Twitter Account of NBC News Hacked

A group of hackers compromised the NBC News Twitter account yesterday and used it to tweet fake news about a terrorist attack on Ground Zero recalling of the attacks of September 11, 2011.

"Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked. Flight 5736 has crashed into the site, suspected hijacking. More as the story develops," was the first tweet this afternoon. It was followed by two others, including one that started "This is not a joke."

The group also replaced the NBC logo to a comic and modified the 'about' section of the account as well.

NBCNews's Digital Officer Vivian Schiller tweeted confirming that their official account had been hacked, and asked followers not to retweet any of the offending messages:

A group calling themselves the Script Kiddies have claimed responsibility for the hack. The same group previously broke into the Fox News Politics Twitter account to post a bogus announcement about the death of Barack Obama.

A search for the NBC News Twitter profile shortly thereafter displayed the message "This user does not exist."

It's unclear who the Script Kiddies are. The profile for the Script Kiddies--a term used to describe novice hackers--also appeared to have been removed from Twitter.

Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos predicted that account hijinks of this sort would continue to happen until Twitter offered extra security measures for popular profiles.

"Twitter should be applauded for taking such quick action (in suspending the accounts), but isn't it time that there was better security available to accounts which have a large number of followers, or who (like media organizations) may cause public panics if someone breaks in and starts tweeting false news stories about terrorist attacks?" he wrote in a blog post. "I, for one, would like to see Twitter and other social media sites offer an additional level of authentication for those who want to better defend their accounts. I fear that, unless that happens, we will continue to see high-profile accounts hacked and brands damaged as hackers run rings around them."

Review Lync for Mac 2011

Another announcement is made by Software Gaint under which they confirmed that Lync for Mac 2011 is released for manufacturing and I'm Feeling  very honored to share with you,Since the news for this cool software is for long time in software market but finally its confirmed.Microsoft's also confirmed that Lync will be available for mac users in October.

Lync for Mac is included with every purchase of Office for Mac Standard 2011 for your business through Microsoft Volume Licensing and that's great new but we are not here to read on when its going to release or other I added above just because its hottest news of yesterday, but now without wasting  any time lets come to make theme on which whole article is totally based i.e is "Review of "Lync for Mac 2011"

What is Lync For Mac?

Lync for Mac 2011 is another client by software gaint for Lync users on the Mac platform with help of which you get great and awesome integrated functionality for instant messaging, presence, conferencing and voice.

It is basically designed for  Mac users who wants to :

• Control communication costs
• Improve user productivity
• Gain operational efficiencies
• Collaborate effectively

Also their are some cool feature which you are going to get under this beautiful software are discussed below:

•  Edit publish and share document right from Browser
• Windows share point service Support
• Information Right Management
• Get right Message to Right People

You can read more deeply about feature of Lync for Mac 

Some of the services which Mac users are going to get with this beautiful tool are discuss below:

• Instant Messaging And Presence
• Audio And Video conferencing
• Voice Capabilites

You can read more deeply about what you are going to get with  Lync for Mac  

Note: Lync for Mac 2011 is fully compatible with Lync Server 2010 and Lync Online. Some features will not be fully functional with Lync Online including Voice options.

Source and Credits : Mircosofts

You might also like to have Microsoft Lync for Mac tour shown below :

Microsoft promises faster startup for Windows 8, Boots in 8 seconds

Are you the sort of person who prefers to shut your PC down at the end of the day rather than hibernate it or put it to sleep, but do you still want to the system to start up fast? Windows 8 has a new feature that will be of great interest to you.

The feature is called ‘fast startup mode’ and it is a hybrid between a standard cold boot and restoring your PC from a hibernated state. How does it work? Gabe Aul, director of program management in Windows, explains over on the Building Windows 8 blog:

The key thing to remember though is that in a traditional shutdown, we close all of the user sessions, and in the kernel session we close services and devices to prepare for a complete shutdown.

