McAfee discovers $78 million worth of sophisticated cyber attacks against banking systems

Security firms McAfee and Guardian Analytics have published a joint fraud report, dubbed Operation High Roller, on new methods of siphoning money from banking systems. Using a series of highly sophisticated cyber attacks to target high balance accounts, criminals have been able to successfully bypass physical "chip and pin" authentication and use server-based fraudulent transactions to steal money from a number of accounts in Europe. The attacks originated in Italy, using SpyEye and Zeus malware to transfer funds into fraudulent accounts.

Although the fraud requires an initial client-based attack, McAfee discovered 426 unknown variants of the typical Zeus or SpyEye malware that were difficult to detect. The most unique part of the attack is the ability for the malware to use JavaScript web injects to alter internet login experiences for users and glean login information and two-factor authentication tokens. Once the malware has successfully retrieved this information from an end user, it initiates a bank transfer while holding up a users session. "Financial institutions must take this innovation seriously," say McAfee, warning that the latest technique can be used for other forms of physical security devices.

The majority of attacks appear to have taken place across European banking systems, but McAfee warns that it has found evidence of attacks at Latin American and North American financial institutions too. The company is warning that 60 servers have been processing thousands of attempted thefts from high-value accounts over a period of months, resulting in attempts to steal at least €60 million (US$78 million). McAfee says that if all the attempted fraud attacks were successful then the total attempted fraud could be as high as €2 billion ($2.49 billion).

Source: The Verge

The Truth Behind The Energy Lie

Up to 20,000 Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Released in Australian Towns

Do you remember how some scientists, researchers, and individuals like Bill Gates were trying to release genetically modified mosquitoes into the environment? Well, that endeavor isn’t quite over. Two towns in Northern Australia have recently been gifted with 10-20 thousand genetically engineered mosquitoes – almost completely replacing mosquitoes naturally occurring in the outdoors.

Different Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes?

Although the mosquitoes released are still GM, they aren’t exactly the same as the more well-known mosquitoes developed my Oxitec. Oxitec is a British company responsible for the creation of the genetically engineered mosquitoes containing a gene designed to kill themselves unless given an antibiotic known as tetracycline. The company created this internally manipulated insect to help control agricultural pests and reduce insect-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

These new mosquitoes released in Australia, however, are developed with a slightly different strategy. A bacterium named Wolbackiapipientis infects numerous insects species, and harnesses the ability to alter it’s hosts reproductive ability. When this happens, entire populations become infected within generations, and when the bacterium infects mosquitoes, the mosquitoes’ ability to pass on the dengue virus vanishes.

Needless to say, numerous scientists, researchers, and many individuals have expressed concern regarding the release of genetically engineered mosquitoes. The first mosquito release by Oxitec took place in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean in 2009, only for a second trial to occur in 2010, where 6,000 mosquitoes were released in Malaysia for further experiments. Now, 10-20 thousand mosquitoes were released in Australia, drilling the environment with even more genetically modified creations. As mentioned, many people are not happy about this.

Some individuals, such as Daniel Strickman, point out the obvious discomfort surrounding the possibility that the bacterium could become out of control once released – in a way that does not naturally occur in nature. In addition, mosquitoes less susceptible to dengue infection could in turn become more susceptible to other viruses.

Unfortunately, no peer-reviewed scientific proof of the safety of such biotechnologies can be offered. Long-term effects have not been at all measured, and once these insects are released, they can not be recalled. Here are but a few of the questions and issues regarding GM mosquitoes (or any GM insect for that matter).

• Will Oxitec need to acquire the free and informed consent of residents in Key West for the release of the GM mosquitoes? With the previous release of the mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands there was no public consultation taken on potential risks and informed consent was not given from locals.

• What could happen to the ecosystem and local food chain with the major decrease in the Aedes aegypti mosquito population?

• Tetracycline, the antibiotic Oxitec’s genetically engineered mosquitoes are supposed to have no contact with, is showing up in the environment. With tetracycline being present in the wild, these GE mosquitoes would survive and thrive.

• Mosquitoes can develop resistance to the lethal gene inputted by Oxitec. In fact, 3.5 percent of the insects survived to adulthood in laboratory tests despite carrying the lethal gene, according to Todd Shelly, an entomologist for the Agriculture Department in Hawaii.

