Showing posts with label International. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Quora Account Has Been Hacked!
Sundar Pichai isn’t going to have a happy start to his week. The CEO of Google’s Quora account appears to have been hacked by a group called OurMine, which previously broke into Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts earlier this month.
The three-man hacker outfit has been posting messages on Quora through Pichai’s account; it’s also connected to his Twitter account and as a result, OurMine was able to publicize their hack to all 508,000 of his followers. The tweets have now been removed, but we’ve got a screenshot.
OurMine has been targeting major tech execs of late, including Spotify’s Daniel Ek. It isn’t clear how the group is gaining access to their accounts, but it likely doesn’t involve system breaches of the social networks their targets have accounts with.
Instead, the group claims that it uses various exploits to pull passwords from celebrities’ browsers.
OurMine is attempting to rebrand itself as a ‘security firm' and offering its support to those it targets so that these incidents don’t occur again. It’s probably not the best way to garner your potential customers’ trust, but that’s the way OurMine seems to enjoy doing business.
We’ve contacted Google, Quora and OurMine for comment and will update this post if there’s a response.
OurMine has been targeting major tech execs of late, including Spotify’s Daniel Ek. It isn’t clear how the group is gaining access to their accounts, but it likely doesn’t involve system breaches of the social networks their targets have accounts with.
Instead, the group claims that it uses various exploits to pull passwords from celebrities’ browsers.
OurMine is attempting to rebrand itself as a ‘security firm‘ and offering its support to those it targets so that these incidents don’t occur again. It’s probably not the best way to garner your potential customers’ trust, but that’s the way OurMine seems to enjoy doing business.
“We are just testing people security (sic), we never change their passwords, we did it because there is other hackers can hack them and change everything.”
The group also noted that it managed to break into Pichai’s account by exploiting a vulnerability in Quora’s platform – one that it claims to have reported to the company, with no response.
Naturally, if you’re on Quora, you’ll want to change your password right away and make sure it isn’t the same as what you for other services.
We are confident that Sundar Pichai’s account was not accessed via a vulnerability in Quora’s systems. This is consistent with past reports where OurMine exploited previous password leaks on other services to gain access to accounts on Twitter or Facebook. We also have no record of a report by OurMine pointing to a vulnerability. We recommend that people use unique passwords for accounts on different services, so that a security breach on one service does not lead to attackers gaining access to accounts on other services. Safeguarding our users is very important to us, which makes security at Quora one of our highest priorities.
Image Source: www.google.co.in
Sunday, 17 April 2016
Chetan Bhagat's Open Letter to Kashmiri Friends (the ones who don’t like India)
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Dear Kashmiri friends (the ones who don’t like India),
I write in this open forum because something terrible is happening in the Kashmir Valley. The recent events at NIT Srinagar only brought the situation to national attention. Some students burst crackers when India lost the T20 semi-final. Many students were beaten for raising the Indian flag. Thereafter, bloody clashes have broken out in north Kashmir.
I understand that there is little pro-India sentiment amongst locals in the Kashmir Valley. Many would rather the Valley be on its own, some wouldn’t even mind being with Pakistan. I will not judge you. Despite being a patriotic Indian, i won’t hold it against you if you hate India. You must and do have your reasons for it.
However, allow me to present another point of view. Allow me to tell you how your future will be best, on a practical basis, if the Kashmir Valley integrates and assimilates with India. This is not an emotional, political or historical argument. It is simply more rational for people in the Kashmir Valley who seek a better future to do it with India.
Sure, the experts will jump on me now. Experts who have made the Kashmir problem their fiefdom. However, if the problem were indeed solved, how will these people stay relevant? Hence, they always attack any solution with their elitist ‘this is too complicated an issue’ stance. They love complicated. It gives them another conference to attend. You suffer with complicated, as the problem never gets solved.
The issue is complicated for sure. For those who don’t know the Kashmir issue, here it is in a nutshell. India became independent. Princely states were assimilated. Jammu & Kashmir didn’t accede. Pakistan attacked Kashmir, took half of it (and still controls it). Kashmir’s ruler called India for help. In return for help J&K became part of India, but with riders.
