BitTorrent
BitTorrent
BitTorrent is both the name of a peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution client application and also the name of the file sharing protocol itself, both of which were created by programmer Bram Cohen. BitTorrent is designed to widely distribute large amounts of data without incurring the corresponding consumption in costly server and bandwidth resources
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BitTorrent Related Industry News
Microsoft takes down SP2 swappers Microsoft has taken steps to stop its security update for Windows being shared on file-swapping networks. The SP2 update for Windows XP was being used by file-swapping activists to show how such systems can help get large, important files to lots of users.
But legal warnings from Microsoft have forced the file-swappers to end their experiment and stop making the software available to downloaders.
Now the only place people are able to get the update is from......
[more] Spyware, adware infects BitTorrent downloads BitTorrent users beware... Adware and spyware makers are using BitTorrent as a new distribution channel. According to observers of the trend, music and videos that hide applications which pop up ads on PC screens and track browsing habits are increasingly being offered for download on various BitTorrent websites.
BitTorrent has grown into one of the most widely used means of downloading files such as movies or software. Unlike peer-to-peer networks......
[more] Desktop port proliferation a security risk? Software maker Opera's decision to support BitTorrent has added to some security experts' worries that applications which require open connections through firewalls are becoming increasingly popular.
Last week, the Norwegian company revealed that its latest technical preview adds support for downloading BitTorrent files, or torrents. BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer protocol that speeds files sharing by allowing every client to serve up pieces of a large f......
[more] New year brings fresh security fears Everybody knows that the pace of change in the technology world is relentless and that today's hi-tech hotshot can be tomorrow's also ran. Change also happens quickly in hi-tech crime circles. What was a popular technique or target one month may fall out of favour quickly.
In 2005 the increasing speed with which computer security firms react to new strains of viruses, spyware and other malicious programs was motivating tech-savvy criminals to find fresh wa......
[more] Hackers hit Swedish police site Cyber vandals have attacked the website of the Swedish police, forcing it to shut down. Police said the site was taken offline after it was overloaded by net data. The attack came a day after the police raided several locations linked to a website accused of directing users to pirated films, music and software. ThePirateBay.org had described itself as the largest search index for BitTorrent, a system used for sharing large files over the internet. The entertainme......
[more] TorrentSpy names hacker and details attack TorrentSpy named the hacker who it claims broke into its computer systems on behalf of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), as part of a legal request that would force the MPAA to turn over documents stolen from the Internet file-searching company. TorrentSpy accused the MPAA in May of paying a hacker US$15,000 to steal confidential company information, including e-mails and passwords for accessing TorrentSpy's servers. The MPAA has c......
[more] Your next wireless security problem Just when you think you've got the network locked down ... Recently, I've had the dry task of telling an increasing number of executives that their organizations' wireless networks are relatively well protected -- that during an assessment, it wasn't possible to attach to, or make any serious dent in the availability of, the network without exceeding the bounds of a reasonable threat model. Does this mean all's well in the wireless world? Not at all. We're mer......
[more] Anti-virus technique adds muscle to PC lock-down Sophos has developed an innovative anti-virus-based approach to locking down PCs To identify malware, anti-virus products use a signature file that acts as a fingerprint of the virus or worm. Sophos has now applied the same principle to legitimate applications, giving IT directors a simple way to lock down desktop PCs.The company's anti-virus and application control product lets system administrators selectively block unauthorised VoIP, peer-......
[more] MSN password stealer released as torrent Malware designed to steal users' Windows Live Messenger password has been released onto the net. The password stealer was released for download via BitTorrent earlier this week by a hacker using the handle "Our Godfather".The malware comes in the form of an IMB download confirmed by anti-virus firm Sophos as containing a password-stealing Trojan horse. Victims would need to be tricked into downloading and executing the malware, which might be r......
[more] DDoS attacks deemed illegal in Sweden Distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), where targets are deluged with requests for information, will be made a criminal offence in Sweden from 1 June.According to a draft amendment to existing hacking laws, perpetrators will face a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment. There are currently no laws banning the attacks in Sweden.Last year, Swedish hackers launched a DDoS attack against the websites of the Swedish government and Swedish police aft......
[more] Pirate Bay plundered by hackers Buccaneering BitTorrent source The Pirate Bay has been hacked and a copy of its user database stolen, the site admitted.The Swedish outfit copped to the data breach in its blog, which ironically was the site of the vulnerability. It said:They have got a copy of the user database. That is, your username and passwords. But, the passwords are stored encrypted, so it's not a big deal, but it's still very sad that it's out there. All emails are for instance encrypted......
[more] Torrent overflows Opera Opera has fixed a flawed involving how its browser handles Torrent files that allowed hackers to attack vulnerable systems.A boundary error in handling certain types of Torrent files exposed version 9.x of the browser to a stack-based buffer overflow, providing a user right-clicks a malicious Torrent entry in the transfer manager. Simply clicking on the Torrent link will not trigger the flaw, which Opera nonetheless describes as "highly critical".Successful exp......
