Hackers Reveals over 1 Million Accounts of Banks and Websites

Hacker collective Team GhostShell leaked a cache of more than one million user account records from 100 websites over the weekend.

The group, which is affiliated with hacktivists Anonymous, claimed they broke into databases maintained by banks, US government agencies and consultancy firms to leak passwords and documents. Some of the pinched data includes credit histories from banks among other files, many of which were lifted from content management systems. Some of the breached databases each contained more than 30,000 records.

An analysis of the hacks by security biz Imperva reveals that most of the breaches were pulled off using SQL injection attacks - simply tricking the servers into handing over a bit more information than they should. "Looking at the data dumps reveals the use of the tool SQLmap, one of two main SQL injection tools typically deployed by hackers," the company's researchers explained in a blog post.

Team GhostShell said the online leaks, which are part of its Project Hellfire campaign, were made in protest against banks and in revenge for the rounding up of hacktivists by cops and government agents.

The team said it worked with other hacking crews, MidasBank and OphiusLab, on the attacks - and claims to have accessed a Chinese technology vendor’s mainframe, a US stock exchange and the Department of Homeland Security. It plans to offer access to these compromised systems to hackers who have the chops to handle them.

In a statement, the group threatened to carry out further attacks, leak more sensitive data and generally unleash hell.

“All aboard the Smoke & Flames Train, Last stop, Hell," Team GhostShell wrote. "Two more projects are still scheduled for this fall and winter. It's only the beginning."

Team GhostShell is lead by self-proclaimed black hat hacker DeadMellox.

Sophos Offers Free AntiVirus Solution for Android Users

Sophos has crafted a freebie antivirus app dubbed Sophos Mobile Security for Android-powered devices.
The software tries to protect smartphones against malware, warns fandroids of privacy-invading programs and can lock down a gadget if it's lost or stolen, ideally without taxing either performance or battery life. The software, released on Monday, can be downloaded from Google Play.

Several free-of-charge security scanners already exist for the Android platform, but the performance of some in recent tests has been mediocre. Paid-for products from the likes of Kaspersky and F-Secure tend to perform better. Sophos is positioning its product against the more capable freebie Android scanners from the likes of Lookout and AVG (Droid Security), but with the additional benefit of offering hardware loss and privacy dashboard features more associated with paid-for products.

Sophos Mobile Security is designed to automatically scan apps as users install them, thus blocking undesirable software. The technology also locates lost or stolen Android devices as well as shielding personal information from thieves.

Sophos has entered the mobile security zone a few years late, but rather than corner the freebie Android scanner market, its new software will be used to market a managed Enterprise version, due to be released this year.

The strategy makes sense because it dovetails neatly with the bring-your-own-device craze that's allowing consumers' technology choices shape corporate IT, including the mobile security products that are used.

Android malware last year increased 155 percent from 2010, according to Juniper Networks.

"We're seeing no slowdown in the number of malicious apps, as more smartphone owners use their devices to not only store personal data, but also access social networks and the internet," said Matthias Pankert, vice president of product management, Sophos. "This usage, coupled with the increase in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) activity, is making Android devices a compelling target for cybercriminals and malware."

Sophos released a freebie security scanner for Macs two years ago. The plan in that case was more about improving home punters' cyber-hygiene than pushing licences, but mobile security is much more integral to the corporate plans of the UK-based security software firm, so Sophos Mobile Security is not a philanthropic gesture.

Apple and Amazon Falls Prey to Social Engineering

WiReD writer's Apple iCloud account was compromised and his iPhone, iPad and MacBook remotely erased. The writer's Google Mail and Twitter accounts were also hacked.

Although Honan blames himself for not having two-factor authentication enabled on his Gmail login, he also said that Amazon made it "remarkably easy" for the miscreant to gain control of his Apple iCloud account. He added that Apple had its own "security flaws" after allowing the hijacker to bypass Honan's preset security questions on his iCloud account.

"Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information - a partial credit card number - that Apple used to release information," he wrote in a postmortem examination of the digital attack.

"In short, the very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification."

Honan claims that he later chatted to his hacker via Twitter, email and AIM, and after Honan agreed not to press charges, the hijacker revealed how he broke into the Twitter, Google and Apple accounts.

The hacker, who called himself Phobia, said he didn't have to use brute force to figure out Honan's passwords for the accounts, but instead used clever social engineering to work his way from call centre to call centre.

Phobia said that the whole intrusion was designed to take control of Honan's Twitter feed because it had a three-character handle: @mat.

He followed the Twitter account's profile page to Honan's website, where he learned of his Gmail address. Phobia then started a password reset process for the Gmail account and thereby bagged another of Honan's email addresses: the Gmail account was setup to send a password reset message to the scribe's @me.com inbox. Although that address was partly obscured by Google (m••••n@me.com), Phobia guessed what it was because it had the same starting character as Honan's Gmail username.

Now that Phobia knew Honan had an AppleID account (associated with the @me inbox), he knew he could take over his iDevices.

Amazon pulled into epic hack attack

Phobia phoned Amazon masquerading as Honan and used his email address and billing address (found in Honan's Whois records for his website) to add a fake credit card to his Amazon account. The hacker hung up and then phoned Amazon again, claiming he'd been locked out of his account and used the fake credit card number, plus real email and address, to persuade Amazon tech support to let him into the account.

Once in Honan's Amazon account, Phobia could read the last four digits of the writer's real credit card in the payment settings page. Unfortunately, those four numbers, along with the addresses, were all Apple tech support needed in a subsequent phone call to allow Phobia to reset Honan's iCloud backup storage login, giving him access to pretty much every account and device Honan owned.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, told The Reg that Amazon's verification process for adding the credit card wasn't thorough enough. "A billing address and email address are probably too easy to dig out," he said.

But, as Honan himself admitted, it's normal practice for retailers to star out all but the last four digits of credit or debit cards, so Amazon had no reason not to do the same for an online account.

"Amazon made it too easy for someone to add a credit card to an account (and subsequently gain access to the account), but Apple made it too easy to access account information using the final four digits," Cluley said.

"There's any number of questions Apple could have asked - either extra support questions or they could have asked about recent purchases on iTunes or the App Store."

Apple said that its "internal policies were not followed completely" and it was reviewing its processes for password resets. Amazon had not returned a request for comment at the time of publication.

Have you enable two-factor authentication on your gmail account, are you still using the same password across all the websites you visit, and when last did you change your password. We'll like to hear your experience