed on bail by the end of the month. The Jordanian, described as Osama bin Laden’s top man in Europe, will have his bail application heard by an immigration judge on 28 May. The radical cleric is being held in a high security prison while he fights deportation to Jordan.

Island nation joins fight against piracy

Mauritius has agreed to prosecute Somali pirates, helping overcome one of the main hurdles in cracking down on the piracy that has hit international shipping. Mauritius has agreed with Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland to accept suspected pirates for prosecution and trial from June.

Warsi takes aim at ‘minority’ of men

The Muslim cabinet minister Baroness Warsi has hit out at the “small minority” of Pakistani men who see white girls as “fair game”. In outspoken comments following the Rochdale grooming scandal, she urged Muslim community leaders to act to isolate such men.

Two protesters shot dead in Damascus

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad shot two protesters in the capital, Damascus, and fired in the air to break up demonstrations in Aleppo, activists said. It was the second consecutive day of street protests in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, visited by UN monitors on Thursday. MORE

Condemned killer fights for hip surgery

A condemned killer’s fight to receive surgery for agonising hip pain has given Kentucky officials a headache. Robert Foley, 55, was convicted
of killing six people between 1989 and 1991, and officials are struggling to justify spending thousands of dollars for surgery on a man
they plan to execute.

Student fees to blow out national debt

Higher university fees could raise the national debt by up to £100bn over the next two decades, researchers say. Students at English universities are eligible for government-backed loans to cover fees of up to £9,000 a year, and the total debt will build up until sufficient repayments kick in.

Trayvon killer may have called for help

An FBI expert has found crucial evidence in the Trayvon Martin case was inconclusive, saying it was impossible to tell if the voice screaming for help belonged to the black Florida teenager or to George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch captain who shot him. MORE

UN nuclear chief to sign deal on access

The UN nuclear agency chief will visit Tehran to sign a deal allowing
his organisation to resume probing Iran’s nuclear programme. The visit by Yukiya Amano will allow both sides to agree on access to sites, information and officials for the International Atomic Energy Agency investigation.

Fry and Laurie to reunite in ghost film

Stephen Fry and former comedy partner Hugh Laurie are to reunite in a
new animated film based on The Canterville Ghost, a short story by Oscar Wilde. The actors, who met at Cambridge University, have collaborated on numerous shows including Jeeves and Wooster and A Bit of
Fry and Laurie.

UN ‘did not want to embarrass dictators’

Sacha Baron Cohen has revealed the UN barred him from shooting footage for his film The Dictator in its New York headquarters. He told the UN: “This is a pro-democracy movie”. But the organisation claimed filming was problematic, as it represents “a lot of dictators”. MORE

Monmouth signs up to be first ‘Wiki’ town

Monmouth in South Wales is to be the world’s first “Wikipedia town” in a collaboration with the web’s most popular encyclopaedia. The Monmouthpedia aims to cover all aspects of local life, including people,
places and wildlife. Wikimedia UK, its charity arm, said it will be the
first of many such projects.

Italian Proms kingis back for more

An Italian man who has attended every single Proms season for the past half century has told i that the BBC and the Royal Albert Hall are his “real family”. Giancarlo Stoppini, who lives near Milan, has secured
tickets for 55 of this year’s BBC Proms. MORE

Bust-up rumoured as Van Halen delay tour

Van Halen’s fractious history of bust-ups seemed to continue yesterday with the postponement of more than 30 concert dates in the band’s US summer tour. Rolling Stone magazine reported that a source with knowledge of the tour said: “The band is arguing like mad. They are
fighting.”

Country singer is not getting any younger

The Associated Press has discovered documents that show country-music
legend Loretta Lynn is three years older than she has led people to believe. The documents show Lynn is 80, not 77. The new age calls into question the story she told in her autobiography that she was married at
just 13.

Templates the trick to Green’s shoe line 

Sir Philip Green’s daughter has spoken of the creative process behind
designing her new Topshop shoe collection. “My girlfriends and I sat and spoke about shoes,” said Chloe Green. “Everything kind of started from there.” But she admitted recently to simply colouring in templates.
MORE

Ladyboy brightens up Brighton contest

A Thai competitor who sailed through the early rounds of Brighton’s Next Hot Model has revealed that she’s actually a man. Thai ladyboy Angkookrat Warangnam, 26, had wowed the judges with her looks. An organiser said that “nobody twigged”.

Zoo has first jaguar cubs for 30 years

San Diego Zoo in California has unveiled its first newborn jaguar cubs in 30 years. The cubs, born three weeks ago, weigh around 5lbs each. The word “jaguar” derives from the South American native term “yaguara”, meaning “animal that kills in a single bound”.

