Hackers target US government systems

The malicious code behind the attacks was first detected by Prevx on July 5. It appears that the cyber criminals were able to cull 200M bytes information from about 500 computers, including password and login data. Mel Morris, CE of Prevx, said that this was a well-coordinated attack by someone intent on getting information on the related sites. Computers at the US Department of Transportation, American Airlines and DOT contractor Booz Allen Hamilton were compromised. Stolen data was sent to a Web site hosted at Yahoo. As Prevx found \'massive amount\' of job applications on the site used by the criminals it is suspected that victims may have downloaded the malicious software while thinking that they were applying for a job, reports The Washington Post. It is believed that the hackers sent employees fake job listings on adverts and e-mail, which then downloaded malicious programs onto the individual computers. Silicon.com notes that hackers targeted only a limited group of personal computers, which kept traffic down and allowed them to stay under the radar of security experts. Full report in The Washington Post Full Silicon.com report

Staying with data issues: A US government contractor handling sensitive health information for 867 000 US service members and their families has acknowledged that some of its employees sent unencrypted data across the Internet. Air Force investigators are probing the security breach at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), a defence contractor that holds sensitive government contracts, including for information security, notes The Washington Post. The breach was discovered in May and involved data being processed by SAIC under nine health-care data contracts for the military. So far, there is no evidence that personal data have been compromised, but \'the possibility cannot be ruled out,\' SAIC said. Full report in The Washington Post