Hacktivist Anonymous claimed New Attack on Biotech Giant Monsanto. According to a new message posted on their source Anon has renewed its campaign against the Monsanto corporation.

"Operation End Monsanto is still very much up and running.  Pwnage will continue indefinitely,"read Anonymous' opening statement. Continuing: "First Victim: Bivings Corporation. Bivings Corp is(was) a PR firm of 15+years that worked with some very high profile clients, Monsanto used them heavily." Later said Anonymous. As well as defacing Bivings' website, the hackers also released data containing "hundreds" of emails and a number of alleged Monsanto documents.

Anonymous Press Release:-

"Operation End Monsanto is still very much up and running.  Pwnage will continue indefinitely.
First Victim: Bivings Corporation
Bivings Corp is(was) a PR firm of 15+years that worked with some very high profile clients, Monsanto used them heavily.  
PEW PEW PEW
bai
admin@dev-monsantouk.bivings.com
PASSWORD: surekha1
dev-monsantouk.bivings.com/admin "Maintain Monsanto Documents"
http://devmonsantouk.bivings.com
Site Database hacked/dumped
hundreds of emails stolen viewable on i2p eepsite (opmonsanto satori wiki)
Database of Monsanto documents acquired by Anonymous
Servers rooted
Site hacked:

TANGO DOWN: Permanently
http://devmonsantouk.bivings.com
1 week after we pwned them:
"Our Cyber Infrastructure has recently been put under attack.  We are evaluating the extent of the intrusion, and apologise for any downtime and issues this may cause you.  It is not yet determined what the motives behind the attack are, or what, if any data has been compromised.  We will continue to keep you up to date, and sicerely apologise for any inconvenience."
A few days later:
"The Bivings Group Hands Over the Reins to The Brick Factory"
Bivings corp shuts down all servers, liquidates assets, and some former employees move on to start a new company, "The brick factory".
This is after 15+years of running marketing campaigns and helping some of the most corrupt corporations on the planet, as well as several governmental agencies, cover up their dirt.
We accidently  the entire Bivings Group Corporation
That is how you do it, gentlemen.
Also
Random  database of Monsanto employee's/associates, and others.  Can be used for SE:

you can download the the database of Monsanto by Clicking Here

The Nishna Valley Family YMCA executive director Dan Hayes said hackers stole $54,000 from the organization's checking account through an undetected virus. FBI said it is investigating a cyber attack that targeted an Iowa YMCA. 

Haynes said the hackers used the virus to read their banking information. Information technology experts said it's not a new type of attack, but it's definitely destructive. Experts said the virus most likely spread through an email disguised as business-related.

Information technology specialist Jim Burnette said he's seen it before. "They go through all of their logs that they get back and pick out the username and password URL of the bank. They go in and set up fund transfers to various banks across the country," Burnette said.

Burnette said the virus isn't new but is defying authorities and protection software. The organization said the loss is taking a huge toll and that its group is already dipping into its savings in order to stay alive."This summer, we were going to buy 10 treadmills. Well, that's treadmills we can't buy because the money isn't here," Hayes said.

YMCA members said they are worried that their personal information was accessed through the hacking."I was very shocked and worried," said a YMCA member. The YMCA sent out letters to members informing them of the breach. It said there is still no evidence personal accounts were accessed. 

"We have a lot of volunteers that come out help us every year to raise money for scholarships and things like that. It's kind of disheartening when people take that kind of money," Haynes said. Experts advised that to avoid such incidents, people must get good virus protection software and update it daily. They said people should not also open emails from people or businesses they don't know or messages they aren't expecting.

Everyday when you open lkhackers.blogspot.com you see lost of hacks, defacement, data breached, server rooted, database hacked, information leaked and so on and on. Here is some summary where all the recent attacks ware covered. If 2011 was “the year of the hack,” as it was dubbed by Richard Clarke, former White House cyber-security czar

Defense contractors, government agencies, and other public and private organizations reported network breaches where attackers stole intellectual property, financial data and other sensitive data. Hacktivist groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec demonstrated how much damage they can cause large organizations by employing fairly well-known techniques against the application layer. 

What’s the security outlook for 2012? 

It’s appears gloomy, as security experts warn that cyber-attackers will target applications, mobile devices and social networking sites. There will be more social engineering as attackers research victims beforehand to craft even more targeted attacks.

2011 was a year in transition, David Koretz, CEO of Mykonos Software, told, the year when sophisticated Web application attacks came of age. Before, people were talking about the threat to Web applications but were unable to quantify the problem. “2011 is the year people started caring about Web security for the first time,” Koretz said

Attackers targeted applications through SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks to get access to sensitive data, said Lori MacVittie, senior technical marketing manager at F5 Networks. There are more kits and exploit tools released that exploit certain vulnerabilities, making it easier for even less skilled attackers to launch sophisticated attacks. There will be more of these tools in 2012, she said.

