Syrian Electronic Army targets Reuters again—but ad network provided the leak

This was not a story published by Reuters, but it was what visitors to the site saw earlier today.

 The Syrian Electronic Army has made old hat of hacking major US media outlets throughout the past year, and Reuters was no exception. However, while visitors to the news outlet's site undoubtedly noticed the SEA's handiwork on display temporarily this afternoon, security researcher Frederic Jacobs is reporting this latest breach was not due to any wrongdoing from Reuters.

Users trying to read the story "Attack from Syria kills Israeli teen on Golan, Israel says" (restored as of Sunday evening) were redirected to the message above at times throughout the day. And on Medium, Jacobs wrote that SEA compromised the site by targeting the New York-based ad network Taboola. While the security researcher is unsure of how SEA managed to compromise Taboola (based on previous attacks, he hypothesizes a phishing campaign like what The Onion faced), Jacobs had a pretty good idea as to why. 

"By compromising Taboola, the value of the compromise is significantly higher than just compromising Reuters," Jacobs wrote. "Taboola has 350 million unique users and has partnerships with world's biggest news sites including Yahoo!, the BBC, FoxNews, the New York Times… Any of Taboola's clients can be compromised anytime now."

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Google Tracker, I/O edition—what Google is working on before the big show

Google

With Google I/O coming up in just a few days, it's time for a second edition of The Google Tracker, what we hope will be a bi-yearly look at what's going on at Google HQ. Just like last time, we'll have a potent mix of news, (good) rumors, and a bit of informed speculation thrown in. We're not personally guaranteeing all of this will show up at Google I/O—this is more of a to-do list of upcoming projects, most of which we aren't attaching an expected time frame to.

Still, with Google's product launch extravaganza just around the corner, it's a good idea to have a fresh set of potential announcements in your head. This year could see Google tackling everything from watches to TVs to enterprise computing.

Android Wear

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Microsoft to finally give Bing the international love it needs

Microsoft's Bing search engine is slowly expanding its market share, and its underlying technology is becoming increasingly embedded into Microsoft's other products including Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone's Cortana personal assistant. But there has been a major sticking point among its users: in many markets around the world, it's just not that great.

In the US, Bing and Bing-driven services provide good search results, extensive local information, and structured results. In the rest of the world, however, much of this rich information is absent. With the Windows Phone platform finding its greatest success outside the borders of the US, the apparent lack of attention paid to international markets has been a notable and surprising omission.

A Microsoft job posting reported on by WPCentral shows that this could at last be set to change. The job description notes that "Bing is embarking on the most ambitious geographic and product expansion in its history," and it suggests that priorities have changed: "International is now front and center at Bing." The company is planning a massive expansion in Bing's reach, the goal being to "make Bing a quality product in 75 markets around the world."

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“Free” Wi-Fi from Xfinity and AT&T also frees you to be hacked

Welcome to a way for hackers to fool you into connecting to malicious networks and give up your personal data: a spoofed Xfinity login page.

Xfinity

If you've traveled and tried to get on the Internet, you've probably seen some pretty suspicious looking Wi-Fi networks with names like "Free Wi-Fi" and "Totally Free Internet." Those are likely access points you'd best avoid. But there's a much bigger threat to your security than somebody randomly fishing for you to connect to them—the networks you've already connected to and trusted, like AT&T and Xfinity.

The default settings for the AT&T Wi-Fi network on my iPhone, before I got paranoid.

Mobile broadband providers are eager to get you to connect to their Wi-Fi-based networks while you're away from home. AT&T has built a network of free hotspots for customers at thousands of places—including train stations, as well as Starbucks and McDonald's locations across the country. Comcast has spread its Xfinity wireless network far and wide as well, turning customers' cable modems into public Wi-Fi hotspots accessible with an Xfinity account login.

These free Wi-Fi connections are popular, for good reason—they help reduce the amount of broadband cellular data you consume, and they often provide better network speeds than what you can manage over a 4G connection. But they also offer a really easy way for someone to surreptitiously tap into your Internet traffic and capture your account information for less-than-friendly purposes. Millions of AT&T and Xfinity customers could be leaving themselves exposed to surreptitious hacking of their Internet traffic, exposing their personal data as a result.

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Top 10 Movies And TV Shows That Are Like Game Of Thrones

Ten months. 300 days. The gestation of a human child. However you choose to couch it, Game Of Thrones isn't coming back for a bloody long time. If you're suffering from withdrawals already, you're clearly going to need a substitute to get you through the winter. Here are ten recommendations from Lifehacker's chief fantasy nerd that will appease any GoT fan. Epic fight scenes, nail-biting betrayals, gratuitous nooky – you'll find it all here! More »

   

 

 

What's The Difference Between 'Inquire' And 'Enquire'?

Inquire and enquire differ by only a single letter, and they both mean, roughly, "ask". How should you choose which one to use? More »

   

 

 

Ask LH: I Made A Mistake On My Tax: Now What?

Hey Lifehacker, I think that I have done my tax wrong for the past two years. I've put in claims for a computer that I believe I should have claimed less for. If I believe I buggered up, so what can I do to rectify it? What will happen if I don't fix it? More »

   

 

 

Master The Art Of Reading With Lewis Carroll's Four Rules Of Learning

Everyone knows Lewis Carroll as the author of Alice In Wonderland, but he was also a mathematician and logician interested in the ways people learn. Weblog Brain Pickings took a look at four rules developed by Carroll that you can use for better reading. More »

   

 

 

Most People Will Compromise Their Computer For One Cent An Hour

There are many tales in literature over millennia about people selling their soul to a malevolent deity for the right price. But at least it's usually a good price. Recent research has discovered that we are willing to compromise our computer for no more than one cent in income. More »