J&K would have its own constitution, have more political independence than other states, while the Centre would handle defence, foreign affairs and communications. In theory, it was a good solution, a sort of one country, two systems approach. In reality, it never worked.
Instead of two parents as planned, J&K became nobody’s child and an orphan. Pakistan took advantage and used the common factor of Islam to start a militant movement. The Indian army tried to control it. However, it is difficult to control terrorism that co-exists with a civilian population (case in point: even the world’s superpowers appear unable to control Islamic State).
Hence the Indian army, and India, only got a bad name in the Valley. Thus the ‘we hate India’ slogans and perennially unsolved Kashmir problem.
The question is, what is a Kashmiri youth to do now? First, it is important for everyone, not just Kashmiris, to understand the area and people involved. The J&K map we see in Indian textbooks is far from what exists on the ground. Half of what we see in the map is taken over by Pakistan and China. Even though India may claim it, unless we are okay with heavy civilian casualties (which we are not), we will never get it.
Hence, let’s just focus on the half under Indian control, which can be divided into three areas: Ladakh, Jammu and the Valley. Most of the trouble is in the Kashmir Valley. This is only around 7% of the area Indians see on the J&K map and approximates the size of Manipur. In terms of people it is 7 million, roughly the population of Chennai.
The terrain is rugged and the area is completely landlocked. Even if we were to indulge the argument that India is a terrible country and so Kashmir Valley should be on its own, can you really build a sustainable country out of it? It will be a tiny stub in a troubled area, abused by both India and Pakistan. With no real economy and extreme dependence on its giant neighbours, it risks becoming a cesspool of terrorism, drugs and smuggling.
There is also a risk of its being taken over by fundamentalist Islamic forces. It is unlikely anybody from outside would invest money in such a dangerous place. There would be no jobs and no safety. Would you want to live there? Ditto if it joins Pakistan. India is seen as a major emerging market economy. Pakistan is not even seen as a real economy.
Another issue is women’s rights. Half of the Valley’s people are women. Given the hold of fundamentalist Islam, their rights would be curbed under both the independence and Pakistan options. This half of the population would be better off with India. Or do what women want not matter?
If you are Kashmiri and care for Kashmir, the best thing you can do is to integrate with India. Your population size is small, only 7 million. It is not unthinkable to unite them and create a group of people that talks real business with the Indian government. Your local politician won’t talk assimilation, as he or she would rather hold more power than a typical state government in India. However, for you, the youth, the best bet is to make the Valley truly part of India.
The rest of India should not ask for the removal of Article 370. The 7 million people in the Valley should. Kashmiri Pandits who were made to leave the Valley need to be brought back. Terrorism is no solution, nor revenge and retribution for Indian atrocities. Terrorism is only going to harm people in the Valley most.
So, it is youth in the Valley who have to now start a movement to really solve this problem. Get rid of Article 370. It is not empowering Kashmir. It is only empowering your local politicians, who frankly can do nothing for you without Indian integration.
Don’t blame the Indian army. It has the tough job of weeding out terrorists from a civilian population which is almost impossible without collateral damage, terrible as that might be. However, blame those truly responsible, the Pakistani army, the local leaders who exploited the situation and the experts who did nothing for you.
Don’t burst crackers when India loses. Don’t feel good when India fails.
Because if India fails, you will fail too.
Jai Hind. Jai Kashmir.
Image: www.google.co.in
Thursday, 19 November 2015
Cyber War: Anonymous Publishes Three Guides To Teach You “How To Hack” And Fight ISIS
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Encouraging the people to join the cyber-war against ISIS, hacktivist Twitter bot to uncover social media accounts of ISIS, and learning how to hack using a “NoobGuide”
The war between the hackers and terrorists is escalating quickly in the wake of the recent Paris attacks. In the short time frame of past two days , Anonymous hacktivist group has declared an open war on ISIS. In response, ISIS was quick to retaliate and called Anonymous ‘idiots’ who just know how to ‘hack email and Twitter accounts’.
