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'Contagious' wi-fi threat created

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 26 Februari 2014 | 23.58

26 February 2014 Last updated at 06:55 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

A computer virus that can spread via wi-fi like a "common cold" has been created by researchers in Liverpool.

In densely populated areas with lots of wi-fi networks, the virus can go from network to network finding weaknesses.

Once in control of a wi-fi access point, it leaves computers on the network extremely vulnerable.

The team's lead researcher told the BBC it was working on software to prevent such attacks being possible.

"Rather than rely on people to use strong passwords, you want to integrate intrusion detection systems to the access points," said Alan Marshall, professor of communication networks at the University of Liverpool.

He would not go into detail about the methods in order to prevent the attack being used on real victims but said a proof-of-concept attack had been developed at the university.

'Under control'

The virus, dubbed Chameleon, seeks out wi-fi access points - devices that transmit the wi-fi signal, found in many homes - that have not had their admin password changed.

This password is different from the one used to log on to the wi-fi network itself, and is often left unchanged from the default setting.

Once an access point is under a hacker's control, new firmware can be installed.

"So it's now under our control," explained Prof Marshall.

"Once you do that you can then do other things with it. You can recover passwords, steal data - anything you want."

Spreading out

But it is the next step of the virus that is most unusual.

Once installed on one access point, the virus can - without being controlled by a human - automatically seek out other vulnerable access points, taking them over as and when they are found.

Prof Marshall told the BBC that this was unlikely to be a threat to big business wi-fi networks, which should have enhanced security in place.

However, networks in homes, or at small premises like coffee shops, are typically found with less stringent protection measures in place.

Now that his team has demonstrated the threat, Prof Marshall said attention would turn to creating a product that could be installed in wi-fi access points to prevent this kind of hijacking - without requiring the user to take responsibility.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC


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Supercomputer aim to boost business

25 February 2014 Last updated at 12:21 ET By Brian Meechan BBC Wales business correspondent
Super-computer display

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Six Welsh universities run a network of supercomputers

Businesses are being urged to take advantage of a Welsh supercomputer network that could help create jobs and boost economic growth.

Six universities in Wales are working with the private sector on the venture which has additional funding from the Welsh and UK governments and the EU.

Supercomputers are regularly used by larger businesses and retailers.

They store and analyse information and make complex calculations at speeds much faster than standard computers.

Continue reading the main story

A typical workstation that you might get in an office is equivalent to a Ford Fiesta whereas a cluster like HPC Wales have is a Formula 1 car"

End Quote Graham Foster Calon Cardio Technology

The Welsh network - which has sites in Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea - can run 320 trillion operations every second which can help small and medium-sized businesses improve productivity and innovation.

Calon Cardio Technology in Swansea is developing a pump implant to treat people with heart failure.

The company said its product is smaller, more effective and cheaper than the US manufactured models currently on the market.

The company's chief technology officer, Graham Foster, said being able to use the supercomputer has meant they are able to improve the design of the device.

He said: "If we were just using, say, a laptop computer it would take us maybe a few weeks to get some design information whereas using a supercomputer will allow us to get results in only a few days,"

The supercomputer network, HPC Wales, is run by six universities: Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, Swansea, the University of South Wales and the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David.

Private sector partners include Fujitsu and Microsoft.

It is the only one of its kind in the UK.

Access to the network was free for Calon Cardio Technology because European funding was used to cover the costs.

"A typical workstation that you might get in an office is equivalent to a Ford Fiesta whereas a cluster like HPC Wales have is a Formula 1 car and it really does allow us to get info much more quickly," Mr Foster added.

Extra productivity

The network is not free to all users.

Professor Sian Hope, chief executive of HPC Wales and executive director for innovation at Bangor University, believes businesses can benefit from extra productivity, more work and more income by using the network.

"Let's take an example of a company here in Swansea which is in the creative industries," Professor Hope told BBC Wales.

"They produce visual software solutions for builders, architects, and they have a need for high performance computing.

"They didn't realise they had a need for it but they used to take five days to process a job and now it will take one day. So it gives them a competitive advantage."

There have been concerns that, when it comes to research and development, universities and businesses pursue their own interests without combining their expertise to maximise the gains for the wider economy.

The EU's latest research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, is launched this year which is trying to address that.

Almost €80bn (£65bn) of funding is available between 2014 and 2020, which is aimed at bringing together the public and private sectors to create jobs and growth.