[more] Vista SP1 makes appearance on BitTorrent Paying customers may not get their hands on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for weeks, but pirates can download the brand-new code today, according to searches at several BitTorrent trackers. The RTM, or release to manufacturing, versions of both operating systems can easily be found on BitTorrent tracker sites such as Pirate Bay, which has made them available since Tuesday. One torrent of Microsoft's newest server operating sy......
[more] Harvard Web site hacked One of Harvard University's Web sites appeared on Monday to have been hacked, with its contents appearing on the BitTorrent file-sharing network. A compressed 125MB file claiming to be the database for the Web site of Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is available via the BitTorrent peer to peer network. The file is listed on The Pirate Bay, a Web site that indexes torrents, or small information files that coordinate the download of content from other users......
[more] Hackers find clever new way to hose Google users Hackers have found a new way to get Google to point to malicious websites with the help of unwitting websites such as ZDNet Asia and TorrentReactor. As a result, at least 20,000 Google search results that appeared to lead to pages on the Asian version of ZDNet and the BitTorrent tracker site actually directed end users to sites that attempted to install malware. The hack, which was first documented by Dutch researcher Dancho Danchev, takes advant......
[more] The Case Proves the Danger That Using P2P Services for Illegal Software and Media Downloads Now Poses Seattle-based Gregory Kopiloff, who made security history last November by becoming the first person to be indicted on peer-2-peer (P2P) identify theft charges, has been sentenced to 51 months in prison. The case, says David Hobson, managing director of Global Secure Systems, a IT security consultancy, proves the danger that using P2P services for illegal software and media downloads now poses.......
[more] Hired gun blamed for business outage In the universe of denial-of-service attacks, 8,000 packets a second is not a lot. For video-content creation firm Revision3, however, that moderate flood of data was enough to overwhelm its network last weekend, preventing the firm from sending e-mail, displaying advertisements on its Web site, or serving up its shows to visitors, according to CEO and former journalist Jim Louderback. The denial-of-service attack -- of a variety known as a SYN flood -- targ......
[more] Amazon cloud could be security hole Cloud services are now vulnerable to malicious use, a security company has suggested, after a techie worked out how Amazon's EC2 service could be used as a BitTorrent file harvester and host. Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a web service software developers can use to access computing, compilation and software trialling power on a dynamic basis, without having to install the resources locally. Now a developer, Brett O'Connor, has come up with a s......
[more] How to recover from a data breach The best defence against hackers trying to steal corporate data is a whole lot of preparation, says Danny Bradbury. hese days the headlines are full of stories about data being stolen from major organisations - in both the private and public sector. Though every exec hopes they'll never experience such an incident, it's best to be prepared, just in case. So what do you do after a data breach? As with disaster recovery, you need a playbook, ready and wait......
[more] Piracy law cuts internet traffic Internet traffic in Sweden fell by 33% as the country's new anti-piracy law came into effect, reports suggest. Sweden's new policy - the Local IPRED law - allows copyright holders to force internet service providers (ISP) to reveal details of users sharing files. According to figures released by the government statistics agency - Statistics Sweden - 8% of the entire population use peer-to-peer sharing.Popular BitTorrent sharing site, The Pirate Bay, is also base......
[more] Researchers build auto-destruct code for personal data Researchers at the University of Washington have developed software that will automatically delete files like emails within a pre-set time limit. The Vanish software allows the user of any web-based service to encrypt a message, but instead of the user keeping the key, it is put into a global peer-to-peer (P2P) network for a specified time before disappearing, making it impossible to decrypt the message. "Today many people pick up the......
[more] Database containing 1.8m UK postcode locations leaks online An alleged copy of the UK postcode list has tipped up on WikiLeaks. The whistleblower site claims to currently be hosting a database containing 1,841,177 Blighty postcodes "together with latitude and longitude, grid references, country, district, ward, NHS codes and regions, Ordnance Survey reference, and date of introduction". The list is a 241MB plain text file that runs to more than 100,000 pages and was last updated on 8 July. Wiki......
[more] Fake Antivirus: 5 software titles you should definitely NOT install We take a closer look at some of the more common scareware traps; what to look out for, how to identify the fakes and 5 rogue security software packages you should try and avoid at all costs. Bogusware, scareware or rogueware - whatever you prefer to call them, are all different names given to describe roughly the same thing: rogue security products that masquerade as the real thing.
According to numbers published by the Anti-P......
[more] Security tips for large and small businesses Whether your business is a big fish or a small-fry home office, you can get hacked just the same, and the stakes are higher than a few canceled credit cards. Here are a few tips to protect your users and your networks--steps that even enterprise-class security specialists may slip up on. Know Who Might Be Targeted - and How and Why
With the recent news of attacks on US companies including Google, many business owners might be thinking, "That wouldn't......
[more] Firefox, uTorrent, and PowerPoint hit by Windows DLL bug A day after Microsoft confirmed a vulnerability in Windows applications that executes malicious code on end-user PCs, the first exploits have been released targeting programs including the Firefox browser, uTorrent BitTorrent client, and Microsoft PowerPoint. The attack code was posted on Tuesday to the Exploit Database. It included exploits for the Wireshark packet sniffer, Windows Live email and Microsoft MovieMaker, in addition to those......
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