UPDATE: Residents in two Illinois communities are settling their nerves after civil defense sirens blared for around 30 minutes last Saturday – an incident that authorities say may be the result of hacking.
Here’s the good news on America’s birthday: the last year has seen the U.S. emerge as an undisputed global leader in the use of offensive cyber operations. Averting another “Sputnik” moment, the nation’s longest running and most successful democracy blazed new trails in non-kinetic warfare, effectively ending speculation that the world’s lone superpower was asleep at the wheel as nations like China and Russia dashed ahead in the cyber realm. Now for the bad news: we’re screwed.
A new version of the Sykipot Trojan is being pushed to unsuspecting users in a wave of online attacks, including targeted attacks on attendees of an international aerospace conference, according to researchers at the security firm AlienVault.
U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller wants to strengthen SEC legislation that requires publicly traded companies disclose significant digital security breaches, mainly because most aren’t.
The chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee last week added a provision to cybersecurity legislation that would direct the SEC to clarify when companies must disclose data breaches.
TeamP0ison hacker and newly minted 18 year-old Junaid Hussain of Birmingham, England – a.k.a “TriCk” pleaded guilty last week to hacking charges for a string of attacks on some of the U.K.’s leading political figures, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, according to a published report in The Sun.
Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee painted a grim picture about the problem of cyber espionage against U.S. companies and interests.
The dram surrounding the Do Not Track specification and its implementation by browser manufacturers is set to continue on Thursday when the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing to discuss whether the proposed specification is strong enough or has been weakened by the digital advertising industry’s input.
The FBI is the country’s top police unit, charged with tackling the biggest problems facing its citizens. Cybercrime, by just about any measure, would fall somewhere near the top of that list of problems.The FBI historically has been ineffective and at times indifferent to all of this. However, there are signs–including the major carder takedown yesterday–that the bureau might just be finding its feet in the fight against malware gangs, botnet operators, carders and other assorted bad guys.
With Wikileaks founder Julian Assange anxiously awaiting word from the government of Ecuador on his request for political asylum, a security researcher warns that the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is handling the Assange asylum request, is using a video conferencing system that is vulnerable to online snooping.
A two-year undercover operation today netted two dozen arrests in eight countries in what federal authorities say is the largest coordinated international takedown in history directed at those who traffic stolen financial data through online forums. The investigation uncovered 411,000 compromised credit and debit cards and saved an estimated $205 million in economic losses. Additionally, 47 companies, government entitites and educational institutions were notified their networks had been breached.
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