Terrifying Computer Owners Part VI

Posted by Ben Worthen

Our weekly dose of security news (and a little fear mongering):

Many people think that staying safe on the Internet means only visiting Web sites run by trustworthy companies. Theyre wrong: Not even those sites are safe. Security researchers at Finjan this week discovered that hackers had gained access to the computers that control 8,700 different Web sites, including ones belonging to Fortune 1,000 companies and others that rank among the Internets most visited. This allowed the hackers to post code on these sites that could give them control over innocent Web surfers computers.

The Internet can be a scary place

Threats like this are one of the reasons that the Air Force decided to block its troops from visiting many Web sites, including almost every one with the word blog in it. One reason was the fear that people might download a virus or code that could give a hacker access to military secrets from these sites, Wired reports. But a bigger concern is that people would leak sensitive information to one of these sites.

Its a good thing the Los Angeles Police Department didnt ban blogs: A blog post helped the LAPD nab a man theyve been after for 27 years, the LA Times reports. Kazuyoshi Miura was wanted for the 1981 murder of his wife there. But he fled to Japan before he could be charged. (He was tried and convicted there, but the decision was overturned on procedural reasons. That trial was why Japanese authorities refused to extradite him.) Miura is an avid blogger, and for the last several years the LAPD has been an avid reader. In a move destined to go down as one of the stupidest things a fugitive has ever done, Miura posted about an upcoming trip to Saipan, a U.S. territory. No surprise: the police were waiting for him.