In programming and information security, a buffer overflow or buffer overrun is an anomaly whereby a program writes data to a buffer beyond the buffer's allocated memory, overwriting adjacent memory locations.
In the field of computer security, independent researchers often discover flaws in software that can be abused to cause unintended behaviour; these flaws are called vulnerabilities. The process by which the analysis of these vulnerabilities is shared with third parties is the subject of much debate, and is referred to as the researcher's disclosure policy. Full disclosure is the practice of publishing analysis of software vulnerabilities as early as possible, making the data accessible to everyone without restriction. The primary purpose of widely disseminating information about vulnerabilities is so that potential victims are as knowledgeable as those who attack them.
Phrack is an e-zine written by and for hackers, first published November 17, 1985. It had a wide circulation which included both hackers and computer security professionals.
A rootkit is a collection of computer software, typically malicious, designed to enable access to a computer or an area of its software that is not otherwise allowed and often masks its existence or the existence of other software. The term rootkit is a compound of "root" and the word "kit". The term "rootkit" has negative connotations through its association with malware.
Phishing is a form of social engineering and scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and often transparently mirror the site being targeted, allowing the attacker to observe everything while the victim is navigating the site, and transverse any additional security boundaries with the victim. As of 2020, it is the most common type of cybercrime, with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reporting more incidents of phishing than any other type of computer crime.
In computing, SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution. SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application's software, for example, when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database.
Elias Levy is a computer scientist. He was the moderator of "Bugtraq", a full disclosure vulnerability mailing list, from May 14, 1996 until October 15, 2001.
A grey hat is a computer hacker or computer security expert who may sometimes violate laws or typical ethical standards, but usually does not have the malicious intent typical of a black hat hacker.
Bryce Case Jr., otherwise known as YTCracker, is an American rapper from La Mirada, California. His stage name derives from having formerly been a black hat hacker. Case is best known for his contributions to the hacking community along with nerdcore hip hop subculture.
TESO was a hacker group, which originated in Austria. It was active from 1998 to 2004, and during its peak around 2000, it was responsible for a significant share of the exploits on the bugtraq mailing list.
Bugtraq was an electronic mailing list dedicated to issues about computer security. On-topic issues are new discussions about vulnerabilities, vendor security-related announcements, methods of exploitation, and how to fix them. It was a high-volume mailing list, with as many as 776 posts in a month, and almost all new security vulnerabilities were discussed on the list in its early days. The forum provided a vehicle for anyone to disclose and discuss computer vulnerabilities, including security researchers and product vendors. While the service has not been officially terminated, and its archives are still publicly accessible, no new posts have been made since January 2021.
Michael Gregory Hoglund is an American author, researcher, and serial entrepreneur in the cyber security industry. He is the founder of several companies, including Cenzic, HBGary and Outlier Security. Hoglund contributed early research to the field of rootkits, software exploitation, buffer overflows, and online game hacking. His later work focused on computer forensics, physical memory forensics, malware detection, and attribution of hackers. He holds a patent on fault injection methods for software testing, and fuzzy hashing for computer forensics. Due to an email leak in 2011, Hoglund is well known to have worked for the U.S. Government and Intelligence Community in the development of rootkits and exploit material. It was also shown that he and his team at HBGary had performed a great deal of research on Chinese Government hackers commonly known as APT. For a time, his company HBGary was the target of a great deal of media coverage and controversy following the 2011 email leak. HBGary was later acquired by a large defense contractor.
Milw0rm is a group of hacktivists best known for penetrating the computers of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, the primary nuclear research facility of India, on June 3, 1998. The group conducted hacks for political reasons, including the largest mass hack up to that time, inserting an anti-nuclear weapons agenda and peace message on its hacked websites. The group's logo featured the slogan "Putting the power back in the hands of the people."
Goatse Security (GoatSec) was a loose-knit, nine-person grey hat hacker group that specialized in uncovering security flaws. It was a division of the anti-blogging Internet trolling organization known as the Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA). The group derives its name from the Goatse.cx shock site, and it chose "Gaping Holes Exposed" as its slogan. The website has been abandoned without an update since May 2014.
LulzSec was a black hat computer hacking group that claimed responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from PlayStation Network in 2011. The group also claimed responsibility for taking the CIA website offline. Some security professionals have commented that LulzSec has drawn attention to insecure systems and the dangers of password reuse. It has gained attention due to its high profile targets and the sarcastic messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks. One of the founders of LulzSec was computer security specialist Hector Monsegur, who used the online moniker Sabu. He later helped law enforcement track down other members of the organization as part of a plea deal. At least four associates of LulzSec were arrested in March 2012 as part of this investigation. Prior, British authorities had announced the arrests of two teenagers they alleged were LulzSec members, going by the pseudonyms T-flow and Topiary.
Operation Anti-Security, also referred to as Operation AntiSec or #AntiSec, is a series of hacking attacks performed by members of the hacking group LulzSec and Anonymous, and others inspired by the announcement of the operation. LulzSec performed the earliest attacks of the operation, with the first against the Serious Organised Crime Agency on 20 June 2011. Soon after, the group released information taken from the servers of the Arizona Department of Public Safety; Anonymous would later release information from the same agency two more times. An offshoot of the group calling themselves LulzSecBrazil launched attacks on numerous websites belonging to the Government of Brazil and the energy company Petrobras. LulzSec claimed to retire as a group, but on 18 July they reconvened to hack into the websites of British newspapers The Sun and The Times, posting a fake news story of the death of the publication's owner Rupert Murdoch.
Phineas Fisher is an unidentified hacktivist and self-proclaimed anarchist revolutionary. Notable hacks include the surveillance company Gamma International, Hacking Team, the Sindicat De Mossos d'Esquadra and the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party three of which were later made searchable by WikiLeaks.
MLT, real name Matthew Telfer, is a cybersecurity researcher, former grey hat computer hacker and former member of TeaMp0isoN. MLT was arrested in May 2012 in relation to his activities within TeaMp0isoN, a computer-hacking group which claimed responsibility for many high-profile attacks, including website vandalism of the United Nations, Facebook, NATO, BlackBerry, T-Mobile USA and several other large sites in addition to high-profile denial-of-service attacks and leaks of confidential data. After his arrest, he reformed his actions and shifted his focus to activities as a white hat cybersecurity specialist. He was the founder of now-defunct Project Insecurity LTD.
Alisa Shevchenko, professionally known as Alisa Esage, is a Russian-born computer security researcher, entrepreneur and hacker with Ukrainian roots. She is known for working independently with dominant software corporations such as Google and Microsoft to find and exploit security weaknesses in their products; being the first female participant in Pwn2Own, the world's premiere professional hacking competition with significant cash prizes; and being accused by the government of the United States of hacking the presidential elections in 2016.
