The new wave of cyber attacks may actually encrypt your data or reformat your hard drive.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), a South Korean government agency, said that the next wave of cyber attacks believed to occur today could strike consumer PCs and wipe out hard drives. The attacks, originally kicking off on July 4th and using the "distributed denial of service" approach, have targeted South Korean and U.S. government and financial institutions throughout the week without causing severe damage or security breaches. However, South Korean web security firm Ahnlab said that the new phase--shifting from attack to destroy--could affect "tens of thousands" of personal computers.

"The affected computers will not be able to boot and their storage files will be disabled," said Lee Byung-cheol of Ahnlab.

Originally North Korea was the prime suspect behind the online assault, and while experts still say that the secluded country could still be the culprit, the source of the cyber attacks now traces back to five separate IP addresses stemming from Germany, Austria, Georgia, South Korea, and the United States. While the actual identity of the party responsible behind the attacks still remains unknown, it's theorized that those IP addresses were used to mask the culprits by accessing infected PCs from remote locations.

Over the course of the week, more details have surfaced on how the three waves of attacks have taken place. The perpetrators used a virus that infected many PCs worldwide, thus creating a nasty botnet. This past weekend, the botnet was activated and began to flood the targeted websites with massive amounts of requests, overloading the servers and knocking many websites offline. Now it's believed that many of those infected PCs will "self-terminate" by wiping out the hard drives sector by sector, or encrypting user data.

Currently the KCC has blocked all five IP addresses that were used to distribute the viruses, cutting off any future attempt to distribute additional viruses or to carry out DDoS attacks. South Korea also blocked an additional 86 IP addresses in 16 countries used to distribute viruses that damaged files or hard disks of infected PCs. By late Friday, South Korea reported 356 cases resulting from the damaging viruses.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service, the country's spy agency, provided lawmakers today with technical and circumstantial reasons why North Korea could be responsible for the assaults, however because probes are still underway, it was too early to place the blame entirely on the North.

Over the last week or so, owners of the new, white iPhone 3GS have been complaining about discoloration in the back cover, presumably from overheating.

While Apple last week updated support pages to include instructions and tips on operating your iPhone in extreme conditions, it has emerged that the Cupertino-based company may not be at fault after all and those claiming the device was overheating due to a manufacturer’s fault could be left with an easy-fix solution to their slightly pink or brown iPhone casing. Cnet reports that a reader of FrenchiPhone recently contacted Apple about the discolored case on his white iPhone 3GS and after much back and forth, discovered that the problem was actually the case he was using with his iPhone:

After numerous calls to Apple technical service and maintenance of contact with a level 3 (engineer) the problem seems to come not from a hot 3GS but contact with some covers! This was evident by ourselves on a device with a small sticker (a warning not to listen to music too loud) remained stuck, part of the hull below remained white. A simple solution to the problem is to clean the back of the iPhone with alcohol, tested by myself I can confirm that it works and reassure you it is safe for your precious.

Of course now the question is whether this solution will work for everyone who’s iPhone has turned a funny color since they purchased it on or after June 19. Perhaps this was just the case for one lucky user and the phone actually does overheat and change color? If there’s anyone with a dodgy looking 3GS that’s willing to give this a shot, let us know how you get on!

A WiiWare app aims to help you quit smoking.

According to Siliconera, Nintendo plans to release a WiiWare app that aims to help Wii console owners quit smoking. Called Easy Stop Smoking (Raku Raku Kinen in Japan), the app is based on a book written by Mayumi Abe, a physician at the Women's Medical University Hospital in Tokyo, and is expected to hit the WiiWare network next week.

Siliconera said that consumers choose a Mii character after the application loads, and then can select various modes--smoking and non-smoking were the two mentioned-- that records smoking frequencies, offers a seven-day plan to kick the habit and more. The app also provides a multiplayer mode, and supports up to four smoking journals.

Developer Silver Star, the company behind Silver Star Chess (published by Agetec here in the States), said that families can support each other by running the program together in the same manner as WiiFit. The company did not reveal when the game would hit the U.S. network, nor if Agetec plans on picking up the publishing rights.

Easy Stop Smoking isn't the first "stop smoking" title for a Nintendo product. Ubisoft's My Stop Smoking with Allen Carr is currently available for the Nintendo DS, a part of the company's My Coach Lifestyle games category. The self-help title hit the stores back in November 2008.

Eidos may be controlling review scores for the upcoming game Batman: Arkham Asylum.

