Hacker

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. It took one simple mistake for Hector Xavier Monsegur, a hacker who goes by the name Sabu, to get caught by the FBI. On Tuesday, the world found out that Monsegur's mistake is sending ripples through the hacking community and into high-profile groups such as LulzSec, AntiSec and Anonymous. Six alleged hackers from those three prominent collectives have been charged in New York for executing a series of online attacks against the likes of Sony, Fox, PBS, Bethesda Softworks, the Central Intelligence Agency and a number of financial institutions such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.

It took one simple mistake for Hector Xavier Monsegur, a hacker who goes by the name Sabu, to get caught by the FBI. That mistake led not only to his arrest but also to that of five other alleged hackers who, according to a grand jury indictment, have ties to high-profile underground groups online: LulzSec, AntiSec and Anonymous. The indictment filed in a U.S. District Court in New York ties the arrested men to online attacks against Sony, Fox, PBS, the Central Intelligence Agency, Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.

The FBI is probing an Internet breach in which hackers publicly posted private information belonging to more than 100 local law enforcement officers who are part of the Los Angeles County Police Canine Assn. Tony Vairo, a San Fernando police officer and president of the group, told The Times that they were contacted by the FBI Tuesday morning informing them that information belonging to its members, who include LAPD officers the and Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies, had been compromised.

A hacker has released stolen source code from Symantec Corp., one of the largest computer security firms, after a phony set of ransom negotiations failed, according to the company. The source code is part of a Symantec product called pcAnywhere, which enables users to log into and control home or work computers from remote locations. Access to the code could in theory give hackers insight into how to seize computers that use the software. Symantec said the source code was for 2006 products that had since been updated with newer code.

Apple Inc. has 1 Infinite Loop and Genentech Inc. has 1 DNA Way. But Facebook Inc. now lays claim to Silicon Valley's premier vanity address: 1 Hacker Way. After journeying from a Harvard dorm room to a rented house in Palo Alto to a series of temporary corporate offices it quickly outgrew, the 8-year-old social networking giant has set down permanent roots just in time for its initial public offering. And its splashy new campus in Menlo Park has quickly become the envy of its Silicon Valley neighbors.

Zappos.com, the popular shoe website, was the victim of a cyber attack by a hacker who gained access to customer information on the company's internal network and systems, Chief Executive Tony Hsieh said in an email to employees. In a separate email to account holders, the company said the potentially exposed information included names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers and the last four digits of credit card numbers. Zappos said the database that stores full credit card numbers and other payment data was not affected or accessed.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Popular passwords It's a good idea to be careful when selecting a password for online financial accounts. If criminals crack your password, it won't be too hard for them to steal your money. Yet many people choose passwords that will be easy for them to remember, placing a higher priority on convenience than security. The problem is that the passwords will also be easy for hackers to crack. The FBI and National White Collar Crime Center have released a list of common passwords that have been stolen by hackers.

A computer hacking group has revealed email addresses and other personal data from former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and hundreds of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military officials in a high-profile case of cyber-theft. The unauthorized release of account information for 860,000 subscribers to Stratfor, a Texas-based company that provides analysis of national and international affairs, makes it possible to identify some subscribers and, in theory, impersonate them in cyberspace, analysts warned.

A prosecution witness told a military judge Tuesday that an emotionally distraught Army Pfc. Bradley Manning confessed to him in encrypted Internet chats to pilfering a vast trove of U.S. military and diplomatic secrets and passing them to the WikiLeaks website. The witness, Adrian Lamo, said he was so alarmed by his online conversations with Bradass87, Manning's Internet handle, over five days in May 2010 that he felt compelled to alert law enforcement, prompting Manning's arrest several days later.

It seems you can surf the Internet and check your email from virtually anywhere these days — in coffee shops, hotel lobbies, airport terminals and airplane cabins. More places are making it easier to turn on your laptop or tablet computer and connect to the Internet through free public WiFi hot spots. But much like leaving your diary on a park bench, connecting to the Internet using a public WiFi allows anyone with the right software to see what you are doing. Worse, you risk being hit with malware and other virulent programs that can turn your computer into botnets controlled by hackers to attack websites.