• 0.5 percent of the released insects are female (the gender which bites humans); what happens to humans if bitten by the female mosquitoes?

• Who regulates releases, and who will be responsible in the event of complications – to any degree?

The truth is that we have no idea what the future holds for genetic modification and the potential impacts it has on the environment and public health. We know that the genetically engineered mosquitoes are equipped with a lethal gene designed to lower the mosquito population, but what does that really mean for humans? We simply do not know the potential outcomes that could arise from such creations.

Source: Natural Society

Tokyo Residents: Don't Touch the Black or Blue Dirt

Fukushima has been decimated by radiation.

But Fukushima City has less than 300,000 residents. And all of Fukushima prefecture has 2 million. On the other hand, greater Tokyo - the world's largest megacity - has 35 million inhabitants.

Tokyo soil has been blanketed by Fukushima radiation, even though the Japanese capital is 170 miles from the Fukushima nuclear complex.

Now, substances with even higher levels of radiation are showing up around Tokyo.

Minamisoma city council member Koichi Oyama writes:

People in Tokyo, the black substance is here!

***

Please, people who live around, look at that!

***

It’s on the roof, on the asphalt, on concrete… Everywhere on all surfaces.

“Almost every part where is black”.

“Those black substances have fallen away and because of the rain water it accumulates underfoot”.

“I think 1 micro is almost 100000 becquerels?, 1 second ?,?,? Ray 100 needles?”.

“Never touch them with naked hands”.

What is he talking about?

City council member Koichi filmed black "dirt" on the ground in various areas of Tokyo, showing very high radiation levels.

For example, here's Tokyo University last month:

Read more: Zerohedge

Research: Gulf Shrimp Widely Contaminated With Carcinogens

Conservative estimates indicate that the 2010 BP oil disaster released over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, followed by at least 1.8 million gallons of dispersants. While the use of dispersants helped mitigate the public relations disaster by preventing the persistent formation of surface oil, as well as keeping many beaches visibly untouched, they also drove the oil deeper into the water column (and food chain) rendering a 2-dimensional problem (surface oil) into a 3-dimensional one. Additionally, research indicates that dispersants prevent the biodegradation of toxic oil components, as well as increasing dispersant absorption into fish from between 6 to 1100 fold higher levels.

Since the event, both the mainstream media and the government have acted as if the oil disappeared, and that no significant health risks remain for the millions still consuming contaminated seafood from the Gulf.*

Now, a new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives has revealed that the 2010 BP Gulf oil disaster resulted in widespread contamination of Gulf Coast seafood with toxic components from crude oil.1 In fact, levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in shrimp were found to exceed the FDA’s established thresholds for allowable levels [levels of concern (LOCs)] for pregnant women in up to 53% of Gulf shrimp sampled.

PAHs are well-known carcinogens and developmental toxicants, which is why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is obligated to set risk criteria and thresholds for allowable levels of exposure to them.**

In the new study the authors set out to evaluate the degree to which the FDA’s procedures for determining the safety of Gulf seafood after the BP disaster reflect the current risk assessment guidelines and practices, as produced by other authoritative entities, including the National Research Council (NRC), the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California EPA. The authors focused on cancer risk associated with shellfish consumption, looking at whether or not the FDA’s guidelines protect the most vulnerable populations, e.g. pregnant women, infants.

The authors discovered a glaring discrepancy between the FDA Gulf seafood risk assessment (FDA 2010a) and the FDA’s own prior practice with risk assessment guidelines produced by other authoritative entities.

The FDA’s risk assessment was found to be seriously flawed because of the following six questionable assumptions:

The questionable assumptions include six main issues: a) high consumer body weight,b) low estimates of seafood consumption, c) failure to include a cancer risk assessment for naphthalene, d) failure to adjust for early-life susceptibility to PAHs, e) short exposure duration, and f) high cancer risk benchmarks. Taken together, these flaws illustrate a failure to incorporate the substantial body of evidence on the increased vulnerability of subpopulations to contaminants, such as PAHs, in seafood. Their final conclusion was as follows

