Dennis Fisher

If you think your car is safe and secure sitting in your driveway at night with its fancy alarm system enabled, Don Bailey has some bad news for you: he can unlock it and turn it on. Whenever he wants. From the other side of the country.

A new report from the National Security Council warns that international cybercrime has reached the upper echelon of threats of to the security of the United States and is responsible for as much as $1 billion in losses in just one year in the U.S. The report, which focuses on a number of broad threats presented by organized crime groups around the world, says cybercrime poses a “significant threat to financial and trust systems.”

Security researchers have discovered a new piece of malware that targets Mac OS X users and installs a remote-control backdoor on compromised machines. The malware, called Olyx, was discovered in a package that also contained some Windows malware and researchers say that the Mac backdoor is remarkably similar to the Gh0st RAT that was used in the infamous Ghostnet attacks in 2009.

Apple has released another new version of its iOS operating system for iPhones and other devices that fixes a security vulnerability in the way that the software handled SSL certificates and validated their authenticity. An attacker exploiting the bug might be able to intercept SSL traffic, Apple warned.

Scareware gangs have been using pretty much the same tactics since the dawn of time. Or at least since 2005. They compromise Web sites, use them as jumping off points for pop-up boxes that aim to terrify the citizenry into thinking their PCs are infected and downloading fake security software. But now, at least some of the crews are shifting their techniques to a much more subtle trick that waits for the victims to try to watch a video and then pounces.

Security researcher Charlie Miller, widely known for his work on Mac OS X and Apple’s iOS, has discovered an interesting method that enables him to completely disable the batteries on Apple laptops, making them permanently unusable, and perform a number of other unintended actions. The method, which involves accessing and sending instructions to the chip housed on smart batteries could also be used for more malicious purposes down the road.

The practice of history sniffing, which has been seen as out-of-bounds and a serious privacy violation for the better part of a decade now, is still ongoing by some ad networks, researchers have found. A study completed recently by researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Internet and Society found that at least one ad network apparently is still using the technique to gather information about what links users have clicked on and which sites they’ve visited.