Silk Road taken down by FBI

Notorious online marketplace "Silk Road" has been taken down by the FBI and the owner "Ross Ulbricht" a.k.a (Dread Pirate Roberts) has been arrested . Proving that "Perfect security is impossible"

He has been charged with  conspiracy to traffic narcotics, conspiracy to hack computers, and conspiracy to launder money.

The website now shows a "This Hidden Site Has Been Seized" message

Silk Road was the drug dealing website in the world .It used the "TOR hidden network" to hide itself and its users.It seems Ross Ulbricht was caught due to his own mistakes and NOT due to a vulnerability in the TOR network.


This site had been a major point used lawmakers and politicians to try to curtail the growth of the TOR
 network.And now the recent actions by the FBI against many hidden sites in the TOR network is indeed a very big setback for it.

All the transactions in silkroad were done using Bitcoins and since the news of Ross Ulbricht's arrest bitcoin value has dropped quite a bit (Due to paranoid selling). But this is just the currency stabilizing itself, when it stabilizes BTC value will rise again. And the removal of association from such illigal market places might actually be a good thing for bitcoins.

Jordan's PM's website hacked by Anonymous hacktivist

Anonymous hacktivists have hacked into official website of Jordan's Prime ministry in a protest against raising taxes and prices.  The website was defaced with a message in Arabic to Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur.

"Hi uncle, how are you? We are sorry, we hacked your website. Are you upset? We feel much worse when you raise prices. The people know this feeling but you do not," the defacement message reads.

According to Voice of Russia report, the website has been restored after it was hacked for several hours.  The official claimed to have identified the attackers.

At the time of writing, the website(pmo.gov.jo) is offline.  You can still view the defacement in Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://pmo.gov.jo/PMO_Images/635159460595068250.htm

Anonymous hacktivists have hacked into official website of Jordan's Prime ministry in a protest against raising taxes and prices.  The website was defaced with a message in Arabic to Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur.

"Hi uncle, how are you? We are sorry, we hacked your website. Are you upset? We feel much worse when you raise prices. The people know this feeling but you do not," the defacement message reads.

According to Voice of Russia report, the website has been restored after it was hacked for several hours.  The official claimed to have identified the attackers.

At the time of writing, the website(pmo.gov.jo) is offline.  You can still view the defacement in Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://pmo.gov.jo/PMO_Images/635159460595068250.htm - See more at: http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/09/jordans-pms-website-hacked-by-anonymous.html#sthash.jNlmt3gn.dpuf

Anonymous hacktivists have hacked into official website of Jordan's Prime ministry in a protest against raising taxes and prices.  The website was defaced with a message in Arabic to Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur.

"Hi uncle, how are you? We are sorry, we hacked your website. Are you upset? We feel much worse when you raise prices. The people know this feeling but you do not," the defacement message reads.

According to Voice of Russia report, the website has been restored after it was hacked for several hours.  The official claimed to have identified the attackers.

At the time of writing, the website(pmo.gov.jo) is offline.  You can still view the defacement in Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://pmo.gov.jo/PMO_Images/635159460595068250.htm - See more at: http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/09/jordans-pms-website-hacked-by-anonymous.html#sthash.jNlmt3gn.dpuf

FBI demands SSL Keys from Secure-Email provider Lavabit in Espionage probe

During the summer, The Secure email provider 'Lavabit' and preferred service for PRISM leaker Edward Snowden decided to shut down after 10 years to avoid being complicit in crimes against the American people.

The U.S. Government obtained a secret court order demanding private SSL key from Lavabit, which would have allowed the FBI to wiretap the service’s users, according to Wired.

Ladar Levison, 32, has spent ten years building encrypted email service Lavabit, attracting over 410,000 users. When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was revealed to be one of those users in July, Ladar received the court orders to comply, intended to trace the Internet IP address of a particular Lavabit user, but he refused to do so.

The offenses under investigation are listed as violations of the Espionage Act and Founder was ordered to record and provide the connection information on one of its users every time that user logged in to check his e-mail.