Football brings clash of cultures to Munich

As Bayern Munich host Chelsea this evening in the Champions League final, the two cultures they represent could not be more different. Munich, a city of sturdy workers and sausage-based cuisine, could be overwhelmed by the sight of so many wealthy, fashion-conscious Londoners. MORE

Article source: http://www.independent.co.uk/i/matrix/the-news-matrix-saturday-19-may-2012-7767022.html

18/05/2012

The shadow secretary of state for defence Jim Murphy has said that cyber security “could be the arms race of the 21st century” in a speech calling for “increasing awareness and resilience” against online threats.

Speaking at the third annual Electrical Infrastructure Security Summit, the East Renfrewshire MP asked for a coordinated response to the growing threat of cyber attack from businesses, the public and international allies – emphasising the fact online security is everyone’s concern.

Calling information the fifth “contested area” after land, sea, air and space, Mr Murphy repeatedly warned about the cyber threat that “can hurt the very fabric of our society”.

He also pointed out that the UK is particularly vulnerable to cyber attack – ranking sixth in the world as cyber crime hotspot and suffering losses of £27 billion a year.

Suggesting ways that the government can improve security, Mr Murphy said education was the key and called for cyber security to form part of the national curriculum.

He also suggested businesses with good cyber security practices receive a ‘kitemark’.

“Cyber security is one of the challenges of our era and it is one in which we all have a stake,” he concluded. 

Article source: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/45023

A Brit who distributed a Trojan horse that posed as a patch for popular shoot-em-up game Call of Duty has been jailed for 18 months.

Lewys Martin, 20, of Deal in Kent, used the malware to harvest bank login credentials, credit card details and internet passwords from the compromised Windows PCs of his victims. Martin then apparently laundered the credentials via underground cybercrime forums, earning $5 or less for every credential, directing proceeds of his criminal activity towards an offshore account in Costa Rica, funds which remain beyond the reach of UK police.

Martin’s activities might have gone undiscovered if not for his arrest during what police described as a drunken attempt to break into a local college and steal computer equipment. Police who raided Martin’s home discovered printouts of stolen credit card numbers and papers relating to a fraudulent bank loan, obtained under a false name.

The student was convicted last November but his sentence was deferred in order to allow Martin to complete a university computer course. However bail was revoked after Martin was caught with several other individuals trying to break into a Walmer Science College in Deal as part of a bungled attempt to steal computer equipment. He caused hundreds of pounds of damages in criminal damages during an attempt to steal computer kit, walkie-talkies and other gear, according to local reports.

Martin was prosecuted and subsequently convicted for three burglary and fraud charges, leading up to a sentence hearing this week when he was jailed for 18 months.

A court clerk at Canterbury Crown Court confirmed the terms of the sentencing this week, which following earlier guilty pleas on the specimen charges. Further fraud charges were taken into consideration in sentencing Martin to a substantial spell behind bars.

Gamers are a popular target for malware distributors. Much of this malign activity is directed at gamers in the Far East but Western shoot-em-up and role-playing fans are also at risk and ought to be wary of malware posing as gaming cracks and other common tricks, as explained in a blog post by Sophos here. ®

Article source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/18/call_of_duty_vxer_jailed/

Eugene Kaspersky has reiterated his long-standing support for Internet IDs, and called for all SCADA systems to be redesigned around a secure operating system, to protect critical infrastructure from cyber-attack.

SCADA is so vulnerable, Kaspersky told the AusCERT audience: “It’s not possible to protect. Stuxnet told us that modern systems are not protected at all. SCADA could be very easy victims – the result of an attack could be like Stuxnet but everywhere.”

He said his company’s research suggests that malware costs the world economy $US100 billion each year, and noted other vendors estimates of the total trillion-dollar cybercrime industry mean that, “because of cybercrime, we have the equivalent of two or three Japanese tsunamis a year” of economic damage.

People “need to understand the danger of cyber-weapons and of cyber-war to ruin national infrastructure. Transportation, power-grids, power plants … it would take us back to the pre-electric era.”

“The only way to protect critical infrastructure – is to redesign SCADA systems based on a secure operating system. It is possible to do, but it requires a redesign of all the software for industrial systems.”

However, Kaspersky said, the only possible way to achieve such a radical redesign of the SCADA world would be with government support. He noted increased government awareness of Internet issues: “Governments have to be leaders … they have to make this world more regulated, more secure. The good news is that finally they recognize that cybercrime is a very serious issue.”

However, at the same time Kaspersky lamented the heavy-handedness of laws such as those being implemented in the UK.

Likewise, Kaspersky said, the increased participation of government in cyberwarfare leads him to believe that escalation is almost inevitable – and, he said, the similarities of different systems around the world means that a cyber-conflict between two countries could result in critical infrastructure attacks in unreleated countries.

“It’s our responsibility to design this world in a more secure way for our children,” was Kaspersky’s conclusion.

#auscert2012

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Article source: http://www.cso.com.au/article/424988/auscert_2012_kaspersky_says_cyber-attacks_could_take_us_back_pre-electric_era_/?fp=4&fpid=959105