Now here’s the key difference for Windows 8: as in Windows 7, we close the user sessions, but instead of closing the kernel session, we hibernate it. Compared to a full hibernate, which includes a lot of memory pages in use by apps, session 0 hibernation data is much smaller, which takes substantially less time to write to disk. If you’re not familiar with hibernation, we’re effectively saving the system state and memory contents to a file on disk (hiberfil.sys) and then reading that back in on resume and restoring contents back to memory. Using this technique with boot gives us a significant advantage for boot times, since reading the hiberfile in and reinitializing drivers is much faster on most systems (30-70% faster on most systems we’ve tested).

How much faster is this than a standard cold boot? Take a look at this:

Here’s how fast startup is different to a traditional cold boot:

The speed of the handoff between POST and Windows depends on whether the system has a traditional BIOS or the newer Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) … so watch out for the sales pitch for new systems:

One thing you’ll notice in the video was how fast the POST handoff to Windows occurred. Systems that are built using Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) are more likely to achieve very fast pre-boot times when compared to those with traditional BIOS. This isn’t because UEFI is inherently faster, but because UEFI writers starting from scratch are more able to optimize their implementation rather than building upon a BIOS implementation that may be many years old. The good news is that most system and motherboard manufacturers have begun to implement UEFI, so these kinds of fast startup times will be more prevalent for new systems.

And here it is in action:



The notebook used in that video is an EliteBook 8640p (Intel Core i7-2620M, 8GB, 160GB SSD).

Anonymous Releases Twitter Hijack Tool Called URGE

The long promised tool that can be used to hijack tweets was recently released on the Anonymous hacker group's official blog, complete with download links, source files and how-to instructions.

The Anonymous group of online activists released a new tool yesterday designed to allow people to hijack trending topics on Twitter and tweet messages within them.

Dubbed URGE (for Universal Rapid Gamma Emitter), the beta software is available for download for Windows computers and requires .Net Framework 4 to work.

"This is not a hacking tool nor is it an exploit tool," the group said in a statement. "It was created to make it easier for us to tweet faster without copying and pasting constantly."

Anonymous members say they are annoyed with all the redundant and "pop culture" topics featured on Twitter Trends and want to draw more attention to topics that "actually serve a cause."

"We have taken note of why Twitter would not do so, they only trend topics which would 'appeal' to people and can get people to tweet more," the statement says. "This was pathetic in our eyes, and we could not stand by and take it anymore."

URGE will allow people to spread the message of Anonymous--including "bashing corrupt politicians," among other causes--by riding the coattails of trending topics. "This will help raise awareness of problems going on in this world and show people that real problems exist outside of 'Jersey Shore' and 'Sex,'" according to the statement.

15 Tips To Protect Google Adsense Account From Getting Banned

Google Adsense is One of best way to earn some bucks just by placing Advertisement on Blog/website and on youtube video.As it Part of Google it have lots of popularity among the blogger,every user who start a new site just think of one thing that is "How to get Google ads".Since Their are lots of Alternative and Competitors of Google Adsesne which provide same services as Google Adsesne provide but still users love to be part of Google Adsense.

but we are not here to tell you the way to get Google Ads or discussing about alternative of Google Adsense the main motive of this article is to give you some tips to protect your Google Adsense account to get banned,by using you can carry on with your account without any fear of being banned.

So below are some tips and suggestion which you follow to protect your account to get banned:

1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason.

2. Never change the Adsense code.

3. AdSense publishers may place up to three AdSense for content units on one webpage. You may also place a maximum of three link units and two search boxes on each webpage.Don't try to increase this limit

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field.

5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual

6. Add Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default.

8. One Account is sufficient for multiple website.

9. Place ads only on Content Pages.

10. Do not mask ad elements.

11. Do not send your ads by email.

12. Keep track of your content ,No Pornography and gambling content

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing

15. Ensure you Language is Supported

So these are some of the tips which you can use while planning to put advertisement on your blog/website or already using it on your blog/website.if you follow the terms and condition of Google Adsesne and above mentioned tips.I'm sure your account is totally protected from get banned.