The Government complained that the Lavabit had the technical capability to decrypt the information, but that Lavabit did not want to defeat its own system, So on the same day, U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan ordered Lavabit to comply, threatening Lavabit with criminal contempt.

FBI's search warrant also demanded all information necessary to decrypt communications sent to or from the Lavabit email account redacted including encryption keys and SSL keys.

But because Lavabit hadn’t complied till August 5, and a court ordered that Levison would be fined $5,000 a day beginning August 6, for every day he refused to turn over the key. 

On August 8, Levison finally decided to shut down Lavabit. “I’m taking a break from email,” said Levison. “If you knew what I know about email, you might not use it either.”

FBI Cyber Division put 'Syrian Electronic Army' Hackers in wanted list

 

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a pro-regime hacker group that emerged during Syrian anti-government protests in 2011, and involved in cyber attacks against western media organizations are now in the FBI's wanted list.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued an alert warning of cyber attacks by the Syrian Electronic Army and finally put them on its radar. "The SEA'S primary capabilities include spear-phishing, web defacements, and hijacking social media accounts to spread propaganda." they said. The FBI also has increased its surveillance of Syrians living in the US.

According to some anti-Assad activists, the group was founded by former intelligence agents and hardcore Assad supporters. SEA had compromised social media profiles for Western news organizations by sending fake email messages to news staff in an attempt to gain access to login credentials.

 

Most recently, the group grabbed international attention after commandeering the websites of the New York Times, Washington Post and this week the recruitment website for the US Marine Corps.

The group's was able to compromise the multiple Associated Press (AP) Twitter feeds, then using them to issue bogus messages, including the following alert on April 23 i.e. "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured." In the wake of that tweet, the White House confirmed that the president was unharmed, that there had been no explosions and that the FBI was investigating the hoax tweets.

So how did the SEA get better in only a few months? ''I don't think it would be unreasonable to suspect someone more skilled is helping them out,'' says Adam Myers, vice president of intelligence for security firm CrowdStrike.

Is the Syrian Electronic Army based in Syria? After Syria reestablished its Internet connection last week, following a blackout that lasted approximately 24 hours. Security Experts noticed that Syrian Electronic Army Hackers were online on twitter. These kinds of cuts do not affect the terrorists operating in Syria as they have their own US-supplied communication equipment.

The Syrian Electronic Army has multiple domains seized by its domain registration firm. Interestingly, The Syrian Electronic Army's first domain name was registered by the Syrian Computer Society, hosted on the network of the Syrian government.

“Please maintain heightened awareness of your network traffic and take appropriate steps to maintain your network security,” the FBI memo said. FBI request anyone who suspects they're under attack to call its CyWatch division at 855-292-3937.

After FBI says “We have Dismantled Anonymous”, Anonymous hacked FBI to show the presence

FBI says that they have dismantled the Anonymous group of hackers because most of its “largest players” have been arrested by US law enforcement authorities.
But Anonymous hackers don’t think like this, to prove them wrong and to show their presence, Anonymous group of hackers dumped large amounts of data that appears to have been stolen from FBI servers.
After the leak assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s cyber division told :

“The movement is still there, and they’re still yacking on Twitter and posting things, but you don’t hear about these guys coming forward with those large breaches
“It’s just not happening, and that’s because of the dismantlement of the largest players,” he added.
“Has anyone seen my leg? I’m in pieces over here!” tweeted one Anonymous-affiliated account. “SHOUTOUTZ TO ALL TEH DISMANTLEZ CREWZ OUT THERE IN SCARED OF TEH FBI LAND LOLOLOLOL,” tweeted @OpLastResort, an account managed by Anons closely associated with the collective’s most recent hacks.

Leaked data consist personal information and some confidential information also, below is the screenshot of the leak:

 

After the Anonymous hackers reply to FBI, let’s see what will they do to stop them, will FBI arrest more anonymous members and will say again “We have dismantled the Anonymous” let’s see.