A recent blog by The RAM Raider is suggesting that Eidos is tampering with the review scores of the upcoming game Batman: Arkham Asylum, or rather, "artificially hyping up" the forthcoming release. Eidos will be responsible for publishing the game in Europe on August 28; the game hits that States for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 three days prior through Warner Bros. Interactive. Slated as an action-adventure stealth game, Arkham Asylum heavily borrows the storyline from the original comic book series where Batman must re-capture all the inmates from the Arkham Asylum (Bane did this in the Knightfall series).

Typically publishers--or rather their associated press contacts--distribute early copies of the game to the press and high-profile gaming websites, allowing plenty of time for reviewers to encompass the full game and its additional features. In return, said parties must hold off on publishing their reviews until publishers give the green light. If the press and websites violate the agreement, early copies will no longer be provided in the future.

However, according to the blog, Eidos is offering a way around the embargo with two conditions: dedicate the front cover to Arkham Asylum and give it a score no lower than 90-percent. By fulfilling those two requests, websites and gaming mags can publish the reviews whenever they choose. While the blog offers no substantial proof, the author does indicate that one editor refused the offer, but the "usually chatty" UK Official Xbox 360 Magazine editor "clammed up" at the mere mention of the conditions.

The blog goes on to call Arkham Asylum "a decentish release" but not entirely worthy of a 90-percent review score. It's safe to assume that the reviews aren't expected to publish until the actual release date, or the week thereafter. Any articles showing up before then--and branding a rather high score--may be subject to Edios' negotiations.

Eidos has tampered with review scores in the past. The company and its various PR firms requested that editors sit on reviews of Tomb Raider: Underworld that scored under 8 out of 10. The company admitted that it wanted to control its overall Metacritic score until a week after the game's release. "Just to ensure that we don't put people off buying the game," an Eidos press contact admitted.

Ericsson and Sprint have inked a $5 billion deal that will see the former maintain and service Sprint’s networks for the next seven years.

Sprint yesterday confirmed that it would outsource daily operations to Ericsson in a deal worth up to $5 billion over a seven-year period. Ericsson will assume responsibility for day-to-day services, provisioning and maintenance for Sprint's CDMA, iDen and wired networks.

Sprint will retain full ownership and control of its network assets as well as full control of technology and vendor selections. The carrier has said that, at the moment, there are no layoffs planned as a result of the deal but said roughly 6,000 Sprint employees will begin performing their network functions as Ericsson workers sometime in the third quarter.

The deal is an effort to cut down the cost of day to day operations and the carrier’s president of network operations, Steve Elfman, today said that the deal will free the company to focus on innovation and bringing new products and services to market.

Nokia has just announced the 3720 classic and the Finnish cell phone manufacturer is calling this phone its most rugged handset to date.

Entirely sealed to protect its guts from harmful materials like dust, sand and water, Nokia is touting this phone as the perfect phone for beach goers, construction workers and clumsy people who tend to drop their phone quite a bit.

Aside from being IP54-certified (which means yes, dust might find its way in there; but even if it does, it won’t be enough to turn your phone into Nokia’s most rugged paperweight to date), the 3720 packs a 2.2-inch display, a 2 megapixel camera, an LED flashlight, an FM radio, triband EDGE, microSD expansion (1 GB included) and Bluetooth. Availability is expected before the end of the summer at €125 (roughly $175).

I have to say, with all the smartphone releases lately, it’s nice to see a phone that I wouldn’t be afraid to drop. What’s the most durable phone you’ve ever owned? Let us know in the comments below!

Amazon has cut the price of its electronic reader, the Kindle 2, by 17 percent.

The company revealed mid-week that its second iteration of the Kindle would see a significant price cut, bringing the total cost of the device down from $359 to $299. The company Wednesday added the price change to an ad for the device on the Amazon homepage. According to Reuters, customers who have had Kindles shipped within the past 30 days will receive a $60 credit on the price difference.

Amazon introduced the second generation Kindle back in February as a follow up from the company’s hugely successful Kindle ebook reader. The Kindle 2 offers customers a slimmer design, longer battery life, faster page turns, over seven times more storage, sharper images, and a slightly controversial read-to-me feature.

Soon after the launch of the device, publishing houses aired their grievances about the text-to-speech feature, claiming it would cannibalize sales of audiobooks. Amazon remedied the issue by making text-to-speech an optional feature that publishers could choose to omit for certain titles.

Anyone out there going to pick up a Kindle now that Amazon have lopped sixty bucks off the price? Let us know!