This Week in Getting Hacked: Sony’s Hacking Blockbuster

It seems that every other week, a major company has gotten hacked, or had a data breach, or some other cybersecurity measure. We want to bring this news to you, but since there are SO MANY of them, we’d spend all day just writing about companies getting hacked.

So, we decided to round up all the cybersecurity news and present it to you in one handy little weekly guide. Enjoy, I guess?

Cybersecurity links

-Sony Pictures recently got hacked, and it’s so bad that they’ve had to shut down their systems completely for nearly two days now. Sony was hacked by a group known as the Guardians of Peace, a.k.a the unfortunately-titled-but-completely-unrelated GOP. They are threatening to release sensitive data if their demands are not met, although their demands haven’t been made public. Sony isn’t a stranger to attacks, having their PlayStation Network compromised for a few weeks in 2011.

-According to reports, an unknown government in some country is using software to attack Saudi Arabia and Russia. They’re using software known as Regin, which practically takes control over the whole computer of a victim, and is far worse and far harder to detect than any Trojan virus or other attack. The complexity of the software suggests it was made by people with a lot of resources and knowledge, hence an unknown government.

-Combatting data breaches and hacks is tough business. Former hacker Joanna Rutkowska and her team at Invisible Things Lab in Warsaw, Poland have developed an operating system called Qubes, which is designed to combat hackers. The Qubes OS creates and runs individual virtual machines on the user’s computer, allowing them to quarantine the individual machines. For instance, you can do your browsing on one virtual machine, work on another and so forth, so if you happen to visit a malware filled website on one machine, the rest of your stuff won’t be compromised because it is essentially on a separate computer.

-Ready for the holiday shopping rush? Here’s five ways you’ll get hacked on Black Friday or Cyber Monday (or both). Leave it to BOGO hand towels to completely ruin your life and expose your data.

-Also, as it turns out, your computer doesn’t even have to be connected to the Internet to get hacked. Isn’t that fun? It’s a bug that forces a computer to transmit data through radio waves created by its video processor. NO ONE IS SAFE.

-Do you use WordPress? Most people do, and there’s something you should know: there’s a nearly four year old bug in WP that lets commenters slip a malicious Java script in their comments that would allow them to gain administrator access.

Don’t you feel safer now? Knowing that everything is hackable and there’s no chance for safety really brightens my day, and I hope it does yours.

For more information contact Chris L.