The Hacker News - December 17 2013

Russian Hackers Stole Personal Details of 54 Million Turkish Citizens


The Publicized Hacks, Cyber attacks and Data breaches continue to increase, and the majority of attacks are from outsiders. Recently, Some unknown Russian hackers have reportedly stolen Personal details of nearly 54 million Turkish citizens, about 70% of the whole Turkish population. According to a report published by 'Hurriyet News', Researchers from KONDA Security firm revealed that the hackers have stolen data from a political party's vulnerable system that include Name, ID numbers and address of 54 million voters across the Nation.

Researchers claimed that the hacked system (being used for Database and website Management) did not have any antivirus product installed and voter information was also uploaded online on a vulnerable website. This was really a bad idea, and they mentioned that “in two hours hackers downloaded all the information.” In another statement, they mentioned that some government institutions share citizen’s personal data online with other public and private bodies without ensuring the protection of data. It’s tough to accept, but you cannot protect all data.

Data breaches will keep striking in 2014 also, but we will never know Where, When and How. Attackers are getting smarter, developing new advanced persistent threats, so Data breaches continue to become increasingly sophisticated. It is always important to take steps to enable encryption for Data and Devices, educate and aware the end users about the latest threats and basic necessary actions to protect the key data.

Read more: http://thehackernews.com/2013/12/russian-hackers-stole-personal-details.html


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Judge Ruled - NSA Telephone Metadata Collection Violates the Fourth Amendment


Big and Good news for all of us. A federal court judge 'Richard J. Leon' said that he believes, US National Security Agency’s (NSA) controversial practice of routinely collecting the telephone records of millions of Americans likely violates the 4th Amendment and is unconstitutional, even though the FISA court approved it. Earlier in 2013, a conservative Legal Activist Larry Klayman filed a lawsuit against the US government, alleging that NSA’s massive telephone surveillance program violates the "reasonable expectation of privacy, free speech and association, right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures and due process rights."

NYTimes reported that last Monday in the decision, Judge has ordered [ Case: Klayman v. Obama (13-851) PDF File ] the NSA to stop collecting U.S. Citizen’s Telephone records, and to destroy the files it already holds. This was the first major court ruling about NSA' so-called metadata counter terrorism program after Edward Snowden revealed the massive phone record collection in June.

 Judge Leon said “the Government does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the Government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature.” “Program infringes of ‘that degree of privacy’ that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.” Judge Leon concludes that “the author of our constitution, James Madison…would be aghast.” Senator Rand Paul tweeted, "I applaud U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon for protecting our #FourthAmendment rights". But the judge added, “I hereby give the Government fair notice that should my ruling be upheld, this order will go into effect forthwith.” Edward Snowden statement: “I acted on my belief that the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts.

Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.” A former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted, “If someone discloses a secret govt program that a Federal Court rules violates the Constitution, that person's a whistleblower, right?” The Internet metadata collection was excluded from this ruling because Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had told that domestic collection of Internet metadata had ended in 2011.

Just after this Ruling, President Barack Obama planned to meet bosses of tech giants On Tuesday, including Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter to discuss US spy agency surveillance. “The meeting will also address national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures,” a White House official said. We will post update about this meeting on Wednesday. Stay Tuned.

Read more: http://thehackernews.com/2013/12/judge-ruled-nsa-telephone-metadata.html