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Unidentified hackers brought down several public Nato websites with cyber attacks on Saturday, the alliance said, in what appeared the latest escalation in cyberspace over growing tensions over Crimea.

A group calling itself “cyber berkut” said the attack had been carried out by patriotic Ukrainians angry over what they saw as Nato interference in their country.

The claim, made at www.cyber-berkut.org, could not immediately be independently verified. Cyber berkut is a reference to the feared and since disbanded riot squads used by the government of ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.

As well as the main Nato website www.NATO.int, the website of a Nato-affiliated cyber security centre in Estonia was also affected. The alliance said none of its essential systems were compromised.

Occupied by Russian forces for over a week, the largely Russian-speaking Crimea holds a referendum on seceding from Ukraine to join Russia on Sunday. Nato states have opposed the move, calling it unconstitutional and effectively an annexation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said the websites had been taken down by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

“Our experts working to restore normal function,” she said via the social networking site Twitter. “No operational impact… The attack hasn’t affected the integrity of Nato systems.”

She made no comment on where the attack might have originated.

John Bumgarner, chief technology officer at the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit research institute, said initial evidence strongly suggested that these cyber attacks were launched by pro-Russian sympathizers.

“One could equate these cyber attacks against Nato as kicking sand into one’s face,” he said.

Tensions between Moscow and the West have been rising steadily since Russia intervened following the ouster of Yanukovich. Ukrainian and Russian websites have both been targets for cyber attacks in recent weeks but this appeared the first major attack on a Western website since the crisis began.

Suspected Russian hackers used DDoS attacks to cripple websites and services in Estonia in 2007 during a dispute over a war memorial and against Georgia during its brief 2008 war with Russia. Moscow denied orchestrating such attacks, saying they were simply carried out by independent patriots.

Apparent Ukrainian groups calling themselves “cyber berkut” have attacked several Ukrainian websites in recent weeks, computer security experts say. It was not immediately clear if the attack on NATO was genuinely conducted by the same group.

The group – which some experts believe may be affiliated with Russian intelligence – published its statement in Russian rather than Ukrainian.
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Facebook logo is seen in this file photo.

Facebook Inc will allow more marketers to run video advertisements on its website, provided the world’s No 1 social network deem them to be of high-enough quality.


Facebook and social media rivals like Twitter are increasingly trying to grab a slice of lucrative TV-marketing budgets as they try to sustain rapid growth. That market is considered crucial to supporting Facebook’s growing market valuation and poses a potential long-term threat to traditional TV networks.


Facebook has moved cautiously to avoid annoying users. Social media players like Twitter are typically careful not to clutter up their users’ pages with unwanted material.


The 15-second video ads, which appear in newsfeeds and will play automatically with sound muted, will become available to a limited number of marketers over the next few months, Facebook said on its official blog on Thursday. It first tested video ads with a single advertiser in December. Facebook said that video ads will be available to a “a select group of advertisers,” without details.


The price that marketers pay to run a video ad on Facebook will be determined by the size of the audience as measured by measurement firm Nielsen, Facebook added. Marketers will be able to choose specific times of day for their spots and will be able to target ads according to age and gender.


However, Facebook said it would review the creative quality of any video spots that appear on its website, assessing ads for criteria such as watchability, meaningfulness and “emotional resonance.” Such reviews will be done in partnership with video analytics firm Ace Metrix. “We’re taking this step in order to maintain high-quality ads on Facebook and to help advertisers understand what’s working to maximize their return on investment,” Facebook said in the post.
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Nokia ordered to give guarantee for around $572 million

Supreme Court today dismissed Nokia’s appeal challenging a lower court order over transferring ownership of its local mobile phone plant, which is the subject of a tax dispute, to Microsoft. The Supreme Court upheld a verdict by the Delhi High Court and ordered Nokia to give a guarantee for Rs 35 billion.


Nokia, which is selling its mobile phones business to Microsoft in a 7.2 billion deal, last month appealed to the Supreme Court saying the Delhi High Court had imposed “new conditions” over the transfer of the plant, after previously lifting a freeze on the assets.