In another development, Anonymous has released a series of guides urging the people to take part in their biggest ever operation called #OpParis. The guides include how-to instructions that tell the ways to hack the ISIS-affiliated websites and social media accounts.
The rivalry of ISIS and Anonymous dates back to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January. Anonymous has continued its attacks on ISIS and already exposed more than a thousand Twitter accounts. To train and bring the newer generation of hacktivists , Anonymous has released three how-to guides.
These guides were posted on an IRC channel and Anonymous encouraged everyone to join this war against ISIS regardless of their computer skills.
The three hacking guides include, a “NoobGuide” for the people willing to learn how to hack and a “Reporter” guide explaining how to deploy and set up a Twitter bot for unmasking Islamic State accounts. The third guide is basically a “Searcher” guide for finding ISIS-affiliated websites.
An anonymous member, posting the guides to IRC, states: “There should be plenty of work to keep you occupied so get going. If you wish to submit anything of value, place your findings on ghostbin.com and share to the link to one of the channel operators and we can talk about what to do next.”
These guides have detailed instructions on how to carry out a cyberattack against ISIS websites using DDoS attacks and MITM (Man in the Middle) attacks.
Here are the instructions mentioned by Anonymous for finding ISIS-related website (thanks to IBTimes):
- Get Python at https://www.python.org/downloads/ unless you already have it (Mac does)
- Open Terminal (or Command Prompt for Windows) and type (without quotes) “python”
- Now, this step requires a little explanation. Let’s set this out neatly, shall we…
- Copy the contents of the following link to your clipboardhttps://ghostbin.com/paste/oo4tb
- The contents of that link are some search terms that relate to ISIS and their content, allowing you to narrow down the results to specific ones
- Paste the strings into the Terminal and press Enter
- Choose a couple of strings (3 recommended) from the list of strings. For this example, we will use strings 3+38+46
- Once chosen, continue in terminal (without quotes) “print
( str3+str38+str42)” and copy the results
- Paste the results in https://www.google.iq and analyze the new results To translate pages, it is recommended to use Google Chrome, which has integrated translation
- Submit any valid ones to one of the channel operators and we will deal with the info accordingly
#HackISIS #ISIS #Anonymous #AnonymousVsISIS
Source: IBT
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Tuesday, 17 November 2015
'France is at war with ISIS,' President Francois Hollande says after Paris attacks
Paris (CNN):
Declaring th at "France is at war with ISIS," President Francois Hollande on Monday proposed sweeping new laws and more spending on public safety in response to Friday's terror attacks in Paris -- promising to eradicate terrorism, but not at the expense of his country's freedom.
At the same time, ISIS threatened the United States that it could be next.
"I swear to God, as we struck France in its stronghold Paris, we will strike America in its stronghold, Washington," an ISIS fighter declared in a video released Monday.
The speech, and ISIS' latest threat, came as police scoured France and Belgium in a hunt for suspects in Friday's brutal attacks, which left at least 129 dead and 352 wounded.
Hollande calls for new laws:
In a rare speech to a joint session of parliament, Hollande urged lawmakers to approve a three-month extension of the nation's state of emergency, new laws that would allow authorities to strip the citizenship from French-born terrorists and provisions making it easier to deport suspected terrorists.
He also proposed adding 5,000 positions to the country's national paramilitary police force and said he would not propose cuts in the nation's defense spending until at least 2019.
He said France would intensify its attacks on ISIS and called for a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss the worldwide threat posed by the group.
"We are not committed to a war of civilizations, because these assassins don't represent any civilization," Hollande said. "We are in a war against terrorism, jihadism, which threatens the whole world."
"Terrorism will not destroy France, because France will destroy it," Hollande said.
French jets bomb ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria; few may have been killed
#ISIS #WarWithISIS #FranceWarWithISIS
Image Source: www.google.co.in
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