As if e-commerce companies didn't have enough problems with transacting securely and defending against things like fraud, another avalanche of security problems -- like cryptojacking, the act of illegally mining cryptocurrency on your end servers -- has begun. We've also seen a rise in digital credit card skimming attacks against popular e-commerce software such as Magento.

There is a well-known joke among security professionals: Q: "What does IoT stand for?" A: "Internet of Threats." Sadly, this joke is our reality. An estimated 20.4 billion Internet of Things devices will be deployed by 2020, according to Gartner, in what some have dubbed "the fourth industrial revolution." These connected devices are being manufactured to streamline everything we do.

Widespread use of unpatched open source code in the most popular Android apps distributed by Google Play has caused significant security vulnerabilities, suggests an American Consumer Institute report. Thirty-two percent -- or 105 apps out of 330 of the most popular apps in 16 categories sampled -- averaged 19 vulnerabilities per app, according to the report. Researchers found critical vulnerabilities in many common applications.

Microsoft has torpedoed websites designed to steal credentials from visitors to two Republican Party think tanks. The malicious websites were among six the company took down last week. A group of hackers affiliated with the Russian military created the sites, according to Microsoft. It apparently was the same group that stole a cache of email from the DNC during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Hackers cracked into a wide array of voting equipment Def Con's Voting Village, an event held Friday at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Last year, conference goers hacked five machines and an e-poll book of registered voters. This year, in addition to voting machines, tabulators and smart card readers were available for hacking. Websites weren't off limits, either.

DHS has announced the National Risk Management Center, part of a new effort to combat cyberthreats to the U.S. The new agency's mission will be to defend the critical infrastructure through greater cooperation between the public and private sectors. The center will bring together government experts and industry partners to work out ways that the government can support the partners.

Hundreds of U.S. utilities were penetrated by Russian hackers who could have disrupted the nation's power grid. The attacks were launched last year by threat actors sponsored by the Russian government, according to a report. The hackers used Black Hat tools such as phishing and waterhole traps to obtain credentials from legitimate users and leverage them to gain access to the utilities.

The healthcare industry has been moving toward medical equipment connectivity to speed up data entry and recording, as well as improve data accuracy. At the same time, there has been a shift toward incorporating consumer mobile devices, including wearables. "The demand for connected devices has increased rapidly in recent years," noted Leon Lerman, CEO of Cynerio.

Academics have been hard at work studying information security. Most fields aren't as replete with hackers as information security, though, and their contributions are felt much more strongly in the private sector than in academia. The differing motives and professional cultures of the two groups act as barriers to direct collaboration, noted CypherCon presenter Anita Nikolich.

The expanding world of Internet commerce likely will generate a corresponding expansion of data breaches, resulting in more e-commerce businesses becoming the targets of consumer class action lawsuits. Breach litigation has become more prevalent as a result of a perceptible legal trend favoring consumers. Courts have tended to allow lawsuits based on a lower threshold for establishing injury.

A significant percentage of IT systems are cloud-based, according to a recent survey. The cloud is a key enabler for emerging technology, suggests the CompTIA poll, which was conducted last month. Cloud computing was one of four trends respondents expected to feature heavily in IT conversations over the next 12 to 18 months, the survey found. Others were AI, the IoT and cybersecurity.

The FBI has disrupted a network of half a million routers compromised by the group of Russian hackers believed to have penetrated the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 elections, according to reports. The hacker group, known as "Fancy Bear," has been using a malware program called "VPN Filter" to compromise home and small office routers.

A flaw in certain electronic hotel door locks could allow hackers to access guest rooms and other secure locations at millions of properties around the world, F-Secure researchers have discovered. Software updates were issued to fix the flaw in the smart locks after F-Secure notified and worked with the manufacturer over the past year. The researchers had found a way to make a master key.

