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FBI issues warrants over pro-WikiLeaks attacks

The FBI is on the hunt for the hackers responsible for a recent wave of cyberattacks launched in defense of WikiLeaks.

FBI agents yesterday executed more than 40 search warrants in the United States as part of their ongoing investigation. Pointing to the group Anonymous, which has taken responsibility for the attacks, the FBI said that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults were facilitated by software the group makes available as free downloads.

Late last year, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and other companies were hit by DDoS attacks triggered by activists in support of WikiLeaks after the companies cut off … Read more

PayPal loses top payment exec to Google

PayPal's Osama Bedier has resigned after eight years at the eBay-owned company and will take a job across town at Google.

In a blog post, Scott Guilfoyle, PayPal's CTO, made the announcement and introduced the new head of the platform team, Matthew Mengerink.

But the departure of Bedier to Google is a big blow to PayPal, considering that both companies are racing to build next-generation payment platforms with a strong mobile component.

Bedier held the title of VP of platform and oversaw PayPal's global payments platform, including mobile.

Mengerink is an internal replacement for the position, having … Read more

Report: Stolen data sold over online black market

Cybercriminals buy and sell stolen information using a vast network of online stores, forums, and even social-networking accounts, according to a report released yesterday by PandaLabs.

Posing as a cybercriminal to gain access to this online black market, PandaLabs researchers uncovered a world where the bad guys work together to buy and sell stolen bank account information, credit card numbers, passwords, and other products. Much of this illegal enterprise is done through online stores and forums, but PandaLabs found criminals using Facebook and Twitter accounts to set up shop as well.

Though this black market is relatively open, the security … Read more

Holiday success makes eBay earnings sparkle

High activity during last month's holiday season, as well as continued strong growth from PayPal, meant that e-commerce giant eBay had some rather nice numbers to report in its 2010 fourth-quarter earnings on today. Revenue was up 10 percent year-over-year if you don't count Skype, which eBay spun off late in 2009, and profits were up 24 percent. Analysts were expecting a profit of 47 cents a share; eBay posted 52 cents.

The company reported "strong holiday shopping momentum" as the year drew to a close, propelled in part by its focus on mobile commerce and … Read more

Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks

The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others, according to a report.

During a December 16 raid, agents seized a server at Tailor Made Services, a Dallas-based co-location, or server-hosting, facility, and copied two of its hard drives, according to The Smoking Gun Web site, which said it has obtained the FBI affidavit in support of a search warrant for the seizure.

It's not clear what was found on the drives, The Smoking Gun reported, saying that … Read more

Amazon: Outage due to hardware not hackers

An outage that took down some of Amazon's European Web sites yesterday was caused by hardware error and not hackers, according to the company.

The online retailer's shopping sites in the U.K, France, Spain, and Germany were down for about half an hour starting around 9:15 p.m. GMT, leading to initial speculation that Amazon had been hit by hackers associated with the pro-WikiLeaks group Anonymous.

But in a statement released to Reuters, Amazon attributed the cause to hardware problems.

"The brief interruption to our European retail sites earlier today was due to hardware failure … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1367: Holding on by an aglet (podcast)

It's a shoestring-and-gum operation around here, and someone took our gum. But somehow, we've got another show for you today, and we're talking more Wikileaks Web warring (WWW3, perhaps?), Google activating 300,000 phones a day, and Apple's refusal to let you donate money via iPhone apps (and weirdly robotic response). --Molly

Subscribe:  iTunes (MP3) |  iTunes (320x180) |  iTunes (640x360) |  RSS (MP3) |  RSS (320x180) |  RSS (640x360)… Read more

WikiLeaks supporters attack MasterCard site

Activists fighting on behalf of WikiLeaks brought down MasterCard's Web site today, according to the BBC and other sources.

The hacking group Anonymous is taking responsibility for a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the credit company's site in retaliation for MasterCard's decision on Monday to block donations and payments to WikiLeaks, which was first reported by CNET.

MasterCard's main site was at times either offline or extremely slow to load this morning. Ping requests to the site also timed out, an indication that the site was unreachable.

Early this morning, the Anonymous group, which … Read more

MasterCard pulls plug on WikiLeaks payments

MasterCard is pulling the plug on payments to WikiLeaks, a move that will dry up another source of funds for the embattled document-sharing Web site, CNET has learned.

"MasterCard is taking action to ensure that WikiLeaks can no longer accept MasterCard-branded products," a spokesman for MasterCard Worldwide said today.

That further limits the revenue sources for WikiLeaks, which has seen its finances systematically attacked in the last few days, as the Swiss authorities shut down a bank account used by editor Julian Assange, and PayPal permanently restricted the account used by the group. WikiLeaks has responded with an … Read more