Hacker allegedly linked to Anonymous dumps 583,000 email addresses and passwords from Israeli portal Walla

A hacker going by the name of AnonSabre late last week leaked just over 583,000 credentials (email addresses and passwords) from the Israeli Web portal Walla. The site is one of the most popular in the country, providing its users with news, search, and email services.

The leak was first uploaded as 93 Pastebin links listed in a separate Pastebin post. The links in question are dead at the time of writing but not before they were republished elsewhere.

The leaked credentials were first found by PwnedList, a service that helps users figure out if their account credentials were stolen as part of a hack. The company crawls public sites where hackers post stolen data and then indexes all the login credentials it finds, a number which is currently over 30 million. We got in touch with PwnedList to verify the Walla hack, and indeed none of the dumped Walla addresses matched existing credentials in the company’s database.

“We discovered the Walla data leak through one of the automated harvesters that we had monitoring the hacker community,” PwnedList co-founder Steve Thomas told TNW. “We found out that we had only identified part of the leak, so we manually tracked down the rest of the leak, 93 files overall. The data leak included 583,083 credentials. The passwords were hashed and salted, but the salts were leaked as well. From what I have seen, there weren’t any other major pieces of data included in the data leak, such as names or addresses. However, those impacted by the data leak should still be concerned about their credentials, and be on the lookout for an increased number of phishing attacks.”

The breach was first noted by Israeli publication Haaretz (paywall). The site further claimed that the attack was part of #OpIsrael, an initiative started back in November by the hacktivist group Anonymous when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began taking military action in the Gaza Strip against Hamas.

Yet the affiliation to Anonymous may not be accurate. First of all, there’s no mention of an “AnonSabre” on any of the main Twitter accounts associated with the group, nor on the social network at all. Furthermore, the main Pastebin in question does not mention OpIsrael, a movement that has largely quieted down since it began more than three months ago.

PwnedList agrees that the link is dubious. “Yes, it is unconfirmed that this leak is related to Anonymous,” Thomas told TNW. “All we know is that this leak was discussed in an Anonymous IRC and a link to this leak was posted in that same room. Walla was also one of the Anonymous targets for OpIsrael late last year.”

Anonymous or not, the leak appears to be a genuine one. If you use Walla, make sure to change your email account password.

See also – Anonymous attacks over 650 Israeli sites, wipes databases, leaks email addresses and passwords and Anonymous claims to have leaked over 3,000 names, home addresses, and phone numbers of donors supporting Israel

Image credit: Simeon Eichmann

Givey lands $960,000 to improve its social donation platform and support more fundraising events

Social donation platform Givey has announced that it has raised $960,000 to recruit new staff and help more charities, businesses and event organizers to create new fundraising events.

The latest round of investment came from the Innovation in Giving Fund, an initiative created by the UK government and managed by the independent charity NESTA. Northstar Ventures, the IP Group and a number of UK-based investment angels were also involved in the round.

Givey, based in London and Newcastle, is a service that allows people to donate to charity at any time through Twitter or a text message. Users simply register on the Givey website and link their profile-specific hashtag to a PayPal account. Once the two are linked, you can donate at any time by referencing the recipient’s hashtag in a text, tweet or website message.

The community aspect is designed to make it much easier not only to find worth causes, but also promote your own. Givey also processes donations through the PayPal Giving Fund, formerly known as MissionFish, which means that 100 percent of the donation goes to the charity.

As the global recession continues to bite, charities are looking at new methods to try to attract fresh donations. The UK Giving 2012 Report found that donations dropped by 15 percent in 2011/12 – a trend that Givey founder and CEO David Erasmus hopes can be reversed.

“No one in the charity sector has successfully combined the wallet and social communication,” he said. “People want to find out what their friends and family are doing for causes. They want to find out what matters to the people that matter to them, and they want to be able to help them without jumping through hoops.”

Givey graduated from the ignite100 accelerator in Newcastle last year, and has been teaming up with a multitude of events and charities to try to stimulate donations. These have included a campaign with Chasing Zero on World Aids Day 2012, called #FreezeAids, as well as a 24-hour fundraiser for UNICEF in March called StickAid.

On the technology side, Givey is working on a new partnership with fitness app RunKeeper called ‘The Burner’, whereby friends and family can bet against someone taking part in a charity challenge. If the challenge is completed, all of the money goes to the person’s charity of choice, but if they fail – it’s rerouted to the backer’s preferred charity instead.

The company says a Windows 8 app for the ‘The Burner’ will be launching soon.

Image Credit: Juan CARLOS/AFP/Getty Images

How to summon Windows 8′s secret Start Menu of sorts

Happy Saturday Super Troopers, it’s good that you are still with us. For the more than 1% of the world computing community, and I suspect a far larger chunk of you lot, Windows 8 is the operating system du jour.

That in mind, I’ll bet you miss your Start Menu. It was familiar, comfortable, ever-changing and yet ever-present, and now oh-so-gone. TNW is here to help.

Grab your Surface, Windows 8 tablet, laptop, or other machine, and put your cursor in the lower left corner of the screen. Right click. If you did it properly, you should have something like this:

In Windows 7, such an action leads to only the following:

There, you now have a poor man’s Start Menu in Windows 8. Naturally, 99% of all consumers will never find the damn thing, and will thus have to rely only on the new Start Screen in all its Metro glory.

You, however, know better. Now head outside and go for a run. Via Microsoft-News. Top Image Credit: Dell Inc.