Professor Hope, who worked for the Ministry of Defence and British Aerospace prior to academia, said HPC Wales was a good model.

She added: "It's a perfect example of how those two worlds can be joined, of research and business coming together. But it's also about providing high level skills in order to take advantage of those new technologies."

Economy Minister Edwina Hart said: "Collaboration between industry and academia is essential if we are to commercialise research and development and speed up the development of new innovative products and processes for the benefit of the wider economy."


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Facebook quietly ends email service

24 February 2014 Last updated at 17:54 ET

Facebook has quietly closed its three-year-old email service that gave users "@facebook.com" email addresses.

From now on, emails sent to an "@facebook.com" address will be forwarded to the personal email address from which the member signed up for the site.

"We're making this change because most people haven't been using their Facebook email address," said a Facebook spokesperson.

The change will happen in early March.

The service was launched in November 2010 and billed as a way to streamline users' communication by providing a single inbox that could receive Facebook messages, SMS texts, and conventional emails.

It came under fire in 2012 when Facebook replaced users' published email addresses with their "@facebook.com" email on their profile.

The company later reversed course.

The move comes just a few days after Facebook's surprise purchase of messaging app WhatsApp for $19bn (£11.4bn).


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Rural broadband: Who gets what

25 February 2014 Last updated at 11:18 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

The UK government has announced how £250m set aside to improve broadband services in remote areas will be spent.

The money will be divided between local councils and each will have a month to work out how they will spend it to ensure superfast broadband is available to the majority of homes.

Critics have urged councils to consider providers other than BT, which has so far won all rural broadband contracts.

The government has been criticised for how it has handled the rollout so far.

Continue reading the main story

Who will get the most money?

  • Devon, Somerset £22.7m
  • Shropshire £12.8m
  • Hereford and Gloucestershire £10.98m
  • South Yorkshire £10.4m
  • Essex £10.7m
  • Hampshire £8.7m
  • Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire - £6.6m
  • Kent and Medway £5.6m
  • East Riding, Yorkshire £5m
  • Black Country £4.9m

It has invested £1.2bn in rural broadband and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is hoping that the extra £250m will ensure 95% of the country's homes and businesses have access to superfast broadband by 2017.

England will get the lion's share of the funds - £184m while Scotland will get £21m, Wales £12m and Northern Ireland just over £7m.

"We want to make sure that Britain is one of the best countries in the world for broadband," said Culture Secretary Maria Miller.

But the process to allocate the funds is likely to be watched very closely following harsh criticism of the way her department dished out the last round of funding.

A damning report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) accused the government of ripping off taxpayers by handing all the money to BT.

It also accused the telecoms firm of exploiting its "quasi-monopoly" position and called for far more transparency on how it intended to spend the money.

More recently the PAC called on BT to provide detailed coverage maps that would allow alternative operators to offer services in areas the telecoms firm would not reach.

Infrastructure project

Malcolm Corbett, head of the Independent Network Co-operative Association, which represents some of the smaller community-based broadband suppliers, welcomed the new investment but made a plea for smaller community schemes to be recognised.

"There are a lot of independent suppliers who can offer a much better deal for the taxpayer," he said.

"Some of the alternatives to BT require far less state aid and they are offering fibre to the home which is a future-proofed technology meaning bandwidth ceases to be an issue," he said.

BT denies that it does not represent good value for money.

"We wouldn't accept that community schemes represent better value for money," said a spokesman for the telecoms firm.

"This a huge national infrastructure project rather than a community broadband scheme and it's proving to be an overwhelming success for the massive numbers of people that are being connected."

Poacher turns gamekeeper

Since BT signed contracts with councils around the UK, the plug has been pulled on several community-based schemes.

Barry Forde is chief executive of B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North). His community broadband service offers speeds of up to 1Gbps to around 350 homes currently. It costs £30 per month.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

There are plenty of people who will be ticked off as having next-generation access but they won't have it"

End Quote Barry Forde Chief executive B4RN

"All the projects that UK councils have signed with BT have killed off community broadband projects and they really need to make sure that doesn't happen this time around," he said.

"Councils need to be clear about exactly what they want to achieve and not just talk to BT about what it will give them. That is too much like the gamekeeper asking the poacher," he added.

He added that he was concerned that councils lacked the technical expertise to determine the best technology for rural residents.

The fibre-to-cabinet technology that is used by BT will not be "fit for purpose" in remoter areas because the speed of the service is so dependent on how far homes are from telephone cabinets, he said.

