Cyber Attack, Hacking | featured news

Faced with growing fears of potentially crippling cyber attacks and not enough skilled technicians to combat the threat, the Defense Department has launched a massive recruitment drive that's tapping an unlikely group: computer hackers. The Pentagon plans to dramatically boost the ranks of U.S. cybersecurity forces, expanding its number of cyber warriors more than five-fold, the Washington Post reported Sunday. But that strategy immediately confronts a critical shortage of those with the required skills.

The Department of Homeland Security says despite some fixes to Java, it continues to recommend users disable the program in their Web browsers, because it remains vulnerable to attacks that could result in identity theft and other cyber crimes.

Several NBC websites were hacked on Sunday by a person or group calling itself "pyknic" and suggesting a possible link to the cyber-attack group Anonymous.

Hackers are bombarding the world's computer controlled energy sector, conducting industrial espionage and threatening potential global havoc through oil supply disruption.

Porn, violent images and other graphic pieces of content are spreading across Facebook in what appears to be a widespread and ugly spam attack.

Cyber-attacks by Chinese and Russian intelligence services, as well corporate hackers in those countries, have swallowed up large amounts of high-tech American research and development data, and that stolen information has helped build their economies, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded.

Sony chief executive Howard Stringer said that the company has largely recovered from the cyberattacks that hit it last spring, and is actually seeing some growth on its PlayStation network.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday arrested 16 people on charges they participated in major cyber attacks, including an attempt to cripple eBay's PayPal website as retribution for dropping WikiLeaks as a client.

The FBI today raided several homes in New York and California as part of an ongoing investigation into recent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks allegedly launched by members of the Anonymous hacking group.

The International Cyber Security Protection Alliance has been set up to fight cybercrime on a global scale.