Hackers Target Apple, Fox, Others

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It's been a busy weekend for hackers, as multiple targets fell victim to pranks and more serious incidents. From big businesses to individuals, it appears no one is safe online.

One hack reported over the holiday weekend seems intended more as a warning than a serious attack in and of itself. Posted by the AntiSec hacking group, the document supposedly contains user names and passwords from a technical support server. It's hardly anything on the level of violation that Sony has experienced in recent, so why did AntiSec bother?

Many hackers attack targets simply to prove that they can, but more often than not it seems they do it because they disapprove of something the company has done. According to Larry Dignan at Cnet, “Hackers apparently are too 'busy elsewhere' to mess with Apple, but that doesn't mean the company is bulletproof. One trigger – something that may annoy hackers – could set off a larger attack.” Apple's iTunes and iCloud servers, with their host of customer data, would certainly make juicy targets for disgruntled hackers. Not surprisingly, the company issued no comment on the incident.

Hackers also got political this weekend by breaking into the Twitter feed of Fox News. Late in the evening on July 3, a post appeared on the media company's Twitter feed that said “Just regained full access to our Twitter and email. Happy 4th.” This tweet, however, was quickly followed by several others that clearly indicated the hackers – in this case, a group calling itself Script Kiddies – were in control.

These follow-up tweets, currently down but still up for at least part of the Independence Day holiday, stated (among other things) that Barack Obama had just passed away. In making these false posts, the hackers had managed to break into a verified Twitter account – that is, an account that the microblogging site had verified as belonging to a specific person or organization.

Fox News notified the Secret Service that their Twitter feed had been hacked. The media company is not taking this attack laying down, either. Jeff Misenti, vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital, said that “We will be requesting a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred and measure to prevent future unauthorized access into FoxNews.com accounts.”

Twitter, for its part, apparently thinks Fox News is responsible for its own downfall. The microblogging site's statement, read, in part, that “While Twitter does monitor accounts for brute-force login attempts and similar methods of attack, we're unable to anticipate compromises that take place due to offsite behavior...We've heard from Fox News that they have identified the offsite vector that led to the compromise, and would encourage follow-up with them about the details of how that compromise took place.”

Next: Police Targeted, Botnet Found >>
 

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