Reports have emerged this morning about a short-lived hack of Skype’s Twitter and WordPress accounts by the Syrian Electronic Army. No evidence of the hack remains, although screenshots purportedly demonstrate that it happened. Unusually, it is in prot…
CryptoLocker’s Ransom Haul Potentially Close to $1 Million in 100 Days
CryptoLocker, the ransomware that uses a public-private key combo to potentially lock out victims from their files forever, has been striking since mid-September. And since it made its debut, it’s managed to make off with at least $300,000, one $300-or…
Global Stock Exchanges Band Together on Cybersecurity Initiative
A worldwide group of top stock exchanges have gotten together to launch the industry’s first cybersecurity committee, with a mission to aid in the protection of global capital markets.
RSA Received $10 Million from the NSA to Make Flawed Crypto its Default Offering
The accusation, made Friday by Reuters, is that “RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software.”
UK’s ICO Issues Guidelines for an ‘Appy’ Christmas
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is warning consumers to protect their personal information when downloading mobile apps, ahead of the busiest day of the year for app downloads. In tandem, it also issued guidance to help developers look…
Target Breach Affecting 40 Million Was Likely an Inside Job
The US, originator of Black Friday holiday sales and the dubious homeland of in-store, post-Thanksgiving brawls over hot toys (remember Tickle-Me Elmo?), has been hit with the largest retail breach of credit and debit card information of 2013. In fact,…
Industry Predictions for 2014; Part 3: The Effect and Influence of Government
In Part 3 of our week-long look at industry predictions, we examine the effect and influence of government. There are two primary aspects: the influence of government (regulations); and the effect of government (which has been shown in the latter half …
Bruce Schneier Leaves BT
Bruce Schneier, BT’s security futurologist, is leaving the company after eight years. In June 2013 he joined the board of digital rights firm Electronic Frontier Foundation, and has – since the Snowden revelations began – been a fierce critic of NSA/GC…
Big Botnet, Posing as Firefox Add-on, Scans Web for SQL Vulnerabilities
A slaving operation masquerading as a legitimate add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser has created a 12,500-PC strong botnet army whose purpose is to find exploitable websites.
Department of Energy Failed to Address Known Cybersecurity Weaknesses
The US Department of Energy’s failure to address known cybersecurity weaknesses was a direct cause of a July 2013 data breach that affected more than 104,000 individuals, according to federal auditors.