While there have been cyber attacks made against other companies and government organizations in the last couple of months, Sony has been by far the company that has suffered through the most attacks. Today CNet's News.com reports that yet another web site owned and operated by one of Sony's divisions has been attacked. Two hackers claimed they took over 177,000 emails from the Sony Pictures France web site.

The two hackers who accomplished the attack said they got through via an SQL injection. The duo posted 70 of the emails on a Pastebin web page. Sony Pictures has yet to confirm the attack saying only, "We are currently investigating this claim." One of the hackers, known as "Idahc", stated in a Forbes.com interview last week that he is launching these attacks as a way to get companies like Sony to improve their web site security systems.

This is the 20th cyber attack on a web site or server owned and/or operated by the Japanese company in the past couple of months. Of course the biggest attack happened on April 20 when hackers attacked the Sony Playstation Network online gaming service. Sony said that tens of millions of PSN accounts were exposed although no financial info was apparently taken. Sony shut down the network for a few weeks and has only just recently brought the Playstation Network back to full operations. It also compensated PSN users for the system downtime with free downloadable games as well as other offers.

Intel has now added three new high-efficiency, low-power parts to its product catalog. These will supposedly be the new chips for the MacBook Airs due a few weeks from now, according to Apple Insider. The ultra low voltage (ULV) are 17 watts, making them suitable for use in the ultra-thin MacBook Airs. The standard parts used by Apple consume 25-35 watts, making them unusable in the MacBook Air.

The new lineup consists of three new parts. The Core i7-2677M is a dual-core processor that runs at 1.8 GHz, with TurboBoost 2.0 up to 2.9 GHz and a 4 MB cache. The Core i7-2637M is another dual-core part that runs at 1.7 GHz, with boosts up to 2.8 GHz and the standard 4 MB cache. The Core i5-2557M is a dual core part that runs at 1.7 GHz with boosts up to 2.7 GHz and a cache of 3 MB. The prices are 317, 289 and 250 US Dollars, respectively.

Intel sees a huge market for ultra-thin notebooks like Apple's offerings. When the Air was fist released, it was criticized for not being thin enough and giving up too many features. Apple has since made the Air thinner and reduced the price, while adding a Solid State Drive, which supports very fast booting, wake, and program launching. One will have to see what is offered as Apple launches its MacBook Air refresh in the coming weeks.

In a move aimed squarely against Skype and its new overlords, Google is taking voice chat and videoconferencing to the land of the free and open source. According to Cnet, Google is planning to add an open source communications protocol called WebRTC into future versions of Chrome. Google developed this project as an outgrowth of its purchase of Global IP Solutions in 2010, and released it to the open source community in May 2011. In typical Google form, the plan was to take Skype-like communication technologies and capabilities, and stick them on the web, in any browser. It promised to work with other browser developers to help achieve this goal, so that developers could start writing web apps that take advantage of the open standard.

Google has already been in the multimedia teleconferencing game for some time. After releasing Voice and Video chat for its Gtalk client, re-releasing it in a mobile incarnation, and integrating its Google Voice VoIP product into new versions of Android OS, Google is ready to unleash its model on non-proprietary platforms.

Microsoft likely already has plans to heavily integrate Skype into many of its online services. If WebRTC can take off as a viable project that developers will want to use, Microsoft could see some stiff competition from developers looking for open-source and cross platform communications solutions in their web apps. Ultimately, the platform could be used to build a total Skype replacement.

WebRTC is Google’s latest attempt to bring native app capabilities to the cloud. As demonstrated in Chrome OS, Google is confident that most if not all activities done by users on a regular basis can be done from a web app. The same applies for real time multimedia communication, and WebRTC hopes to streamline and open source that goal.

Source: Neowin

NEW YORK – About 200,000 Citibank credit card customers in North America have had their names, account numbers and email addresses stolen by hackers who broke into Citi's online account site.

Citigroup Inc. said it discovered that account information for about 1 percent of its credit card customers had been viewed by hackers. Citi has more than 21 million credit card customers in North America, according to its 2010 annual report. The New York-based bank, which discovered the problem during routine monitoring, didn't say exactly how many accounts were breached. Citi said it was contacting those customers.

The bank said hackers weren't able to gain access to social security numbers, birth dates, card expiration dates or card security codes. That kind of information often leads to identity theft, where cyber criminals empty out bank accounts and apply for multiple credit cards. That can debilitate the finances and credit of victims. Citi customers could still be vulnerable other problems. Details about their bank accounts and financial information linked to them could be acquired using the email information and account numbers hackers stole.

The Citi data breach was the latest in a series of recent high-profile data attacks against a number of major firms.

--On June 1, Google Inc. said that the personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists, had been breached.

--On May 30, broadcaster PBS confirmed that hackers cracked the network's website and posted a phony story claiming dead rapper Tupac Shakur was alive in New Zealand.

--On May 28, defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. said it had detected a "significant and tenacious attack" against its computer networks. The company said it took swift and deliberate actions to protect the network and the systems remain secure.

--In April, media and electronics company Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Network was shut down in April after a massive security breach that affected more than 100 million online accounts.

--Also in April, hackers penetrated a network operated by a data marketing firm Epsilon. The company handles email communications for companies like Best Buy Co. and Target Corp.

The number of data breaches in the last two months sets a "high water mark," said John Ottman, CEO of Application Security Inc., a New York-based firm that specializes in securing databases, the big repositories companies use to organize account information and other data.