Social media has become more ubiquitous. Forrester estimated 76 percent of enterprises allow some access to social networking sites from within the corporate networks,  and 41 percent allow“unfettered access” to these sites. Many of the data breach and cyber-attack headlines in 2011 were social engineering attacks that exploited email and the Web as an attack vector, according to Rick Holland, a Forrester analyst.

Attacks against social network sites accounted for only 5 percent of total social engineering attacks in Verizon’s 2011 Data Breach Investigations Report. Forrester expects this number to “increase significantly” in 2012, Holland said.

Malware for mobile platforms grabbed headlines in 2011, starting with Google removing apps infected with DroidDream malware from Android Market and then remotely removing them from user devices.

Malware developed for mobile platforms exploded in volume and sophistication, according to Juniper Networks’ Global Threat Center. Criminals released a mobile version of the Zeus Trojandesigned to intercept security controls used for online banking for several mobile platforms.Many users were infected with malware that turned their smartphones into zombies participating in a botnet without their knowledge.

Mobile device adoption is on track to reach 60 million tablets and 175 million smartphones in the workforce by 2012, according to Forrester. The majority of users will not be using these devices secured within the corporate environment as they will be working from home offices, public hotspots and third-party networks.

Organizations will increasingly shift their content security operations to the cloud to better protect mobile users. Security professionals have to adapt quickly to multiple mobile form factors and evolving threats from sophisticated malware and social networks, Holland said. 

About 12 different Chinese groups largely directed by the government there, do the bulk of the China based cyber attacks stealing critical data from U.S. companies and government agencies, according to U.S. cyber security analysts and experts. US online security companies are suggesting that it should have the right to force them to stop "by any means possible".

Sketched out by analysts who have worked with U.S. companies and the government on computer intrusions, the details illuminate recent claims by American intelligence officials about the escalating cyber threat emanating from China. And the widening expanse of targets, coupled with the expensive and sensitive technologies they are losing, is putting increased pressure on the U.S. to take a much harder stand against the communist giant.

The report states that many of the attacks carry tell-tale signatures of particular hacking groups being tracked by intelligence and cybersecurity teams in the U.S., contrary to many expert opinions which indicate that accurate attribution is nearly impossible if the attackers are savvy enough.

James Cartwright, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who advocates for increasing measures to hold China and other nation-states responsible for intrusion operations, said that "industry is already feeling that they are at war."

"Right now we have the worst of worlds. If you want to attack me you can do it all you want, because I can't do anything about it. It's risk free, and you're willing to take almost any risk to come after me," said Cartwright.

Cartwright believes the U.S. should be aggressive in their response to attacks that originate overseas, in essence establishing that "if you come after me [the U.S.], I'm going to find you, I'm going to do something about it. It will be proportional, but I'm going to do something... and if you're hiding in a third country, I'm going to tell that country you're there, if they don't stop you from doing it, I'm going to come and get you."

The government "needs to do more to increase the risk," said Jon Ramsey, head of the counter threat unit at the Atlanta-based Dell SecureWorks, a computer security consulting company. "In the private sector we're always on defense. We can't do something about it, but someone has to. There is no deterrent not to attack the U.S."

According to experts, the malicious software or high-tech tools used by the Chinese haven't gotten much more sophisticated in recent years. But the threat is persistent, often burying malware deep in computer networks so it can be used again and again over the course of several months or even years.The tools include malware that can record keystrokes, steal and decrypt passwords, and copy and compress data so it can be transferred back to the attacker's computer. The malware can then delete itself or disappear until needed again.

For the first time, U.S. intelligence officials called out China and Russia last month, saying they are systematically stealing American high-tech data for their own economic gain. The unusually forceful public report seemed to signal a new, more vocal U.S. government campaign against the cyberattacks.

 

         

          

A worm spreading via Facebook infects victims with a variant of the dangerous Zeus Trojan. The attack, which was first found by researchers at CSIS in Denmark, spreads via phony posts from an infected Facebook user's account that pretends to contain photos.
Like previous Facebook scams, it uses stolen account credentials to log in and then spam the victim account's "Friends" with the malicious posts. While a screenshot of the file appears to have a .jpg suffix, it's really a malicious screensaver file, according to Jovi Umawing, a security expert at GFI Software.

"The worm is also found to have anti-VM capabilities, making it useless to execute and test in a virtual environment, such as Oracle VM VirtualBox and VMWare." If you are using any virtual machine then it will infect your current OS.

Facebook has blocked the offending domains spreading the Trojan. "We are constantly monitoring the situation and are in the process of blocking domains as we discover them. We have internal systems in place configured specifically to monitor for variations of the spam and are working with others across the industry to pursue both technical and legal avenues to fight the bug," a Facebook spokesperson says. 

"Facebook is built to easily allow people to share pictures, videos, and other content -- and people trust what they are receiving from their friends," says Mike Geide, senior security researcher at Zscaler ThreatLabZ Malware. "[For example], this recent example can take advantage of the sharing mechanisms and user's trust of their friends within social networking."