Oil firms hit by 'state' cyber attacks

According to a published report citing unnamed people and government documents, at least three US oil companies were victims of highly-targeted, e-mail-borne attacks designed to siphon valuable data from their corporate networks and send it abroad, writes The Register.

The attacks against Marathon Oil, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips began with e-mails sent to senior executives that included links to booby-trapped Web sites, according to the report in The Christian Science Monitor. The breaches focused on the companies' proprietary "bid data", detailing the quantity, value and location of petroleum discoveries worldwide.

The report said at least some of the attacks appeared to originate in China, but didn't provide proof beyond the existence of servers located in that country used to store some of the stolen data.

The UK Home Office's plans to extend the voluntary ID pilot scheme to 16- to 24-year-olds in Greater London next month have been slammed by both the Tories and Liberal Democrats, reports Computing.co.uk.

The announcement follows a pilot of the scheme to adults in Greater Manchester, which saw 3 000 ID cards distributed, and has been lauded by government as "highly successful".

However, shadow immigration minister Damian Green has issued a statement warning youngsters not to waste £30 of their money on "this pointless scheme", because an incoming Conservative government will scrap it.

A US hacker, who gained notoriety for unlocking Apple's iPhone as a teenager, has told BBC News that he has now hacked Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3), says the BBC.

George Hotz said the hack, which could allow people to run pirated games or homemade software, took him five weeks.

He said he was still refining the technique, but intended to post full details online soon. The PS3 is the only games console that had not been hacked, despite being on the market for three years.

AMD is rolling out three processors with prices of less than $100, designed for desktops, states eWeek.

The one Phenom and two Athlon processors are aimed at cost-conscious consumers who want to take advantage of DirectX 11 and other features in Microsoft's Windows 7.

AMD also unveiled two other processors that are priced higher than $100.