Peshawar, June 12
At least 35 persons were killed and over 100 others injured when twin bomb blasts ripped through a crowded market here, the latest in a series of terror attacks that have rocked Pakistan after the killing of Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden near Islamabad.

The second of two explosions in northwest Pakistan was carried out by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosive vest when a large number of people gathered after the first blast.

The first explosion at Khyber Super Market in Peshawar late last night was a low-intensity one caused by a timed device hidden in the bathroom of a hotel.

The second blast was triggered by a suicide bomber on a motorbike, bomb disposal squad chief Shafqat Malik told reporters.

The police said they had found the head and body parts of the bomber. The attack, one of the deadliest since the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden in a US raid, occurred in an area with popular eateries, hostels for students and residential flats.

A journalist was among the dead. Over 100 people, including eight policemen, were injured. Though Al-Qaida and militant groups have vowed to avenge bin Laden’s killing with attacks in Pakistan and the US, the Taliban denied they were involved in yesterday’s attack. — PTI

New York, June 12
The IMF which was recently rocked by a sex scandal involving its former chief was also hit by a “major” and sophisticated cyber attacks over the last several months, whose dimensions are still unknown.

According to a report the attack occurred over the last several months, even before Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French politician who ran the fund, was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a chamber maid in a New York hotel. The IMF told its staff and board of directors about the attack on Wednesday. But it did not make a public announcement.

Several officials who had the knowledge of the attack said it was both sophisticated and serious. “This was a very major breach,” said one official, The New York Times reported. When asked about the reports of the attack late Friday, a spokesman for the fund, David Hawley, declined to provide details or talk about the scope or nature of the intrusion.

The IMF possesses sensitive data on some countries that may be on the brink of crisis and its database contains potentially market-moving information.

The Times reported one IMF official saying that such negotiations are “political dynamite in many countries.” It was unclear what information the attackers were able to access.

The concern about the attack was so significant that the World Bank cut the computer link that allows it and IMF to share information.

Though there was no word on where the attack might have originated, the newspaper said it was likely to have been made possible by a technique known as “spear phishing”, in which an individual is fooled into clicking on a malicious Web link or running a programme that allows open access to the recipient’s network.

The fund said it did not believe that the intrusion into its systems was related to a sophisticated digital break-in at RSA Security that took place in March, which compromised some information that companies and governments use to control access to their most sensitive computer systems. — PTI

Their cyber attacks on governments and corporations have seen the loose collective of hackers known only as “Anonymous” pass from obscurity to becoming the byword for online guerrilla warfare. Nevertheless, the group has remained an enigma.

Today though, in a series of interviews, Anonymous members speak out, promising to step up their campaign of attacks and revealing that they have hacked Whitehall websites. They speak of ambitions on the part of some of their number to hack British police servers and also of fears for their own futures, because of the widespread infiltration of cyber hackers by security services.

Anonymous has already hit the likes of MasterCard and Paypal but its list of possible targets is huge, members say. A member, who helps run one of the group’s websites, added that because of Anonymous’ “leaderless structure”, which target will be next is entirely “up to the users”.

Pointing out that not all hacks are malicious, one lone hacker with links to Anonymous , known online as “Pr0f”, said he had broken into the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) servers: “I got access to an English.gov server, but I left it untouched and stole no data. I managed to gain access to the databases on the server, which included a list of users and administrators, with emails, usernames, hashed passwords, and names and addresses and so on.”

Those details belonged to several hundred DfT staff and members of the public, he said. “I had no issue with them. It was really just because I noticed a potential vulnerability and decided to see if it was exploitable.” The hacker left a message with the department and that particular security loop has since been closed.

“[Hacking is] a little bit of showing off and embarrassment,” said Pr0f. He recently claimed to have carried out an attack on the sites of the governments of Dubai and Iran and said that, for the most part, his intention is to draw attention to his targets’ lack of security.

“With attacks like Stuxnet and various other cyberwar-related events becoming more popular over the last few years, well, there are a lot of people who don’t care about avoiding harming people,” said Pr0f.

In his experience, companies are “generally less secure” and, therefore, easier targets. “But I think there are quite a few governments in Africa and the Middle East that need a wake-up call,” he said.

Anonymous members are notoriously security conscious. Interviews are rare and personal details off-limits. Journalists are sometimes asked to verify their own identities before interviews are granted and members only ever speak under cover of a pseudonym, most agreeing only to be quoted as “Anonymous”.

“I am very cautious. I would not like to be under [security agencies’] scrutiny,” said Pr0f. But he insisted he was not scared of being prosecuted because “while I have committed crimes, I feel that if I get caught, then that’s fair”, adding that he sees himself as a martyr to his cause.

Other members said they are “sure” that, because of its open nature, their network is infiltrated by police and security services.

One hacker, who was heavily involved in the attacks on the banks who blacklisted WikiLeaks in the wake of the diplomatic cables furore, admitted that he gets concerned “especially every time some group tries to dox me” (publish personal details online). He said: “It’s not that the dox are accurate, so much as getting that much attention isn’t conducive to staying out of the Government’s crosshairs.”

Anonymous has always insisted - much to the confusion of media and public alike - that its membership is informal and those running the group’s sites are not always aware of the actions of members, who may be acting as individuals or as members of sub-groups. Membership can be anything from expressing support for the movement to hacking a large multinational organisation - or anything in between.

Individual members have their own methods and motivations for hacking. Some will simply bombard the target’s server with requests for information, stopping bona fide users accessing the site. Others choose to deface a site, while there are those who choose to release often highly sensitive data stolen from its databases.

Because of its notoriety, the group’s name has become synonymous with “hacktivism”. The first reaction of many on hearing of the attacks on PSN was to assume it was the work of Anonymous, a theory apparently given weight when a file said to have been planted by the group turned up on Sony’s servers. But there are myriad other groups, most notably Lulz Security, who claim to have carried out multiple attacks on Sony as well as on the PBS and Fox News websites.

Anonymous itself has faced accusations that it acts as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ in selecting targets which meet with its disapproval. But members rejected the notion, saying: “just because people have negative perceptions of us doesn’t mean our opinions are suddenly invalidated. If we feel something is wrong, we do what we can to fix it.”

— The Independent