How to Use Facebook In Safe Mode Or Securely

You know How to Use Facebook in safe mode or securely if yes then you are Facebook pro but if not then no need to worry read this article carefully.

Facebook is one of best social media which is used all over the world and due to its popularity hackers are very active and try to hack user profile just for fun,so by taking that thing in mine Facebook technical team always try to add some cool feature and security to protect the valuable users who are using this website.

Now to this time Facebook come with something called availability of HTTPS/SSL all the time on the Facebook in which HTTPS means "Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer" which help you to make your account safe while you using this @ public internet access enabled places coffee shops, restaurants, airports, libraries and schools etc.

How HTTPS/SSL Works?

If you enable HTTPS mode in Facebook, that means all the data beginning from the password you type at the login page would be encrypted when it travels between the browser and the Facebook server, offer u more tight security for your stay on Facebook. HTTPS mode is not a new thing their are many other website where this is used like twitter and some other big website,A similar HTTPS/SSL mode is also optional on Gmail and Hotmail.

How to Enable Secure “HTTPS” In Facebook?

For doing this thing you have to follow steps which I'm showing below:

1.Open you "Account setting" page in Facebook then open "Account security".

2.Now you will get option "Secure browsing" HTTPS just select it,as shown below

And you are done ,so next time you Login on Facebook you will get something new in your URL i.e HTTPS.

So enjoy secure browsing on Facebook and don't forget to share you secure experience on Facebook.

How To Change IP Address Of System

An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.You can say that it is nice thing which totally tell you the identity of your internet connection world wide web.IP addresses are binary numbers, but they are usually stored in text files and displayed in human-readable notations, such as 172.16.254.1 (for IPv4), and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:8:1 (for IPv6).

But why I'm giving you lecture on this thing called IP address,basically our article is not based on what is IP address?,so without wasting no second lets talk How to change IP address of your system without doing any thing and all you have to do is just follow the simple step which is discussed below

We all know that Modem is the main source which help our internet to take place now this play a great role in changing IP address of your system all you just have to do is just restart you Modem whenever you want to change your IP address,I guess many few people know about that fact that whenever our modem get restarted we always have different IP address.If you want to confirm that thing then just perform simple steps below;

1.Open whatismyip.com to check What is IP Address of your system and note it.

2.After that Restart the modem again and again open the site and check what you get.

 3.You can repeat again and again this process,you will get different IP every time you restart you Modem.

And you are done ,So next time you want to change you IP address just follow above steps and make it happen.Don't forget to share you experience with me

Nerd'sMagazine Offspring Of Technocage

NerdsMagazine is Tech Blog Which is founded by Me (Viney Dhiman) in 2011 on 6 August 1989.Viney Dhiman is Young Entrepreneur ,Mechanical Engineer,Blogger And Social Media Promoter from Ambala cantt, Haryana ,India.Apart from Blogging , he is a fun loving person. His areas of Interest listening Music,Playing PC games and Billiards.

About NerdsMagazine

NerdsMagazine is daily Magazine for those Nerds who love to read article on Technology.Some Main Categories on which you Explore article on NerdsMagazine are Technology,Gadget,PC Games,Software,Preview ,Review and More.Let we have look @ interface of Nerdsmagazine below

Journey Of NerdsMagazine

Basically I started With Blog Called Technocage which was initially hosted on BlogSpot servers and you all people give me great response by reading mine article and still doing .It consist of more then 190+ article with PR 2 which give some honor to Technocage in bloggers community.But due to some reason I get failed to buy Custom domain for Technocage which led to the formation of NerdsMagazine.