"Attackers have realized that most organizations have not properly protected databases," Ottman said.

Cyber attackers have a variety of less-dangerous motivations, from mischief to online activism. For example, a group identifying itself as LulzSec claimed credit for the fake PBS article calling it retaliation for a documentary about WikiLeaks, the website that publishes classified documents.

But often such data breaches are an attempt to steal personal data, which is likely the case with Citi. Hackers also will pose as legitimate companies in a tactic known as "phishing," where they try to get users to supply additional information like social security numbers and email or bank passwords to get access to their financial information.

In an emailed statement, Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for Citi said the bank is contacting affected customers and enhancing procedures to prevent a similar security breach from happening again.

"For the security of these customers, we are not disclosing further details," he said.

Source: PALLAVI GOGOI and KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writers

Today is World IPv6 Day, the day where some of the major internet companies around the globe switch to IPv6 to test out the new protocol and to see how their network configurations fare. The internet is set to fully run out of IPv4 addresses very, very shortly, so World IPv6 Day is an easy way to test IPv6 connections with a huge test user base (the entire internet population) and evaluate the effects of the switch.

Popular internet sources such as Google, Facebook, Bing, YouTube, Yahoo and more have switched to using IPv6 before IPv4 to connect its users today, meaning both protocols will be in use. Despite this fact, around 0.05% of internet users will have problems connecting to websites on World IPv6 Day due to misconfigured home networks, according to Sierra Madre Patch. They mention that despite the low sounding figure, it actually equates to around 150,000 North Americans and more than a million people worldwide.

IPv6 has actually been around for more than a decade as engineers realized that IPv4 addresses will eventually come to a close, however companies have been slow to deploy proper IPv6 solutions as the situation hasn’t been particularly grave. Unlike IPv4, which only allows for around 4.3 billion addresses (232 to be specific), IPv6 supports 340 undecillion addresses (2128) for extreme flexibility – or around 50 octillion addresses per person. To accommodate this huge increase, IPv6 addresses are longer compared to IPv4 addresses and use hexadecimal characters; an example would be 2001:db8:1f70:999:de8:7648:6e8.

You will most likely find your favourite internet sources participating in World IPv6 Day fully functional today, however if you are not, the day will end at 23:59 UTC where the sites will switch back to the standard IPv4 configuration.

Are you already on IPv6? Let us know in the comments.

Today at the annual WWDC event, Steve Jobs took the stage to announce the new flagship of software suites for Mac and iDevices. Apple recently announced the upcoming iOS 5.0 firmware, but today it finally unveiled what the company has been working on for over a year now.

The company announced that to date, they have had more than 14 billion downloads, with over 90,000 iPad apps. They have paid developers more than $2.5 billion dollars so far.

Apple started off the new feature list with notifications. Apple has removed the old notification popup system for a more inline notification system, making it less annoying when you're watching a video or playing a game. The 'notification center' will act similar to Android, where your menu swipes down, revealing alerts for all of your phone, messages, emails and more. The notification center is even on your lock screen too.

The lock screen has received a major update, allowing for notifications from apps, messages, and even listening to voice mail without having to slide to unlock the phone.

iOS 5.0 also comes with 'Newsstand', a new subscription-based application that has a ton of newspaper and magazine companies on board, including New York Times, SF Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, and more.

Apple introduced a new Twitter integration for iOS 5.0, making it easier for users to post photos, maps, articles from Safari and attachments with a new 'Tweet' option.

Safari also received a number of updates, including the new reader button for your documents. Safari in iOS 5.0 now comes with a "reading list" feature, so you can come back and read a bookmarked page later, without saving it to your bookmarks.

Next up, mobile Safari now comes with tabs! No more annoying stacked option menu, but now it's located under your toolbar bookmark menu.

The camera app finally received a much deserved update, to include some of the new updates from Apple. First up, is a camera button shortcut on your lockscreen, making it easier to quickly take a picture of events that just can't wait. If the moment can't wait that long, you can use your volume up button to take pictures now, bypassing your lockscreen - but don't worry, your existing photos will be secure. Apple also included a photo touch-up app.

Apple is once again updating their mail app, adding new search, flag and spam and security options. There is even a built-in dictionary option, prompting the user with a popup when they click the "define" option.

If you've ever typed on the iPad, you may notice that reaching the keys in the middle can sometimes be default. Apple has now changed up the layout of the keyboard. There will not be two floating keyboards on either side, allowing you to just type with your thumbs while holding it firmly in your hands.

iOS 5.0 now does wireless syncing with iTunes. You'll be able to finally ditch the cable (other than charging) and sync and receive updates directly on your device, without having to connect to your PC or Mac.

The Game Center also is now more social network friendly, to make sharing and playing games with friends easier.

Last up, Apple introduced iMessage. The new instant messaging service allows any iDevice (iPhone, iPod touch and iPad) to communicate with each other. The new application is very similar to the SMS application, but is completely free. Similar to BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), the application allows you and your friends to instant message one another, from anywhere in the world, without the added roaming charges. iMessage requires WiFi or 3G to send and receive.

iOS 5.0 beta will be made available later today for the following iDevices:

iPhone 4 (GSM and CDMA)

iPhone 3GS

iPod touch (4th generation)

iPod touch (3rd generation)

iPad 2 (GSM, CDMA and WiFi)

iPad (GSM and WiFi)

Apple TV 2G

iOS 5.0 will ship this fall to consumers.