HBGary

Threatpost spent much of the last year chasing after Greg Hoglund, the founder and CEO of HB Gary. First, it was to get his reaction to the bruising encounter his firm had with the hacking group Anonymous. Then it was an endless series of requests on the aftermath of that hack, including the departure of HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr, and the company's decision to pull out of the RSA Conference in 2011. When Greg finally did speak out it wasn't to us.

So we were happy when Hoglund, whose firm was recently acquired by the company Mantech International Corp., agreed to speak at the Kaspersky Lab Security Analysts' Summit in Cancun, Mexico in February. His talk there on "Lateral Movement and Other APT Interaction Patterns Within the Enterprise" reinforced Hoglund's reputation as one of the top experts on malicious code.

Threatpost editor Paul Roberts caught up with Hoglund after the speech. And, while Anonymous and HBGary Federal were not up for discussion on the record, Hoglund offered some great insights into the delicate art of tracking down remote access trojans (or RATs) after they have a foothold in your network, as well as the mistakes companies make in trying to prevent and respond to security incidents.  Read more »

Hector Xavier Monsegur or "Sabu," de facto ringleader of the notorious Anonymous Internet Collective, was not merely a talented hacker. He was also something of a Robin Hood of the East Side projects and a hard-partying  nuisance to his neighbors, a report by the New Yok Times claims. Read more »

The seeds of LulzSec's downfall were sown long before the FBI and Scotland Yard went knocking on doors this week. In fact, the group owes its downfall to a series of small, internal skirmishes, unforced errors and unlikely clues that created a virtual trail to its leaders, a Threatpost investigation found. Read more »

As information filtered out about the arrests of senior members of the group Anonymous and LulzSec on Tuesday, a portrait emerged of a group of mostly teenaged and 20 something hackers who blended greed and ideology in a string of high profile hacks stretching back more than a year. Read more »

The whistle-blower Web site Wikileaks has published what it claims are the first of millions of internal e-mails taken from the Texas based strategic intelligence firm Stratfor.  Read more »

A recent report by the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) shows that the Agency is full speed ahead with plans to use powerful data analytics tools to help find and prosecute everything from money laundering to illegal gambling to 419 scams. Read more »

Editor's note: Finding Aaron Barr at this year's DEFCON hacker conference in Las Vegas was like a giant game of "Where's Waldo." Given the events of the past year, you can hardly blame him for keeping a low profile. First there was the attack on him and his then-employer, HBGary Federal, his decision to part ways with HBGary, his work to rehabilitate his image and turn his personal misfortunes into a 'teaching moment' for the industry, and then the legal wrangling in recent weeks that threw cold water on his plans to take part in a panel discussion about Anonymous at DEFCON. Barr was courted by numerous news outlets at the show, including the mainstream media. But he preferred, for the most part, to keep his counsel. So when Aaron offered to contribute his thoughts on this year's DEFCON to Threatpost, we jumped at it. Here's what he had to say.  

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The authorities have charged Jake Davis, a UK resident from the remote Sheltand islands with five criminal counts. The 18 year old is alleged to be "Topiary," a prominent member of the inner circle of the hacking groups Anonymous and Lulz Security.  Read more »

This is the second in a two-part interview with Aaron Barr, the former CEO of HBGary Federal

In the second half of his exclusive interview with Threatpost, former HBGary CEO Aaron Barr - speaking before the arrest of alleged Lulzsec member Ryan Cleary in the UK -  talked about the likely law enforcement reaction to the Anonymous and Lulzsec hacks, the mainstream media's portrayal of the hack of HBGary, as well as how he was picking up the pieces after the embarrassing hack of his employer. Read more »

Mobile malware is on track to double again in 2011, as it has every year since 2007, according to a report from Kaspersky Lab. Read more »