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Tagged: Hackers

GEEK / TV & Movies

Computer Hacking Rules (as learned from the movies)

Source: io9

1. One of the hackers must take over every channel on TV and deliver a speech that’s like a bad ripoff of a Max Headroom routine. They should scoff at the government, and use the word “sheeple.” Either that, or the hacker should have an underground viral video show that involves crazy stunts and hip hop music.

2. At some point Keanu Reeves must show up. Hopefully with a ton of data implanted in his head and a cyber-dolphin.

3. Every aspect of the plot will be better if you just append the words “virtual” or “cyber” to them. There will be “virtual terrorism” and “cyber war”. References to “e-bombs” a plus. Can you use a firewall to block the virtual terror downloads? Yes!

4. Hacking scenes will involve psychedelic user interfaces that look like something out of an early 1990s music video. Remember, hackers never use command lines. That is boring. Also, something should be controlled by a laser. Every form of physical security will have colorful, 3D interfaces too. There will be touch screens covered in sparkly numbers, retina scans, facial recognition, or holograms.

The Eleven Elite Rules of Movies About Computer Hacking

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News

Hackers threaten to release Symantec source code tomorrow

Source: CNET

The hackers, who call themselves “Yama Tough” and employ the “Anonymous” mask in its Twitter avatar, said in a tweet Saturday it would release the 1.7GB source code on Tuesday, along with the message “the rest will follow…”

Several reports surfaced earlier this month that hackers had managed to access the source code for certain Symantec products. Symantec identified the products as Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 11.0 and Symantec Antivirus 10.2 but said the attack did not affect any current Norton consumer products.

The hackers said they found the code after breaking into servers run by Indian military intelligence. The code was apparently left on there by mistake after Indian authorities inspected the sourced code to ensure it was secure, which is where the hackers found the code.

The group said in a Pastebin post that it had the “source codes of dozens of companies” and contained documentation describing the API procedures for Symantec’s virus definition generation service. The group’s post on the Pastebin site has since been removed, though a Google cached version still exists.

Symantec said in a statement to CNET sister site ZDNet that code posted to Pastebin was related to a 2006 version and is “no longer sold or supported.”

“The current version of Norton Utilities has been completely rebuilt and shares no common code with Norton Utilities 2006. The code that has been posted for the 2006 version poses no security threat to users of the current version of Norton Utilities,” the company said in a statement.

Rob Rachwald, director of security strategy at Imperva, told CNET’s Lance Whitney that the incident was “embarrassing on Symantec’s part” but not likely to “keep the Symantec folks awake too late at night, and certainly not their customers.”

If the source code had been recent and the hackers were able to poke enough holes in it, then exploiting the software could be possible, noted Rachwald. But there’s not much they can learn from old code.