Now I shifted from Blogger to WordPress and getting good experience of blogging

Why Choose NerdsMagazine

I guess we all know the meaning of Nerds of we can say that its word similar to Geeks which explains “A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media” so according to this we all are Geeks and Nerds.So wondering that concept in mine mind i Choose NerdsMagazine.

I know you all people will support mine new website Nerd's Magazine as you supporting Technocage

Malware pretends to be Microsoft Utility

Researchers from PandaLabs have spotted a Microsoft themed ransomware variant.

The ransomware claims that a user's Windows machine is running an unlicensed copy of Windows and threatens to cripple the victim's computer unless marks pay €100 to obtain an unlock code, which can be purchased via credit card via a scam website. The malware attempts to spook intended victims with entirely bogus claims that a criminal prosecution will be launched unless payment is received within 48 hours. In addition, the Trojan says that all data and applications on targeted systems will be "permanently lost".

The malware, which targets German-speaking users (as illustrated by this screenshot), is being distributed via spam and P2P downloads. Panda Software, the Spanish net security firm which detected the threat, warned that the Trojan is difficult to remove manually.

Click on the image to enlarge

"These types of Trojans are very dangerous because once they infect the computer it is extremely difficult to remove them manually, forcing users to pay the ransom or reformat their devices," said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs. "In addition, because Ransom.AN appears to come from Microsoft and threatens actions from authorities, many users believe what the Trojan says and make the payment out of fear."

Previous ransomware strains have encrypted files in a bid to force users into paying for getting infected. The tactics used by Ransom-AN Trojan are a more aggressive extension of the basic scam, using threats of prosecution and outwardly convincing screenshots supposedly from Microsoft to peddle the ruse.

The unlock key for the ransomware currently detected as Ransom.AN is QRT5T5FJQE53BGXT9HHJW53YT

Torvalds dumps Kernel.org for Github after breach

Linus Torvalds has released the most current build of Linux 3.1 via Github, rather than use kernel.org, which is still experiencing downtime.

Torvalds said in a post to LKLM.org that the move was simply a way to put the new code out there, rather than an indictment of the situation at kernel.org, which is still suffering after attackers gained root access to its servers using the Phalanx self-injecting rootkit.

The intrusion wasn’t detected for 17 days and is thought to have infected the systems of senior team members, with users being advised to change their passwords and update SSH keys.

“Master.kernel.org is still down, and there really hasn't been a ton of development going on, so I considered just skipping a week,” Torvalds said.

“But hey, the whole point (well, *one* of the points) of distributed development is that no single place is really any different from any other, so since I did a github account for my divelog thing, why not see how well it holds up to me just putting my whole kernel repo there too?”

Some users may be confused by the new setup, he said, but those who want to check can confirm his signed tags on the site before downloading. That said, there hasn’t been much development on the kernel itself, although dive logs are getting a brush up.

Meanwhile, kernel.org is doing a complete check for any stray malware that may be left on systems around the world, and a full investigation into what happened is ongoing. Torvalds didn’t rule out going back to kernel.org for distribution once the problems are sorted.

How to measure wireless router performance

Are you getting all that you can from your wireless router? How do you know? If you're not getting the same range or throughput as you used to, something may be awry. Here's how to measure your wireless router's performance to make sure that it's running at its best:

Signal strength
To measure signal strength and to identify the active wireless channels around you, we recommend using a program called inSSIDer.

When you launch inSSIDer, you'll notice a list of wireless networks around you, including your own. Each network's signal strength is displayed in the RSSI column. The signal strength is updated in near real-time, so you can actually move around with your laptop to observe fluctuations in signal strength.

Throughput

To measure throughput, download and install a program called QCheck, by Ixia. It's a free download, but you'll have to register to get the download link e-mailed to you.

Install QCheck on two computers--one that's plugged into your router via Ethernet and one on a wireless computer. Each computer with QCheck installed is considered an endpoint. Alternatively, you can install QCheck on just the computer you'll be running the QCheck console on, then install Ixia's Performance Endpoint software on the partner computer.

