Over the past month or so, we’ve been bombarded with stories of hackers accessing databases and releasing personal information all over the web. Even if copious amounts of data aren’t bundled together and placed in a text document, there is still the threat of unauthorized access to email accounts. There are ways to make your email account more secure using methods such as Gmail’s 2-step verification process, but it isn’t mandatory. Hotmail has developed a new feature to aid in the battle against email hacking.

A group of British hackers successfully took Al-Qaeda’s website offline yesterday. This is the second attack the terrorist group has been hit with this month. Earlier, the group’s bomb making instructions were replaced with cupcake recipes. It’s believed the attacks are government supported, which raises some interesting questions. How do you feel about the government more »

For 50 days the hacker group known as Lulz Security, or LulzSec for short, has attacked a number of websites and agencies. All in the name of the AntiSec movement, freedom, and (of course) lulz. Now the groups journey has come to a close. The announcement was made via the LulzSec Twitter account which pointed more »

I’m one of the 62,000 people whose email addresses and passwords were stolen and posted publicly by Lulzsec. I don’t know what site they got it my info from as they’ve refused to give much in the way of details except to say they hacked many popular websites including GMail, World of Warcraft, and Yahoo. more »

What’s the most common phrase heard around the Gadgetell newsroom? Is it “I love Apple?”, “that’s cool!” or “sweet!”? Answer: none of them, it’s “they are on crack.” This week we take a look back at the things that made us chuckle in the tech world. This week, it seems there were more folks on more »

Everyone’s favorite tall, dark and handsome basketball player is apparently delving into some uncool business. Shaquille O’Neal has recently been sued by a former employee for an invasion of privacy, personal distress, and racketeering. Tsk tsk Mr. Kazaam, tsk tsk. Shawn Darling, Shaq’s former IT assistant, claims that he hacked into his iMac and deleted more »

Security researchers say they’ve found many dangerous security flaws in Palm’s webOS, the operating system that powers the company’s popular Palm Pre smartphone. The issues included an HTML injection bug and the discovery that the OS can be compromised simply by sending a text message. The researchers were able to open the browser, turn the more »

We all know to keep our social security number private, and not share it with the masses, right? After all, if the wrong person gets a hold of it, that could be a very bad thing. Our social security number (SSN) is like the magic little key to our financial world, and other critical parts of our lives. It can open or close doors for us. And if misused by another, like in the case of identity theft, it can break us.

Well, what if that number is not as secret and secure as we would like to think? What if there were a way for wily would-be hacker/thieves to steal our SSNs and have a field day with our identity? And no, I don’t mean just through the old break into an institution and get their records method. Nothing as blase as that. I mean actually being able to figure out what your SSN is, based on your date of birth and where you were born, using a specific algorithm. Yes Virginia, it is possible.

A Dallas security guard charged with hacking the computer system of the hospital he worked for was busted by a fellow hacker, but didn’t help his case when he posted videos of his exploits on YouTube. Jesse McGraw, known by the hacker name GhostExodus, posted videos to YouTube in which he claimed to be breaking more »

Yesterday, I talked about how some hackers have been working on the Palm Pre, gotten root, and can make some interesting changes to WebOS. The ultimate goal of the project was to find a way to enable tethering on the Palm Pre. Now it looks like that’s not really going to work out too well. more »