55,000 Social Security Numbers exposed in the security breach of VFW.org

The Veterans of Foreign Wars  recently began notifying their users that hackers hacked into VFW.org  and hackers were able to see their users personal information. 

In February 2014 , Veterans of Foreign Wars bitterest was hacked by hackers and hackers planted a malicious code , when ever any visitor visited their website with vulnerable version of Internet Explorer , The user is infected. This attack is believed to be done from China.

After the investigation it shows that names ,  security numbers and other personal details of about 55,000 users have been leaked because of VFW.org security breach. The letter dated April 4 said that VFW got to know about the security breach on April 4.

"VFW has been informed that the purpose of the attack wasn't identity theft, but rather to gain access to information regarding military plans or contracts"  says the letter.

VFW says that they're offering one year free of identity theft protection to the affected users.

 

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Boxee.tv breach exposed data of 1,54000 users

Ars reports that last week's hack of Boxee revealed the data, including username, email address, passwords and forum messages of over 154000 users. The data is published online in a massive MySQL file of about 800 MB in size which is still circulating online. 

Boxee.tv is a web based tv service that was acquired by Samsung last year. Ars reports that the breach occurred no later than last week, when a full copy of the purloined forum data became widely available, Scott A. McIntyre, a security researcher in Australia, told Ars. 

On Tuesday, officials from password management service LastPass began warning customers with e-mail addresses included in an 800 megabyte file that's still circulating online. 

The file contains personal data associated with 158,128 user accounts, about 172,000 e- mail addresses, and the cryptographically scrambled passwords that corresponded to those Boxee accounts, LastPass said. 

The dump also included a wealth of other details, such as user birth dates, IP addresses, site activity, full message histories, and password changes. All user messages sent through the service were included as part of the leak.

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Worst Data Breach in German History, 18 Million Email Passwords Compromised

Germany has confirmed its biggest Data theft in the country's history with usernames and passwords of some 18 million email accounts stolen and compromised by hackers.The Story broke by the German press, Der Spiegel on Thursday, when German Authorities revealed another mass hacking of private data belonged to German citizens and major Internet companies both in Germany and abroad.Authorities in the northwestern city of Verden unearthed a treasure of personal information, a list of about 18 million stolen email addresses and passwords, and seized it just after only two months from the previous major data breach, when researchers came across 16 million compromised email accounts of German users while conducting research on a botnet, a network of computers infected with malware. The accounts were compromised by hackers in the mid of January, and Der Spiegel suggests that the same group of hackers is responsible for both thefts and that they may be based in one of the Baltic countries.MILLION ON SPAM .. SHOP... THEFTAccording to Investigators, some of the accounts are used to send spam emails and some combinations of email and password are used for online shopping portals, as these mass of stolen personal information could also be used to obtain the financial details of users account. To help in securing the Internet users, German authorities warned to take additional security measures to prevent cyber criminals using their data while shopping online."It is suspected that these stolen records are being actively misused," said Lutz Gaebel, spokesman of the prosecutor's office in Verden.

SOURCE OF DATA

Till now, It has not been revealed by the investigators that how much they know about this massive data Breach and How the attackers get their evil hands on the personal data of over 18 million users. Lutz Gaebel declined to give more information due to the ongoing investigation. It is estimated that at least three million of the accounts belonged to German citizens and some of the compromised email accounts have international domain extensions such as ‘.COM’. But in real, the number could be much larger than the visible one as the investigation is ongoing.The German prosecutor investigating the latest major data theft informed the country's IT watchdog, Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), to introduce additional security measures to help the Internet users.

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Spec's breach affects 550,000 customers

Texas liquor store Spec's says it experienced a cyber attack on its network  that exposed personal and financial information of more than a half million customers.

The company issued a statement saying the breach affects fewer than 5% of its total transactions.  Those who shopped at one of the 34 their affected stores were affected by this breach.

According to the statement, the attack began on October 31,2012 and may have continued through March 20 of this year.

The exposed information includes names, credit/debit card number, expiration date and card security code or check information including Bank account number, bank routing number, birth dates, driver's license number.

Spec's spokeswoman Jenifer Sarver told the Houston Chronicle that the breach affected "an estimated fewer than 550,000" customers and Spec's employees.

Spec's says it's working with United States Secret service in ongoing criminal investigation to arrest the attackers and taking steps to prevent future attacks.