After starting QCheck, enter the IP address of Endpoint1 (the PC running the QCheck console) and Endpoint2 (the partner PC). Select "Throughput" in the Options section and click the Run button to get your throughput results.

That's it. Your wireless router's signal strength and network throughput measurements will help you confirm whether or not your wireless network is performing as expected. If not, these tools should also help you narrow down the cause.

Whitepapers: Web Application Session Hijacking

Session hijacking is the act of taking control of a user session after successfully obtaining or generating an authentication session ID. Session hijacking involves an attacker using captured, brute forced or reverse-engineered session IDs to seize control of a legitimate user's Web application session while that session is still in progress.

In this whitepapers I will be going into details on how it is been done.

Ubuntu (Oneiric Ocelot) 11.10 Beta 1 Review

Ubuntu 11.10, just released as its first beta differs only slightly in its looks from its 11.04 predecessor – a fact that will be welcome news to penguins still reeling from that earlier version's grand re-boot.

That earlier release shed GNOME 2.x, ignored GNOME 3.0 and set its brand-new Unity interface as the default.

Unfortunately, while the Unity desktop has potential, the initial release was rough enough around the edges that I suggested at the time waiting for a few more releases before embracing it.

While the first beta of 11.10, called Oneiric Ocelot, is also a little rough at the edges and features some curious design decisions, the version of Unity here is more stable and it is faster than the version that shipped with 11.04. In other words, Unity is making progress, albeit slower than many would like.

One of the areas that has seen a considerable makeover in the last six months is Unity's Dash. First and foremost, the Dash button has been moved from the top panel to the Unity launcher and its capabilities have been extended.

For example, there's a new music tab so you can start playing songs directly from Dash. Also, instead of the separate Places search tool, searching for files is now just a tab inside the Dash.

In fact, the whole "Places" metaphor from GNOME has been dumped in favor of what Unity calls "Scopes and Lenses." How the new metaphor makes more sense is anyone's guess, but at least your new "Lenses" have gained a quick filtering ability. For example, instead of searching for "Internet" to find applications that connect to the web, now you can just click the "Internet" filter. Similarly there are filters to refine your searches by date or tag.

The Dash also now has its own window controls, so you can easily maximize or resize it to suit your whim, just like any other window in Unity. The visuals for the Dash have been updated as well, with a new transparency that looks vaguely like Windows 7. In another nice addition, the Dash will now, chameleon-like, automatically shade itself according to your desktop wallpaper.

Interestingly, while Dash gains window controls, full-screen windows have lost them in this release. Or rather the controls and menu items are now hidden and only appear when you mouse over the title bar. It's a small change, but one of those small changes that has people all riled up. In this case I'll side with those that call it unnecessary. If there were space saved, a few pixels even, it might make sense, but it doesn't save any space. As it stands the revamped title bar feels more like change purely for the sake of change than anything a user might call useful.

Muddled menu

Far more useful is the new ALT-TAB switcher, which now displays window previews, even for minimized windows. It's a small upgrade that both looks better and makes it easier to find what you're looking for when you switch windows.

Among the other, smaller visual changes is a new icon for the "shutdown" menu. Designers at Ubuntu's chief steward Canonical have added a small gear icon to the traditional shutdown icon in an attempt, it seems, to give you a hint that in fact the shutdown menu isn't just a shutdown menu. It manages to get the idea across, but doesn't really help the muddled menu beneath it that still can't decide exactly what it wants to be - just a shutdown menu, or something more.

he Software Center continues to improve with this beta, too. This time around it's also much faster thanks to the new GTK 3 backend. Of course it still lacks some of the features found in Synaptic, like the ability to install a specific version of a package. It's also worth noting that, with 11.10, Synaptic has officially been shown the door and is no longer installed by default.