The case, which has been ongoing for quite some time, came back into the limelight soon after Microsoft announced the acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services unit. Yesterday, the SC has ordered Nokia to submit a valuation report of its domestic entities to ensure sufficient funds to secure the interests of the Income Tax department.


The apex court added that the government would gain nothing by sending company officials to jail. This after, the IT department had moved the Supreme Court seeking to stop the transfer of Nokia’s Chennai plant assets to Microsoft pending resolution of a tax dispute, arguing that the company was being evasive about its valuation of the plant, according to the Financial Express.

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Loophole discovered

Thought your WhatsApp messages cannot be accessed remotely? Think again as one security expert has discovered a way to read WhatsApp messages off Android devices.



Security consultant Bas Bosschert said that it was possible for others to access users’ private WhatsApp chats through downloaded Android apps. Bosschert insists his method works even on the latest WhatsApp update for Android which adds privacy settings. However, as he says it’s only possible when WhatsApp is backing up your messages to the SD card. If you have turned off message backup during the initial setup, then your messages are safe. But if you have turned on backups, the easiest way to prevent this attack is doing a clean install of WhatsApp and turning off backup when prompted during the setup.



Bosschert published a proof of concept on his blog and explained the workings in detail. Although there are a lot of technical details, the gist is that it takes basic app-development skills to create an app that could steal your WhatsApp messages. This is possible because WhatsApp stores backed-up messages on your Android phone’s SD card and any app that gains permission to read your SD card could technically siphon off this backup without you knowing.



Despite WhatsApp using encryption to secure the message database, it’s possible to extract messages using easily-available online tools. After getting hold of your messages, the attacker could use a tool called WhatsApp Xtract to decrypt the same and easily read the messages.



“The WhatsAppp database is a SQLite3 database which can be converted to Excel for easier access. Lately WhatsApp is using encryption to encrypt the database, so it can no longer be opened by SQLite. But we can simply decrypt this database using a simple python script. This script converts the crypted database to a plain SQLite3 database,” he said.
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iPhone 6 coming this year?

Mobile component maker Foxconn today said it expects to manufacture 90 million units of the sixth version of Apple’s iconic iPhone this year.


The California-headquartered firm is yet to announce the launch of iPhone 6. However, analysts suggest the smartphone could be launched in fall (Autumn) this year, which is usually the time when Apple unveils its handset offerings.


“Foxconn is expecting to manufacture 90 million units of the iPhone 6 from Apple in 2014. These orders are expected to land across the year,” Taiwan-based Foxconn said.


The growth rate of global smartphone shipments are expected to land at 28 per cent in 2014 as compared to 40 per cent in 2013, it added.


Sales of smartphones in mature markets are likely to edge up only 4 per cent, down from 5 per cent a year ago, it said.


“Foxconn is expected to post an EPS of New Taiwan Dollar 9.29 (USD 0.31) in 2014 and New Taiwan Dollar 10.26 in 2015,” the firm added.


According to research firm IDC, Apple will release a large-screen version in 2014, but will not altogether abandon the smaller 4-inch screen version of previous models.


The research firm said iOS operating system posted its lowest positive growth for the quarter (Oct-Dec 2013) at 6.7 per cent and for the year at 12.9 per cent, under performing the overall market in both instances.


In calendar year 2013, Apple sold 793.6 million units of its smartphone operating system (iOS) against 500.1 million in 2012.


Shipments of iOS-enabled smartphones stood at 51 million units in October-December last year from 47.8 million in the year-ago period.


In 2012, Apple’s smartphone operating system shipments rose by 46 per cent to 135.9 million units against 93.1 million units in 2011. For Q4 2012, shipments rose by 29.2 per cent to 47.8 million units against 37 million in the same period of 2011.


According to research firm Canalys, iOS shipments in 2011 rose by 96 per cent to 93.1 million units compared to 2010.