SMB Security

An application programming interface (API) error on the popular Kickstarter crowdfunding website exposed the plans and descriptions of more than 70,000 yet-to-be launched projects. Read more »

The first annual Index of Cyber Security finds that senior security officers are more concerned than at this time last year about the risk of cyber attack and other online risks, with concerns about ideologically-motivated hacktivists and the threats posed by business partners and other "counter parties" topping the list. Read more »

The Dutch government has asked DigiNotar, the Dutch certificate authority that was broken into last summer, for €8.7 million ($11M USD) to recoup money it spent buying new certificates, according to several Dutch news reports. The Dutch interior ministry asked for €1 million in January, yet the number “has now risen to €8.7 million,” according to the company’s curator Rocco Mulder in an interview with Dutch news site nu.nl.

 Read more »

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passed with bipartisan support by a 248-168 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives last night, despite warnings from privacy experts and a growing public outcry. Read more »

The Obama Administration joined the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) debate yesterday when a senior State Department advisor told The Guardian that the White House opposed the controversial bill. Read more »

The dollar-value of online criminal activity conducted by the Russian mafia and other criminal organizations doubled in 2011, according to a new report from the Russian security firm Group-IB. Read more »

In a ruling that could be felt throughout the business world, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California ruled that a man did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) after pilfering contacts from the client database of his former employer to help jumpstart his competing business venture. Read more »

The U.S. and other advanced nations face a drastic cyber security skills gap. Attacks from sophisticated and unsophisticated attackers are on the rise, even as more and more companies and government agencies move more of what they do online to Web based services and the cloud. 

Of course, the skills gap requires a bottom-up rethink of the way that technology skills are taught at both the primary and secondary level. That's no easy task in a decentralized and highly regulated education system such as the one that exists in the U.S. where resources are addressed more towards basic skill acquisition than to teaching advanced cyber skills. Still, the Obama Administration has put cyber security at the top of its domestic and military security agendas, and there's some evidence of positive change.  Read more »

Good Samaritans are few and far between when it comes to lost cell phones, according to the conclusions of a social experiment conducted by security firm Symantec. Smart phones are unlikely to be returned by those who find them, but very likely to be perused for sensitive data including photos, social media applications and banking applications.

 Read more »

Money mules - the accomplices who help move stolen funds - may be the real victims of online banking scams, not the bank customers who are the ostensible targets of fraudsters, according to new research from Microsoft. Read more »