Other apps on the outs include Evolution, which has been replaced with Mozilla's Thunderbird mail app: Thunderbird 7.0 beta one will be the official email client for Ubuntu 11.10. While Thunderbird is in many way much nicer than Evolution there's no denying that it's missing a calendar, which might be a huge stumbling block for some users. There is Lightning, a calendar plugin for Thunderbird, but it isn't installed by default.

The first beta also has something of a bombshell for Ubuntu users who don't like Unity. The option to revert to the GNOME 2.x desktop is now gone. Since 11.10 completes the under the hood upgrade to GNOME 3.0, there is no GNOME 2.x to revert to anymore.

The message of 11.10 seems pretty clear: Unity is here and you're either going to love it or leave it. While Unity is clearly improving - and getting faster - it remains a departure from the old GNOME interface that isn't going to please everyone. If all else fails you can always jump ship to the XFCE desktop, which now counts Linus himself as user.

Free Banking Trojan Detection Tool

A Finnish penetration testing company has released a free tool it says can detect all variants of five major families of malicious software that steal online banking credentials.

The tool, called Debank, was built by Finnish penetration testing company Fitsec, which has used the tool to scan its customers' machines, said company founder Toni Koivunen.

The tool works by scanning a computer's process memory, Koivunen said. Most malicious software these days is "packed," or compressed, before it is distributed. That can fool antivirus programs, since the malware can appear to be a different program each time it is repacked.

Koivunen said antivirus programs often use heuristics as an alternative way to detect malware aside from traditional signatures, but that method is not always as successful as a full memory sweep.

Debank looks at the program after it has been executed on a computer. Malware authors rarely change the core code of the program, which is what Debank analyzes.

Koivunen said Debank can detect nearly all variants of SpyEye, Zeus, CarBerp, Gozi and Patcher, five well-known banking malware programs. The malware has to be running for Debank to detect it and the tool only works on computers running Windows, he said.

Debank was able to detect more than 200 variants of Patcher after FitSec found a part of its code common to all variants. FitSec has also tested it against hundreds of variants of SpyEye, a particularly advanced piece of code that operates as part of a botnet. It can harvest credentials for online accounts and also initiate transactions even while a person is logged into their account.

Fitsec decided to just give the tool away and has made it available for download on their blog. "We had no reason to start charging for it," Koivunen said. "Basically, we hate malware."

Almost 300,000 Iranian IP Addresses Likely Compromised

Close to 300,000 unique IP addresses from Iran requested access to google.com using a rogue certificate issued by Dutch digital certificate authority DigiNotar, according to an interim report by security firm, Fox-IT, released on Monday

The rogue certificate, issued on July 10 by DigiNotar, was finally revoked on Aug. 29.

"Around 300.000 unique requesting IPs to google.com have been identified," Fox-IT said in the report. On Aug. 4 the number of requests rose quickly until the certificate was revoked on Aug. 29. Of these IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, more than 99 percent originated from Iran.

The list of IP addresses will be handed over to Google who can inform users that their e-mail might have been intercepted during this period, Fox-IT said.

Not only the e-mail itself but also a login cookie could have been intercepted, it added. Using this cookie the hacker is able to log in directly to the Gmail mailbox of the user and other services from Google.

"The login cookie stays valid for a longer period," Fox-IT said. It would be wise for all users in Iran to at least logout and login, but even better change passwords, it added.

A sample of the IP addresses outside of Iran during the period were mainly Tor-exit nodes, proxies and other VPN (virtual private network) servers, and almost no direct subscribers, according to the report which analyzed OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) request logs.

Current browsers perform an OCSP check as soon as the browser connects to an SSL (secure sockets layer) website protected through the https (hypertext transfer protocol secure) protocol.

Tor is a distributed anonymous network used by people to prevent being tracked by websites or to connect to instant messaging services and other services when these are blocked by their local Internet service providers.

A total of 531 digital certificates were issued for domains that included google.com, the CIA, and Israel's Mossad,

The list of domains and the fact that 99 percent of the users are in Iran suggest that the objective of the hackers was to intercept private communications in Iran, Fox-IT said.

Google said on Aug. 29 that it received reports of "attempted SSL man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks" against Google users, whereby someone tried to get between them and encrypted Google services. The people affected were primarily located in Iran.

The attacker used a fraudulent SSL certificate issued by DigiNotar which has since revoked it, Google said in a blog post.

Trend Micro, another security firm, said on Monday that domain validation.diginotar.nl was mostly loaded by Dutch and Iranian Internet users until Aug. 30. Domain name validation.diginotar.nl is used by Internet browsers to check the authenticity of SSL certificates that are issued by DigiNotar.

DigiNotar is a small Dutch certification authority with customers mainly in the Netherlands. "We, therefore, expect this domain name to be mostly requested by Dutch Internet users and perhaps a handful of users from other countries but certainly not by a lot of Iranians," Trend Micro's senior threat researcher, Feike Hacquebord, said in a blog post.

From analysis of Trend Micro Smart Protection Network data, the company found that a significant part of Internet users who loaded the SSL certificate verification URL (uniform resource locator) of DigiNotar were from Iran on Aug. 28, but by Aug. 30 most traffic from Iran disappeared, and on Sept. 2 about all of the Iranian traffic was gone.

It became public in the evening of Aug. 29 that a rogue *.google.com certificate was presented to a number of Internet users in Iran, according to the Fox-IT report. The false certificate had been issued by DigiNotar and was revoked that same evening.

The security firm was contacted the next day and asked to investigate the breach and report its findings before the end of the week.

Fox-IT's report indicates that the initial compromise at DigiNotar may have occurred on June 17. DigiNotar noticed the incident on June 19 in its daily audit procedure but doesn't appear to have done anything about it. The company could not be immediately reached for comment.

The first rogue certificate *.google.com, was issued on July 10. All the other rogue certificates were issued between July 10 and July 20.

The hack implies that the current network setup and procedures at DigiNotar are not sufficiently secure to prevent this kind of attack, Fox-IT said. The most critical servers, for example, contain malicious software that can normally be detected by anti-virus software. The separation of critical components was not functioning or was not in place, it added.

Facebook deletes hacked Pages, ruins years of hard work

Businesses and individuals using Facebook Pages are getting booted off their fanpage with no way back on, and it's costing some of them money.

Typically, the administrator tries to access the Page, only to discover that someone else has managed to get admin privileges and then deleted their admin status.

Because they are no longer an admin of the Page, they have no standing with Facebook and no way of getting rid of the usurper and are usually told by the social network that the only option they have is to report it as "infringing or violating their rights" so that it will be deleted. But for many users, this is a difficult option to swallow after months, or even years, spent building up their fanbase.

Ali Naqvi, owner and director of 123vouchercodes.co.uk, lost his Page around three months ago at great cost to his business. He had 6,000

"We had 6,000 fans who were genuine followers interested in our updates and clicking away. The clicks brought in about 10 to 15 per cent traffic every month," he said. "My webpage does about 50,000 unique visits a month – it's not huge, but at the same time, whatever traffic is there, 10 to 15 per cent is a big chunk of that."

After months of trying to get help from Facebook, Naqvi has resorted to starting a new Page, but it's not a solution he's happy with.

"I've actually started a new Page already, but the take-up is slow," he said. "I spent two years building the 6,000 fan base and I've just started now so it's only a couple of hundred on there. It's not the same, it's not going to bring the same amount of traffic."

Many users believed that the original creator of the Page could never be removed as administrator, as stated in its own help pages, but Facebook denies this.

A Facebook spokesperson said that original administrators could be removed, adding that this had benefits for businesses because they could delete people who had left the company.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos Security, said this presented serious risks for businesses using Pages.

