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LizardSquad’s DDoS tool is mostly powered by hacked home routers

Jan09
by on January 9, 2015 at 4:52 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, botnet, ddos, Insider, Investigations, KrebsOnSecurity, LizardSquad, PSN, xbox live

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LizardSquad, the group who knocked Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network offline over Christmas, subsequently revealed that their motive was to publicise their ‘booter’ site, designed to allow paying customers to knock sites offline. Now Brian Krebs of KrebsOnSecurity, who has been investigating the group for some time and has been personally targeted by them, says the DDoS tool draws most of its bandwidth from hacked routers in homes around the world. The error made by the owners of those routers? Failing to change the factory-default usernames and passwords. Krebs says LizardSquad’s botnet is not totally reliant on home routers. It also makes use…

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Fruitful wants to cut UK banks out of the saving and mortgage lending process

Jan09
by on January 9, 2015 at 4:31 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, Product Launches, UK

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Crowdsourcing pretty much anything is standard fare nowadays. At the end of last year, we brought you news of Crowdestates, a startup that wants to crowdfund the cash for people’s home improvements – before ultimately moving up to offering full mortgage amounts. Another new entrant in the peer-to-peer lending space is Liverpool-based Fruitful, a platform that’s promising around 6 percent interest rates on money people choose to invest with the platform. That money is then lent out to people wanting to take out investment, development or commercial mortgages against properties. It’s a pretty simple equation: lenders provide up to £1 million that borrowers can use to…

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Would you jump into a river to save your drone? This guy did…

Jan09
by on January 9, 2015 at 4:00 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, DJI Phantom 2, drones, Shareables, Videos, viral

How far would you go to save your drone? When the battery of Zweir Spanjer’s DJI Phantom 2 ran out after a full day in flight and sent it crashing towards a river, he leapt in to save it. The best part is the look on his face as he fails to grab it. And if you really want to ratchet up the emotion, there’s the Whitney Huston remix version: ➤ My first day with my drone [Zweir Spanjer via Gizmodo] Read next: Airstoc is a Marketplace for Drone-shot Stock Aerial Footage

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Catching up: How did our ‘7 startups to watch in 2014′ fare?

Jan09
by on January 9, 2015 at 2:54 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, Profiles and Interviews, Roundups

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Early in 2014, we called out 7 early stage startups that seemed worth keeping an eye on for the year ahead. Rather than leave it at that though, we decided to actually do as we said and see how they’re getting along now at the start of another new year. If you didn’t read that first piece, you should go and do that first. If you’d rather view this post on one page (it’s nearly 5,000 words, though!), you can do that here. Updatey We caught up with Benjamin Dell, founder of project tracking platform Updatey to see what has happened in the…

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Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp reopening today after $5 million heist

Jan09
by on January 9, 2015 at 2:13 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, bitcoin, Bitstamp, Insider

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Bitstamp, the bitcoin exchange hacked earlier this week, resulting in the loss of 19,000 bitcoin worth around $5 million, will resume trading today, reports Reuters. One bitcoin is currently worth $276.80. The service was suspended after the security breach was uncovered. Damijan Merlak, one of the company’s co-founders, confirmed in an email to Reuters that it will be back online today. Bitstamp had previously said it expected trading would resume within 24 hours but it has taken substantially longer to deal with the situation. It has also said that customers will not lose money as a result of the security breach and that…

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