An Army private suspected of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks was admonished as a trainee in 2008 for uploading YouTube videos discussing classified facilities, according to an Army official with direct knowledge of the incident. Bradley Manning, now 22, was three months into his 16 weeks of training as an intelligence analyst when about 25 of his fellow students got together to report him for the videos in July 2008, says the official, who spoke on …

LAS VEGAS — Attribution is one of the biggest problems on the internet when it comes to cyberwarfare. How do you hold a nation responsible for malicious attacks if you can’t determine whether or not the activity was state-sponsored? Retired General Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency, said on Thursday that one solution being discussed in government is to simply forget about trying to determine if the source of an attack is state-sponsored or not and hold nations responsible for…

LAS VEGAS — Attribution is one of the biggest problems on the internet when it comes to cyberwarfare. How do you hold a nation responsible for malicious attacks if you can’t determine whether the activity was state-sponsored? Retired General Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency, said Thursday that one solution being discussed in government is to simply forget about trying to determine if the source of an attack is state-sponsored and hold nations responsible for malicious activity coming from their cyberspace. His words were greeted with applause from the audience of…

LAS VEGAS — In a city filled with slot machines spilling jackpots, it was a “jackpotted” ATM machine that got the most attention Wednesday at the Black Hat security conference, when researcher Barnaby Jack demonstrated two suave hacks against automated teller machines that allowed him to program them to spew out dozens of crisp bills. The demonstration was greeted with hoots and applause. In one of the …

A federal appeals court has ordered Virginia’s attorney general to back away from threats of suing a privacy advocate who publishes Social Security numbers of elected officials on the internet. The decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means Betty Ostergren avoids being sued by the state’s top law enforcement official for breaching a state law that prohibits publication of such information. The Richmond, Virginia, court, however, stopped short of striking down the law, which was adopted…

LAS VEGAS — A hacker group known as the Ninjas has created what may be the best DefCon badge ever. The badge allows wireless ninja battle between badge holders. Unlike the official badge, attendees can’t buy this one: it’s free. DefCon, the world’s largest hacker convention, is more than just a group of hackers getting together to exchange the latest exploit code and hacking techniques. It’s a time for hackers who may only see one another once a year, to socialize face to face. One of the most exclusive venues for fraternizing at DefCon is the Ninja party. To attend the…

A Ukrainian carder who earned more than $11 million selling credit and debit card data stolen from top U.S. retailers was lured to a meeting in Turkey in 2007 when he was arrested by local authorities, according to a new report released Wednesday. Maksym Yastremskiy, alleged to be the underground carding kingpin known as “Maksik,” was a key player in the criminal ring of TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez. Yastremskiy was seized by authorities in Turkey in July 2007. The Justice Department had said in its 2008 press release on the matter that he was seized while he was on vacation in Turkey . But according to new information from the U.S. Secret Service, Yastremskiy was actually lured to a face-to-face meeting in Turkey with an undercover operative. It’s unclear if the meeting…

A Ukrainian carder who earned more than $11 million selling credit and debit card data stolen from top U.S. retailers was lured to a meeting in Turkey in 2007 where he was arrested by local authorities, according to a new report released Wednesday. Maksym Yastremskiy, alleged to be the underground carding kingpin known as “Maksik,” was sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison. He was a key player in the criminal ring of TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez. The Justice Department had said in its 2008 press release on the matter that he was seized while he was on vacation in Turkey . But according to the new information from…

A webcam scandal at a suburban Philadelphia school district expanded Tuesday to include a second student alleging his school-issued laptop secretly snapped images of him. The brouhaha commenced in February, when a student of Lower Merion School District was called into an administrator’s office . Sophomore Blake Robbins was shown a picture of himself that officials suggested was him popping pills. The family claimed it was candy. An invasion-of-privacy lawsuit followed, alleging the district had snapped thousands of pictures of its students using webcams affixed to the 2,300 Apple laptops the district issued. …

The Pentagon regards Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning as a possible suspect in leaking a classified six-year history of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that Wikileaks published over the weekend, a spokesman said Monday. “He is certainly one person that we would be looking at in terms of this leak,” said Col. Dave Lapan. “He’s not the only person. We’ve neither ruled in or ruled out PFC Manning. We’re still assessing the documents to see if we can determine the source of the leak.” Manning, 22, was arrested in late May after he was turned in by a former hacker he befriended online. In chats …