Law enforcement may be interested to see if anyone actually shows up to this year to accept the annual Pwnie Award for Epic Ownage at Black Hat, since all the nominees face possible criminal charges. Law enforcement may be interested to see if anyone actually shows up to this year to accept the annual Pwnie Award for Epic Ownage at Black Hat, since all the nominees face possible criminal charges.Nominees for the prize are Anonymous, LulzSec, Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks, and the perpetrators of the Stuxnet worm.MORE BLACK HAT NEWS: Black Hat: Embedded Web servers open printer, scanner security holesNot that past winners haven’t been similarly tainted, but this year’s incidents have been particularly high-profile: * Anonymous, the loose confederation of hackers with a political agenda, is up for its social-engineering hack of HBGary Federal and posting more than 50,000 of its emails online. The attack was launched after HBGary’s then CEO promised to reveal the identities of group members at the RSA security conference earlier this year.* LulzSec is nominated “for hacking everyone” including Fox News, PBS, Nintendo, pron.com, the U.K. National Health Service, Infraguard, the U.S. Senate, Bethesda, Minecraft, League of Legends, The Escapist magazine, EVE online, the CIA, The Times, The Sun and others. * Bradley Manning is charged with stealing and turning over to WikiLeaks thousands of U.S. diplomatic messages and footage of a U.S. airstrike in Iraq. If Manning didn’t do it, whoever did will be of interest to law enforcement.* No one has claimed responsibility for the Stuxnet worm that infected industrial machines at an Iranian nuclear refinery, destroying equipment and setting back Iran’s nuclear program by years. The governments of the U.S. and Israel have been bandied about as the perpetrators, and it’s hard to say what Iran would do if it found out for sure who was behind the worm.In the past, Pwnie Award winners have included vulnerabilities in WordPress software that led to compromise of blogs and a backdoor installed in Red Hat’s OpenSSH software.Read more about wide area network in Network World’s Wide Area Network section. Related content feature Top cybersecurity M&A deals for 2023 Fears of recession, rising interest rates, mass tech layoffs, and conservative spending trends are likely to make dealmakers cautious, but an ever-increasing need to defend against bigger and faster attacks will likely keep M&A activity steady in By CSO Staff Sep 22, 2023 24 mins Mergers and Acquisitions Mergers and Acquisitions Mergers and Acquisitions brandpost Unmasking ransomware threat clusters: Why it matters to defenders Similar patterns of behavior among ransomware treat groups can help security teams better understand and prepare for attacks By Joan Goodchild Sep 21, 2023 3 mins Cybercrime news analysis China’s offensive cyber operations support “soft power” agenda in Africa Researchers track Chinese cyber espionage intrusions targeting African industrial sectors. By Michael Hill Sep 21, 2023 5 mins Advanced Persistent Threats Cyberattacks Critical Infrastructure brandpost Proactive OT security requires visibility + prevention You cannot protect your operation by simply watching and waiting. It is essential to have a defense-in-depth approach. By Austen Byers Sep 21, 2023 4 mins Security Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe