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Big US Banks Under Active Attack, Napolitano Warns November 01, 2012 
Hackers are actively attacking some of the largest banks in the nation, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned this week. Napolitano declined to go into detail about the types of breaches or what kind of information -- if any -- had been taken. She brought up her concern about attacks on U.S. financial institutions at a cybersecurity event.
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Russian Hacker Gets a Taste of His Own Malware October 31, 2012 
After a persistent series of attacks on its government computers by a Russian hacker, the Republic of Georgia got mad and refused to take it anymore. In a reversal of roles, members of the country's Computer Emergency Response Team suckered the cybermiscreant into downloading a file infected with his own spyware that allowed CERT to photograph the alleged hacker with his computer's webcam and ransack its hard drive for files.
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Legacy Applications a Threat to Windows 8 Security October 29, 2012 
Windows 8 finally made it to prime time last week. This version of Microsoft's operating system makes significant improvements in its security stance, said Alex Balan, a senior product manager at Bitdefender, but some of them are likely to be undermined by users wedded to old programs. The way the Windows 8 user interface handles applications is a significant security improvement.
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Hacking by the Books: Barnes & Noble PIN Pads Bugged October 27, 2012 
Barnes & Noble revealed this week that PIN pad devices at 63 of its stores nationwide were hacked, putting some of its customers at risk. The company discovered the hacking in September, and for the past month, the FBI has been investigating the case. Fewer than 1 percent of Barnes & Noble PIN pads reportedly were affected, but those who were could have had important data stolen.
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Huawei Coughs Up Down Under October 24, 2012 
Huawei reportedly has offered Australian authorities unfettered access to its software code in an effort to combat the perception that it is a security risk. In March, Huawei was barred from participating in the construction of Australia's National Broadband Network because of security concerns. More recently, the Chinese telecommunications giant was dubbed a security threat in a U.S. congressional investigation.
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Icelanders Give Crowdsourced Constitution Warm Reception October 23, 2012 
Voters in Iceland have responded favorably to the government's offer to let them participate in drafting the nation's new constitution. The idea to let citizens chime in online, namely via Facebook and Twitter, was hatched by 25 people on the Constitutional Council, which was tasked with devising a new constitution.
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Google Vows Blockade if France Charges for Links October 19, 2012 
In a letter to several French ministerial offices, Google reportedly has warned that it could exclude French media sites from its search results if the country implements a proposed law that would force search engines to pay for content. The letter reportedly said that such a move would threaten Google's existence.
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MiniFlame Drops Cyberbombs on High-Value Targets October 17, 2012 
Security researchers have identified a new offshoot of the notorious Flame espionage malware. The malware, called "miniFlame," creates a backdoor in the systems that it infects. That backdoor can then be used by an attacker to gain access an infected machine. The attacker can then write files to the compromised computer, snatch files from it or snap screenshots of its display.
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UK Blocks Extradition of UFO-Seeking Hacker October 17, 2012 
Gary McKinnon, a 46-year-old British computer hacker who admits to accessing U.S. government computers in 2002, will not be extradited to the U.S. UK home secretary Theresa May reportedly said that McKinnon was "seriously ill" and that the extradition request should be withdrawn. McKinnon says he hacked the U.S. computers searching for evidence of UFOs.
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Singed Firefox 16 Makes a Quick Comeback October 11, 2012 
Mozilla has nipped a Firefox 16 security scare in the bud with an update that patches a flaw it considered so serious that it briefly pulled the day-old release, warning users to revert to an earlier version. Those who installed the new browser and didn't get -- or heed -- the warning will automatically receive the patch. The browser is once again available for download.
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EU's Virtual Cyberattackers Lack Real-World Hacker Chops October 05, 2012 
The European Union on Thursday launched a massive multinational security exercise to simulate a distributed denial of service attack on online services in all participating countries. A total of 25 EU countries are actively participating in the exercise and another four are observing it. About 400 cybersecurity experts from the private and public sectors will fight off more than 1,000 simulated cyberincidents by the end of the Cyber Europe 2012 exercise.
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Anonymous Promises Major Retaliation for Swedish Raids October 05, 2012 
The hacker group Anonymous posted a YouTube video vowing that Friday, Oct. 5, will be "the biggest thing we have ever done." The video does not get into specifics, but the threat comes amid several DDoS attacks against various Swedish agencies, including the National Board of Health and Welfare, which went down Tuesday, and the Swedish Riksbank, which was down on Wednesday.
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Tizzy Over Bank Cyberattacks Unwarranted, Say Researchers October 01, 2012 
A week-long cyber attack on some of the nation's largest banks last week most likely wasn't the Armageddon headline writers made it out to be. "It's ridiculous to consider an attack that takes your website offline for a few hours the world's worst nightmare scenario," said Jeffrey Carr, CEO of Taia Global and author of Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld.
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White House May Try Cybersecurity End Run September 21, 2012 
The White House is close to completing an executive order on cybersecurity, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano has reportedly stated. This order aims to protect the United States' critical infrastructure -- our electric grid, water systems and transportation networks -- from cyberattacks. More than 90 percent of the United States' critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector.
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Microsoft Scrambles to Head Off IE Exodus September 20, 2012 
The latest Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability, which was discovered by researcher Eric Romang, is causing quite a flap in the security community. It has caused even more excitement at Microsoft. Although Redmond says few users have been affected, it has responded relatively swiftly to the problem, issuing a temporary patch for the flaw, and promising to roll out an automatic update on Friday.
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Analyst: Flame Devs Used FOSS to Help Them Hide September 17, 2012 
The developers of the now-notorious Flame malware used command and control servers running the 64-bit version of Debian and the OpenVz virtualization technology in their work. They wrote most of the server code in PHP, researchers at Kaspersky Lab and Symantec have found during continuing investigations into the malware.
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Court Gives Microsoft License to Kill Botnet September 14, 2012 
Microsoft won court approval to pursue cybercriminals infiltrating its supply chain as part of an ongoing investigation into malware-infected computers. The company's Digital Crimes Unit bought computers from PC malls in China only to find brand-new laptop and desktop computers infected with preinstalled malware that may have spread to millions of PCs around the world.
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Theft of Apple UDIDs Mitigated by News the FBI Didn't Have Them September 11, 2012 
The case of the stolen database of Apple device identifiers is getting more intriguing by the day, with an entirely new player -- an app development company called "BlueToad" -- joining the cast of characters. BlueToad execs told reporters that the Apple UDIDs were stolen from it in a cyberattack launched two weeks ago.
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In Google Attack Aftermath, Operation Aurora Keeps on Hacking September 08, 2012 
The gang behind Operation Aurora, a coordinated attack that hit Google and tens of other large United States corporations, is alive, well and hacking away, Symantec said. Over the last three years, the gang has used lots of zero-day attacks against not just defense corporations, but also the manufacturers in their targets' supply chains.
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Anonymous Dumps Trove of 1 Million Stolen Apple IDs September 04, 2012 
The hacktivist group Anonymous has published 1 million universally unique identifiers belonging to Apple devices. These were among more than 12 million UDIDs stolen from the laptop of FBI Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl, the group said. Anonymous deleted personal data before releasing the data on the Internet.
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