Today’s Cyberthreats: Hacked Printers, Government Tracking
Each weekday, TechNewsDaily’s colleagues at SecurityNewsDaily give us a roundup on what’s worrying the guardians of cyberspace. Here’s what’s happening today.
PRINT ME A HACK: Two researchers plan to demonstrate separate methods of hijacking networked printers at this week’s ShmooCon hacking conference in Washington, D.C. The hacks are said to give intruders access to internal corporate printers, and even use linked printers as surreptitious storage.
IT’S ALL ON FILE: Powerful congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R, Wis.) plans hearings to discuss the merits of legislation that would force Internet service providers to keep long-term records of ordinary users’ online activities for possible later use by police and other government agencies.
SCHOOL’S OUT: The script kiddies at 4chan had fun last week with a New Jersey school system after someone posted the school network’s administrative password. One joker raised the price of school lunches to $9,000, among other pranks.
STEALING JUNK: A wide analysis of files available on BitTorrent websites shows that 25 percent of the purported movies, TV shows, songs and software are fakes. Most were planted there by the recording and movie industries, but some are malware.
RE-GIFTING: A British man says he’s out $1,500 after someone hijacked his iTunes account and sent out hundreds of “gift” credits to parties unknown. He’d made the mistake of setting up iTunes to directly bill his credit card rather than drawing from a fixed preset amount.
- Government Regulations Needed to Solve Online Privacy Battle
- Online Privacy Masks 'Beauty of the Internet,' Prof Says
- Security and Privacy Software Review
