Latest news
36-year-old Florida resident Christopher Chaney has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and to pay $66,000 restitution for having hacked the email accounts of Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis and many other celebrities.He had previously pleaded guilty to nine felony counts that included unauthorized access and damage to protected computers and wiretapping.
He admitted that in period spanning over a year he managed to hack into the aforementioned email accounts by discovering the victims' email addresses, taking advantage of the “Forgot your password?” feature to trigger the mail provider to ask security questions, then trying to answer those questions with publicly available information about the victims in order to gain access.
After succeeding, he would harvest information and documents found in the accounts, then change the account settings to make copies of all emails and attachments received by the victims' be sent to his alias email address.
He admitted that by doing this, he obtained private emails, photographs and documents containing confidential information such as driver’s license information, Social Security numbers, business contracts, and more. He also confessed to having sent some of the stolen photographs to other hackers and gossip sites.


Spotlight

Cyber espionage campaign uses professionally-made malware
Posted on 20 May 2013. | A massive cyber espionage campaign has been hitting government ministries, IT companies, academic research institutions, and more.

Ransomware adds password stealing to its arsenal
Posted on 17 May 2013. | Microsoft researchers are warning about a new variant of the well-known Reveton ransomware doing rounds.

Application vulnerabilities still a top security concern
Posted on 16 May 2013. | Respondents to a new (ISC)2 study identified application vulnerabilities as their top security concern. A significant gap persists between software developers’ priorities and security professionals’ concerns.

IT security jobs: What's in demand and how to meet it
Posted on 15 May 2013. | Let's say you want a career in information security, where do you start? What credentials do you need? What are employers looking for? Read on to find some answers.

Hacking charge stations for electric cars
Posted on 15 May 2013. | Ofer Shezaf talks about what charge stations really are, why they have to be ‘smart’ and the potential risks created to the grid, to the car and most importantly to its owner’s privacy and safety.
By subscribing to our early morning news update, you will receive a daily digest of the latest security news published on Help Net Security.
With over 500 issues so far, reading our newsletter every Monday morning will keep you up-to-date with security risks out there.