Mr Forde is also sceptical that the UK can reach its target of 95% fast broadband coverage by 2017.

He has personal experience of how the statistics can be misleading. He lives in the village of Quernmoor in Lancashire which, according to official figures, already has next-generation broadband access.

But in reality at least 10 homes in the village can only get speeds of 2Mbps or less.

"There are plenty of people who will be ticked off as having next-generation access but they won't have it," he said.

"My guess is that the promises of up to 97% coverage will actually amount to 70% of properties that can actually get speeds of 24 megabits or more," he said.


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VIDEO: Remote monitoring device for diabetics

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Apple issues OS X security fix

25 February 2014 Last updated at 16:09 ET

Apple has issued a fix to a flaw in its OS X operating system which previously left users vulnerable to security breaches while browsing online.

A software update was released last week to iPhone, iPad and iPod owners to protect users from "an attacker" who may "capture or modify data".

It was later discovered that the problem also existed on Apple laptops and desktop computers running OS X.

On Tuesday, Apple issue a security fix through its software update service.

The problem was first spotted on Apple's mobile devices which run the iOS 7 operating system. It related to the way secure connections are made between Apple's safari browser and websites, including banking sites, Google and Facebook.

These sites have digital security certificates that allow an encrypted connection to be established between a user's computer and the website. This means any data that is sent over the connection should be secure.

Dropped the ball

However, a vulnerability in the code for Apple's iOS and OS X operating systems meant the security certificates were not being checked properly. This meant hackers could impersonate a website and capture the data that was being sent over the connection before letting it continue its journey to the real website.

Apple released a fix for mobile devices running iOS 7 last week but a spokesperson issued the following statement about OS X: "We are aware of this issue and already have a software fix that will be released very soon."

The fix was released on Tuesday.

According to researchers the security flaw had existed for months but no-one had reported it publicly.

Graham Cluley, a security analyst, said it was a failing by the company that it had not been identified earlier.

"It's pretty bad what Apple have done, they've seriously dropped the ball. How much the problem has been exploited is hard to say. Hackers may now be trying to take advantage while users wait for the security fix."


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'Stolen' Twitter username 'returned'

26 February 2014 Last updated at 04:45 ET

Twitter username @N - which had allegedly been stolen - has been returned to its original owner.

Naoki Hiroshima, who had held the Twitter handle since 2007, claimed last month that a hacker had stolen it.

He had said at the time that someone took control of his other online accounts and threatened to compromise data and websites owned by him, forcing him to give up the handle.

On Wednesday, Mr Hiroshima tweeted: "Order has been restored".

"This is a happy ending not only for me but also for sane employees and loyal users of Twitter's. Congrats to those, too," he added.

However, he did not mention how he got back the control of the handle.

In a previous blog post Mr Hiroshima had claimed that he had earlier been offered $50,000 (£30,000) to sell it and people had tried to "steal" it before.

Mr Hiroshima said his Twitter name was considered rare as it only contains one character.


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Password 'treasure trove' found

26 February 2014 Last updated at 07:47 ET By Kevin Rawlinson BBC News

A "treasure trove" of stolen personal details has been found on sale on black market websites, a security firm says.

About 360 million account credentials including email addresses and passwords were reportedly uncovered.

Hide Security said it had also found 1.25 billion email addresses without passwords.

It is unknown where the credentials, which were found in the past three weeks, came from - but the company said they included major email providers.

Experts said that the batch was exceptionally large in size. "It is Godzilla-sized, it is a monster," said online security consultant Graham Cluley.

He added: "There may be some duplicates but, even so, it sounds like a complete treasure trove for cybercriminals."

Hide Security said that its findings were the result of "multiple breaches which we are independently investigating".

'Mind boggling'

In a post on its website, it said: "In the first three weeks of February, we identified nearly 360 million stolen and abused credentials and 1.25 billion records containing only email addresses.

It called the numbers "mind boggling" and said the disclosure represented a "call to action" over online security.

According to Mr Cluley, the details could be used to access not only the accounts they are directly associated with, but potentially others.

"What normally comes out is not only spam and phishing attacks, but also that the combination of email and password can be used in multiple places because people use the same ones across different sites," he said.

Mr Cluley added: "If people have a big database of passwords, they use it to find out what the regular ones are. The next time they want to crack into an account, they can use the most common passwords."