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Texan liquor chain Spec’s leaks 550k card details in 17 month breach

A prolonged network attack comprised some 550,000 credit cards details of of the customers associated with Houston, Texas based wine stores SPEC's. The attacked continued for almost 17 months before authorities knew about it a few days before. 

Spec's operated one of the largest chain of wine stores and is the largest wine seller in US with over 165 wine stores, 34 of which were compromised in the attack. Most of which were smaller ones operating around the Houston area.

 Data lost includes most things an identity thief might want, ranging from payment card numbers, expiry dates and security codes to dates of birth and driver’s license numbers in some cases. Attacked is thought to have taken place on 31 October 2012. But if was detected on 18 March 2014 after almost 17's months period. Spec's inner sources that they had come to knew about suspicious activity on their servers soon after the attack but were not allowed have a forensic research carry on.

 Prior to public disclosure of the breach, some Spec customers complained that their credit cards were being used. However, they had no idea as to how this could have been happening. 

However Spec's state that no employees are thought to be involved, and it’s quite possible that the attack was entirely network-based, with the affected stores on a shared network node, or sharing a software or policy weakness which allowed the compromise to take place.

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Arab Hackers Breach Israeli Cyberspace and Threaten Israeli Journalists.

 

Recently, Muslim hackers breached Israeli cyberspace and comprised www.israeldefense.com. Following this attack, hundreds of Israeli citizen and journalists have been receiving threatening text sms warning them of grave consequences and possible retaliation if Israel continues in occupying Gaza.

 Time of Israel has been tracing the activity and suggests that the hundreds phone numbers of citizens and journalists who are receiving SMS had been stolen when Israeli defense forum was compromised last month. Some of text msgs received by Israeli reads as follows: " ‘revenge’, “a warning to the Zionists, the al-Qassam rockets are waiting for you”, “Al-Qassam has chosen you to be the next Shalite (sic),” a reference to Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinians.
The message below the photo caption read: Ten years ago, Ismail Ahmed Yassin, our leader, was killed by three missiles as he left a mosque after morning prayers. This is a reminder that we do not forget our Sheikh’s blood on your hands. We vow once again that we will take revenge, and cut off the heads of your commanders.”

They gave stern warnings:
"Missiles killed our Sheikh and now, our missiles will hit every place in the State of Israel. Know that the next war will see the end of your country.” Furthermore, hacked email address of Israel's defense fourm is also sending threating emails to its subscribers. So far Israeli cyber security agencies have been unable to stop these sms.

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Data breach at Seattle Archdiocese affects 90k employees and volunteers

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Hackers breached the database of Seattle Archdiocese and compromised the data belong to thousands of employees and volunteers.

Church conducts a background check for employees and volunteers where they are asked to give their Social Security numbers, which will be stored in a database.

According to reports, this database has been compromised by attackers which reportedly affects more than 90,000 employees and volunteers. 

The Archdiocese has reported the data breach to the FBI and IRS.  A cyber forensic team is trying to determine the source of the breach.

Those who think they might have been affected are advised to contact the IRS identity protection specialized unit.

View the original article here

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25,000 cards data compromised in Sally Beauty data breach

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Earlier this month, Krebs on Security first reported that one of the largest retailers of beauty products 'Sally Beauty' had been hacked.  At the time, the Sally Beauty said there is no card data involved in the breach.

Today, the company confirmed that its network has been breached and fewer than 25,000 credits cards data may have been compromised by attackers. 

“As experience has shown in prior data security incidents at other companies, it is difficult to ascertain with certainty the scope of a data security breach/incident prior to the completion of a comprehensive forensic investigation." Sally Beauty said.

"As a result, we will not speculate as to the scope or nature of the data security incident." the company added.

The company said they will continue to work with Verizon and US secret services on this investigation.  The company is taking necessary actions and precautions.

In the meantime, an unknown hacker defaced a website selling the stolen credit card data and send a message to the admin of the site as well as to Brian Krebs.

" Hi subhumans and miscreants, your fraud site is gone now. Go away.
Also, Krebs, please dont call me a punk on Twatter: im trying to be a good person :(" The defacement page reads.

"To all the people who used this service to blackmail and threaten and "dox" people's families: fuck you especially. To the "regular" fraudsters: fuck you too but slightly less.  To Cloudflare: why in a billion 6000-degree hells is your NS TTL 80000?" 

View the original article here

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