"I'm sure there are many people who run Facebook Pages who take the help page's word [on original creators] at face value, and believed it to be a safety net should anything ever go wrong. I certainly believed it to be true, which is why I was so surprised when I tested it for myself to find how simple it was to kick out the original admin," he said.

Without that safety net, someone outside the company could convince an administrator to give them access for marketing purposes or some other service and then take control of the Page, or any legitimate additional admins could have their computer hacked, resulting in everyone getting kicked off the Page, Cluley added.

"If you run a Page with a lot of fans that's a big problem – both for the fans (who might receive spam, malicious messages etc) and for your firm's brand," he said.

Other users who have lost their Pages have taken to the forums to vent their frustration at the lack of help from Facebook, and at the oft-quoted phrase from company that Pages "cannot be hacked".

The spokesperson also said that Facebook Pages could not be hacked and said the only way they could be taken over was if the email and password login were found out somehow, for example through phishing – which might be a little too much like splitting hairs for a lot of users.

"As long as the current administrators of a group keep their login details secure, keep their account enabled, and do not allow any suspicious people to become admins, then the group or Page will remain secure," Facebook said.

Naqvi said he had little interest in how his Page was hacked, but he wondered why, if a hacker had his Facebook login details, they hadn't taken over his profile along with his Page.

Facebook's spokesperson also said the site had a "host" of advanced tools to help people stay in control of their accounts, including login notifications, which let you save the devices you use to access your account, and "recent activity", where you can look at your recent activity and remotely close open sessions.

"Unfortunately, Facebook is not able to reinstate people as an admin for any group or page so, as always, we advise people to practice good online security," they said.

But Cluley said he didn't understand why it should be difficult for Facebook to reinstate original admins.

"After all, they presumably have a log of who originally created a page," he said. "Even if they aren't prepared to put in a system to do that – why can't they code Facebook to do what its help pages say it will do? Either block attempts to remove the original admin, or send a request to the original admin asking if they agree to be removed from their administrator role."

That would surely help prevent hijacks like this one taking place.

Turkish hacking group defaces UPS, TheRegister and others

A number of high profile websites was compromised yesterday by a DNS hack. Among the list are The Register one of the largest british news sites, Telegraph and Ups.com where access to them was redirected to third-party webpages.

Paul Mutton, a web security tester managed to get a screenshot of what visitors to The Register saw:

Part of the message reads:

TurkGuvengligi

"Gel Babana"

HACKED

"h4ck1n9 is not a cr1m3"

"4 Sept. We TurkGuvenligi declare this day as World Hackes Day - Have fun ;) h4ck y0u"

The phrase "Gel Babana" is Turkish for "Come to Papa", and "Guvenligi" is Turkish for "Security".

Further websites which have been affected by the DNS hack include National Geographic, BetFair, Vodafone and Acer.

It's important to note that the websites themselves have *not* been hacked, although to web visitors there is little difference in what they experience - a webpage under the control of hackers.

Instead of breaching the website itself, the hackers have managed to change the DNS records for the various sites affected.

The affected sites' name servers, which govern the Internet address that corresponds to a site's name, have been changed to ns1.yumurtakabugu.com and ns2.yumurtakabugu.com.

The Register tweeted "A DNS hijack, we think [...]. We have shut down access / services as a precaution."

Because of the way DNS works, these changes are currently propagating throughout the global DNS system, and those attempting to access the original sites may find disruption for between three and 24 hours. Different ISPs will vary in if and when they accept the fakes and the consequent valid updates.

Those who are registered with the sites and normally expect to be automatically logged in should clear browser cookies before attempting to access them, as there is a risk that authentication information sent from the browser may be intercepted. Email to the sites may also be disrupted or intercepted.

UPDATE: Three hours after the attack, both The Daily Telegraph and the Register have had their proper name server entries restored, but as i said earlier it will take some time for the proper information to replate the diversions across the global DNS.

We will publish more information as it becomes available. If you prefer, follow me at @prohackingtricks on Twitter for the latest news.