Environmental risk assessment requires the use of scientifically founded assumptions and appropriate default estimates about the exposed population, the intensity and duration of exposure, and the dose–response relationship. The risk assessment methods used by the FDA to set safe exposure levels for Gulf Coast seafood after the oil spill do not incorporate current best practices and do not protect vulnerable populations. The FDA’s conclusions about risks from Gulf seafood should be interpreted with caution in coastal populations with higher rates of seafood consumption and in vulnerable populations such as children, small adults, and pregnant women. Our analysis demonstrates that a revised approach, using standard risk assessment methods, results in significantly lower acceptable levels of PAHs in seafood and identifies populations that could be at risk from contaminants in Gulf Coast seafood. Health advisories targeted at high-end consumers would better protect vulnerable populations such as pregnant women, women who may become pregnant, and children. Our approach did not address infant exposure to PAHs via maternal seafood consumption and lactational transfer. The NRC (2008) found up to 50-fold interindividual variability in cancer risk and recommends incorporation of estimates of uncertainty, as well as population risk distributions, into future risk assessments. Improved public health protection from contaminants in food will require reforming FDA risk assessment practices.Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the FDA’s conclusion that there are no significant risks to Gulf populations from oil spill–related contaminants in seafood are incorrect, and reckless when it comes to the health of the most vulnerable populations.

With reports now surfacing in mainstream media outlets on the appearance of eyeless shrimp and mutant fish, this latest finding probably only scratches the surface of a health problem in the Gulf titanic in proportions.

Source: Activist Post

Superbug vs. Monsanto: Nature rebels against biotech titan

A growing number of rootworms are now able to devour genetically modified corn specifically designed by Monsanto to kill those same pests. A new study shows that while the biotech giant may triumph in Congress, it will never be able to outsmart nature.

Western corn rootworms have been able to harmlessly consume the genetically modified maize, a research paper published in the latest issue of the journal GM Crops & Food reveals. A 2010 sample of the rootworm population had an elevenfold survival rate on the genetically modified corn compared to a control population. That’s eight times more than the year before, when the resistant population was first identified.

Experts are also noting that this year’s resistant rootworm populations are maturing earlier than expected. In fact, the time the bug’s larvae hatched was the earliest in decades.

“The Western corn rootworm 'season' is underway at a pace earlier than I have experienced since I began studying this versatile insect as a graduate student in the late 1970s,” entomologist Mike Gray wrote in The Bulletin, a periodical issued by the University of Chicago’s Department of Crop Studies.

Studies in other states have also revealed that the rootworm population is becoming increasingly resistant to genetically modified corn. Last year, Iowa State University researcher Aaron Gassmann noted that a number of farmers reported discovering, much to their dismay, that a large number of rootworms survived after the consumption of their GM crops. Gassmann branded these pests “superbugs.”

Farmers and food companies have increasingly been dependent on GM crops, and many have abandoned crop rotation, a practice that has been used to stave off pest infestations for centuries. Some have even gone as far as to ignore federal regulation, which require the GM corn plantations be accompanied by a small “refuge” of non-GM maize.

The recent findings have potentially devastating ramifications for both farmers and consumers. Genetic maize plantation would easily come under attack from the swelling number of “superbugs,” resulting in dwindling harvest numbers for farmers. Ultimately, consumers will pay the price not only for corn, an essential product whose derivatives are used in a plethora of products ranging from yogurts to baby powder, but for other crops sold in the market. Rising corn prices would mean that more farmers would plant corn, despite the risks, and the yield for other crops would drop. That would drive prices for virtually all food items up, hitting hard on a population already smitten by ongoing economic difficulties.

Monsanto launched its anti-rootworm GM corm in 2003. The Cry3Bb1 protein, derived from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt.) bacterium, was inserted into the corn’s genetic code. The embedded protein was supposed to be fatal to all rootworms.

The recent findings came days after Monsanto, along with other biotech companies, got a major boost from a congressional panel, which okayed the manufacture of GM crops despite pending legal challenges. Many of the lawsuits that Monsanto faces include assessments that its crops are unsafe for human consumption and affect the health of unborn children.

Monsanto has also been an active plaintiff itself. Its primary targets include entities that seek to label GM foods, and small farmers, whom the biotech behemoth accuses of using genetically modified crops patented by Monsanto.

Source: RT

Tick Bites Turning Meat Eaters Into Vegetarians