contributed by Erik
In what is sure to be an extremely controversial article, Erik Parker from MindSec Security, has identified what he feels is a major threat to the underground scene, the Scene Whore.

BufferOverflow

contributed by The_Question
Law enforcement officials recently notified PacBell that persons currently in custody had gained access to the passwords of some of the ISPs California users. PacBell has gone so far as to force users to change their passwords. PacBell has said that users who do not change passwords by January 14 will be locked out of their account. It is unknown how many accounts are actually effected or who the persons in custody are. Pacbell did say that no unusual account activity has been noticed. (It is a little late to change passwords now, especially if you have no idea how the list was compromised in the first place.)

ZD Net

contributed by macwizard
After discovering someone attempting to break into the email system Virgin has forced 170,000 of its 800,000 users to change their passwords. Officials claim that no security breach happened but that someone has attempted to break in. (If no one got in why bother to change the passwords? This makes no sense.)

BBC

contributed by Brian and birgir
A Russian cyber-intruder using the alias Maxim tried to blackmail the online vendor CD Universe in December by threatening to release credit card data he had stolen off the site. The extortionist said that he sent a fax to CD Universe early in December saying "Pay me $100,000 and I'll fix your bugs and forget about your SHOP FOREVER, or I'll sell your cards and tell about this in the news." When CD Universe did not respond to his threats he posted 25000 credit card details on a website and sold the rest through chat rooms on IRC and other underground venues.

Internetnews.com

contributed by Weld Pond
After routine maintenance on the NorthWest Airlines web site administrators forgot to turn the security systems back on. NorthWest has said that it does not know how long customer information was vulnerable or if personal information such as credit card numbers where compromised. The company said that it is taking the unprecedented step of notifying all effected customers anyway.

Associated Press - via Northern light

contributed by Elyn
The unexpected cancellation of ParseTV last week by online TV broadcaster Pseudo has left a lot of people wondering what the hell happened. Host of the show Elyn Wollensky has released a brief statement hopefully explaining the situation.

Statement from ParseTV Host

contributed by white vampire
Jon Lasser began the Bastille Linux Project in order to harden the security of Red Hat Linux, the distribution he uses at work. In the process, he began looking at the other distributions to see how they handle security updates, and he was not at all happy with what he found. In a Freshmeat editorial, he shares his concerns and explains why it matters to you even if you do all your security monitoring for yourself.

Freshmeat

contributed by The Overlord
Free webspace provider Fortunecity.com has axed plans to take the Piratecity.com community to court for so called use of FortuneCity's Proprietary Interests. PirateCity is a free web host provider to the underground community. It is rumored that continuous attacks on their website by pro-PirateCity supporters was too much to make the action worthwhile. PirateCity thanks all those who supported their cause but say they never promoted malicious cyber activity as a means to get their message across.

PirateCity

contributed by Evil Wench
Taiwanese Defense Ministry official Lin Chin-ching has been quoted as saying that Taiwan has 1000 viruses in its arsenal in preparation for a cyber war with China. (While there is no evidence to prove or disprove this statement it sounds like propaganda to me.)

Bloomberg