There are about 18,855 law enforcement agencies working in the US. The computer crime data that has been compiled by the FBI shows that about 64 cases of hacking have been registered in the country. This data was provided by 189 agencies that are in direct collaboration with the FBI. It is worth mentioning that the data is based on both old styled UCR and the new NIBRS.

The actual figure at the NIBRS section of the FBI website is staggering and it shows that in 2017 6191 incidents of crimes against property have been committed out of which 64 are classified as hacking. For detailed information, it is advised to visit the NIBRS website and filter the results according to the Law Enforcement Agency Types to get a clear view of the situation.

Kenneth Currin has been arrested by the Feds and the hacker is the alleged developer of malicious Satori Botnet malware. He has been charged with Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for causing damage to the number of systems. In addition to all this, the malware also affected about 500,000 routers from all over the world scanning the hardware to collected confidential user information.

His full name and address were published online by his rivals and this made it too easy for the Feds to nab him. Some specialists are of the view that he used his home IP which became a major cause of his arrest and the story of name publishing is just a hoax. Kenneth lives with his father and suffers from Asperger Syndrome.

The private companies have been hired by the US government to develop the hacking tools that can be used by the Feds to track and take down criminals. The department is also working rigorously to develop tools that would track the internet history, communications and even sensitive data like personal files.

It will make sure that tactics are developed to nab the internet based criminals well before they commit any crime. The FBI has also invested about $1 million to develop and source hacking software that will read the data even if the phones are locked. The users, on the other hand, are not communicated with facts that to what extent will such technologies work.

The optical scan ballot papers and the electronic voting machines are all vulnerable to hacking. This could affect the midterm elections that are planned for November 6^th this year. The number is not one or two but thousands of machines are vulnerable and this can leave the experts devastated once the incident happens. The optical scan ballot machines are also not safe and the problem is the USB ports that are attached.

The states have not upgraded the election hardware kudos to budget cuts and constraints. The Defcon conference also demonstrated the hack of electronic voting machines within 15 minutes leaving the experts baffled. The system is vulnerable and only time would tell how effectively it performs during crises of any kind.

Park Jin has been charged by the US government to conspire against the biggest corporations in the USA namely Sony. The company suffered a data breach in 2014 and now the US has also blamed the Reconnaissance General Bureau of the North Korea for the activity. The hackers don’t live or operate from North Korea.

According to the intelligence reports, some of the operatives live in China while the others live in Malaysia due to better internet access. The notorious Lazarus Group has been created to destabilize the US military networks and the Pentagon by simultaneous attacks from all over the world. North Korea has denied all such claims.

Andrei Tyurin aged 35 has been extradited to the USA under the charges of espionage and computer hacking. The sensitive info of about 100 million customers was published as a result of a single attack that exploited the loopholes in the networks. The financial institutions of the USA suffered the most and the hacker got away with a profit of $18 million.

He is also suspected of operating an illegal online casino with the payment gateways integrated. This was used for the money laundering on behalf of criminal syndicates and illegal pharmaceutical companies from all over the world. The FBI is of the view that extradition of Tyurin is a lesson for those engaged in similar activities.

Skype Vulnerability

Security researchers have discovered a flaw in Skype that could enable hackers to run code on a target system, phish for credentials and crash applications.

According to Zacharis Alexandros, an independent researcher, a bug in Skype was discovered in January, but it has only recently been bought to light following the successful patch of the problem by Microsoft. He dubbed the bug, Spyke.

In a blog post (at time of publication, the article on LinkedIn (also owned by Microsoft) appears to have disappeared – here is a cached page), Alexandros said the problem mainly affected the Windows version of the VoIP application and to mount an attack, a hacker would need local access to the login screen of a running Skype instance.

He said that the vulnerability targets the fact that Skype instance contains an embedded Internet Explorer browser used for authentication purposes. An attacker can circumvent the normal authentication process and abuse the login via Facebook function to fingerprint the Internal Browser (IE), execute code in the context of the Skype process, phish credentials, and over communication traces.

He added that any system using Skype Client 7.31.0.104 and older versions that allow Facebook Login as an option are vulnerable. “Systems that use Skype and are publicly reachable like info kiosks or smart TV appliances, are particularly more attractive than local private systems (PCs) in order to be used for phishing attacks,” he warned.

The researcher also uploaded a video showing a proof of concept where code can be taken from Facebook’s developer site from inside Skype and crash the app. A hacker could also replace the login with a fake one to phish for a victim’s credentials.

The UK’s Foreign Office was targeted by highly motivated and well-resourced hackers over several months in 2016.

• The government has investigated the previously unreported attack that began in April last year. However the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre would not say whether data was
• Research published on Thursday by cybersecurity firm F-Secure suggested the attack was a “spear-phishing” campaign, in which people were sent targeted emails in attempts to fool them into clicking a rogue link or handing over their username and
• To do this, the attackers created a number of web addresses designed to resemble legitimate Foreign Office websites, including those used for accessing
• F-Secure does not know whether the attack was successful. The company says the domains were created by hackers that it calls the Callisto Group, which it says is still active.

Wonga Data Breach Hack ‘affects 245,000 UK Customers’

• The payday loan firm Wonga has suffered a data breach hack which may have affected up to 245,000 customers in the UK.
• The firm said it was “urgently investigating illegal and unauthorised access to the personal data of some of its customers”.
• The information stolen includes names, addresses, phone numbers, bank account numbers and sort codes. The range of information stolen may also include the last four digits of customers’ bank cards – information used by some banks as part of the login process for online accounts.
• Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey, said it was “looking like one of the biggest” data breaches in the UK involving financial information.
• A further 25,000 customers in Poland were also potentially affected. In a statement, the firm said: “We are working closely with authorities and we are in the process of informing affected customers. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
• Wonga said it did not believe the attackers had gained access to users’ loan accounts, but warned them to be vigilant.
• The lender, which provides short-term loans, said it had became aware of the breach last week but at that time thought no data was involved.

InterContinental Hotel Group Breach

• A breach on the card payment systems of a major hotel chain are larger than expected. In February 2017 it was reported that the InterContinental Hotel Group had experienced breaches on 12 of its hotels. IHG are now reporting that many more such breaches at its locations, possibly upwards of a 1000.

• The hotel giant has released a finder tool on its website listing all of the affected IHG locations. The tool shows 50 US states and one location in Puerto Rico. While the full number has not yet been counted, Brian Krebs, the investigative journalist who first broke the story, reckons that there could be more than 1000 locations affected.

• IHG runs over 5000 hotels across 100 countries and plenty of brands including Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels, making it a major hotelier.

• A statement released on the hotel’s website says that the malware, which infected the hotels’ card payment systems, was identified between 29 September and 29 December 2016.

• The statement adds that “there is no evidence of unauthorised access to payment card data” after 29th December, it still took until March 2017 to ensure that the malware had been completely expunged from the systems.

• The company’s statement notes that many IHG locations had implemented “a point to point encryption payment” solution. Those that had done so before September 2016, were not affected by the breach and many more did so after the breach. The implementation of the solution effectively ended the ability of the malware to steal data.