And Reuters reported concerns that the discovery could represent more of a risk to consumers and companies than stolen credit card data because of the chance the sets of user names and passwords could open the door to online bank accounts, corporate networks, health records and virtually any other type of computer system.

Spamming and phishing

Alex Holden, chief information security officer of Hold Security, told the agency: "The sheer volume is overwhelming."

He said the credentials had been stolen in breaches yet to be publicly reported. The companies attacked could remain unaware until they were notified by third parties who found evidence of the hacking, he said.

"We have staff working around the clock to identify the victims," he said.

The batch also included email addresses not paired with passwords, which would be of use to people intending to launch spamming and phishing attacks.


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Troubled MtGox Bitcoin boss emerges

26 February 2014 Last updated at 08:45 ET

The head of troubled Bitcoin exchange MtGox has made his first statement since the service went offline.

Mark Karpeles said he was "working very hard with the support of different parties" to address issues with the service, which went offline on Tuesday.

An estimated 744,000 bitcoins - about $350m (£210m) - are believed to have been stolen thanks to a loophole in Tokyo-based MtGox's security.

Japanese authorities are investigating the company.

"I understand that ministries and agencies concerned - financial services, police and the finance ministry - are looking into the matter to learn the full scope of the issue," said Yoshihide Suga, Japan's chief cabinet secretary.

"Once we have full knowledge of what happened, we will take action if necessary."

Separate investigations into MtGox and businesses linked to it are also said to be taking place in the US, Reuters reported.

Missing money

Mr Karpeles' statement on Wednesday also addressed concerns he had gone into hiding.

"I would like to use this opportunity to reassure everyone that I am still in Japan," the notice read.

MtGox was a service that allowed people to convert virtual currency Bitcoin in US dollars, and vice versa.

On 7 February MtGox halted transfers of the digital currency to external addresses.

The firm said that thieves had been using a flaw in the system to fool the transaction process into sending double the correct number of Bitcoins.

A leaked report - which Mr Karpeles has confirmed is authentic - said the huge theft had made MtGox insolvent.

Supporters of Bitcoin as an alternative currency have said they are working together to "re-establish" trust among users and were "committed to the future of Bitcoin".

They said they "will be coordinating efforts over the coming days to publicly reassure customers and the general public that all funds continue to be held in a safe and secure manner".


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Maverick Top Gun tweeter shot down

26 February 2014 Last updated at 09:32 ET By Kevin Rawlinson Technology reporter

A Twitter account that was being used to tweet the film Top Gun frame by frame has been suspended following a complaint from the film studio.

Lawyers for Paramount Pictures said that the retelling of the 1986 film breached its copyright.

But the decision has been derided on social media sites as heavy-handed.

The user had been posting updates, which included captions, for more than a month, but still had the majority of the film to cover.

A letter from the studio's lawyers to Twitter dated 21 February read: "No-one is authorised to copy, reproduce, distribute, or otherwise use Top Gun without the express written permission of Paramount.

"Notwithstanding this, it has come to our attention that a user of your website, @555uhz, is distributing the Top Gun film, frame by frame, via [Twitter].

"We request that you immediately remove all the Top Gun images from this website relating to the @555uhz user account."

Continue reading the main story

I would have thought there is an argument that it is mean-spirited"

End Quote Emily Goodhand Copyright expert
'Mean-spirited'

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice was published on the Chilling Effects website, which documents legal complaints about online activity. The @555uhz Twitter account has now been suspended.

The move proved unpopular with some. Writer Holly Brockwell said on Twitter: "Ridiculous - Paramount gets Top Gun Twitter account taken down because they're big bullies."

It was, nevertheless, to be expected, according to copyright expert Emily Goodhand.

She said: "In terms of the law, it is even the frames, so even a photograph of a film is classed as a film in law, rather than as a stand-alone photograph."

Ms Goodhand, who works at the University of Reading, said: "A court would look at the amount of frames and the substantiality of them. If it was considered to be a substantial portion that was being tweeted, that would be copyright infringement.

"If it was a single frame, [the letter] would be strongly disproportionate."

But she was less sure about the extent to which the tweets could have affected Paramount Pictures financially.

"I would have thought there is an argument that it is mean-spirited. If he is taking a potshot at the movie industry, that is one thing. But if it was just a joke, then perhaps it is mean-spirited," she said.

"It is quite an unusual case because you would expect it to be on YouTube. But to tweet it frame by frame, it is an interesting approach."


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