Devices built on Nvidia's Tegra X-1 mobile processor are at risk of attack from a flaw security researchers have revealed. The exploit chain discovered by Katherine Temkin and others affects any device running the chip, including the Nintendo Switch gaming console. Called "Fusée Gelée," the vulnerability allows anyone to run code on the chip by overloading a critical buffer when a system boots.

An alarming number of major U.S. retailers, industrial firms, government agencies and other organizations have been hit in a recent wave of cyberbreaches that may signal increasing vulnerability for consumers and businesses alike. The attacks have exposed millions of consumer payment cards to fraud. Cyberthieves have used a variety of methods to infiltrate corporate computer systems.

A virtual currency hardware wallet with millions of users has been compromised. Saleem Rashid explained how he cracked the firmware on the wallet produced by Ledger using what's known as a "supply chain" attack. That means a targeted device is compromised before any users get their hands on it. The attack on Ledger's $100 Nano S wallet creates a backdoor on the device.

Apple lawyers have sent a copyright violation notice to Github, following the publication of leaked iOS 9 source code on the site. Though iOS 9 is dated, it's possible that the leaked code could be used to jailbreak older devices or worse. Publication of the code violated Apple's rights under the DMCA, the attorneys wrote, demanding that the iBoot source code be removed.

The United States on Tuesday accused North Korea of responsibility for a global ransomware attack that locked down more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries earlier this year. The U.S. now has enough evidence to support its assertion that Pyongyang was behind the WannaCry attack in May, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert told reporters at a White House press briefing.

As powerful men drop like flies due to their inability to resist abusing their authority, it's clear that the problem is widespread. Similarly, it's likely that we'll find the problem of alleged industrial espionage is not limited to Uber. You see, when people misuse authority -- and the sexual harassment problem is a massive misuse of authority -- folks typically don't just misuse it in one area.

A security flaw in WPA2, the security protocol for most modern WiFi systems, could allow an attacker to steal sensitive data including emails, credit card numbers and passwords, Researchers at Belgian university KU Leuven reported Monday. Depending on the network configuration, the flaw also could allow an attacker to inject or manipulate information in the system.

Nearly 60 percent of small businesses have been the victims of a cyberattack over the past year, but the vast majority didn't realize that they had been attacked, according to Nationwide's third annual survey of 1,069 businesses with fewer than 299 employees. Initially, only 13 percent of the participating companies said they had been victims of a cyberattack.

Russian hackers reportedly exploited a vulnerability in Kaspersky Lab's software to steal sensitive cyberdefense data from a National Security Agency contractor. The incident, which occurred in 2015, involved a contractor who loaded classified information onto his personal computer in order to work at home. The information included hacking tools and other sensitive NSA data.

RoboCyberWall has launched its proprietary precision firewall solution bearing the same name. RoboCyberWall is designed to protect HTTP and HTTPS ports on Linux-based Apache2 and NGINX Web servers. The patent-pending firewall blocks all known exploits and zero-day attacks on Apache2 and NGINX Web servers, according to the developer. The Linux server firewall solution targets small and mid-sized business users.

Malicious code has been discovered in two versions of Piniform's CCleaner housekeeping utility, the company disclosed on Monday. Piniform is owned by Avast, whose security products are used by more than 400 million people. The malware infecting CCleaner could give hackers control over the devices of more than 2 million users. CCleaner is designed to rid computers and mobile phones of junk.

Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax suffered a major criminal data breach that exposed personal information of as many as 143 million consumers in the U.S. between mid-May and July of this year. The attack exposed a range of sensitive personal data, including names, addresses, Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, and in some cases driver's license numbers, Equifax said.

The hacker group known as "Dragonfly" is behind sophisticated wave of recent cyberattacks on the energy sectors of Europe and North America, Symantec reported. The attacks could provide the group with the means to severely disrupt energy operations on both continents. Dragonfly launched a simililar campaign from 2011 to 2014, but it entered a quiet period in 2014 after its activities were exposed.

A relatively new form of cybercrime recently has been plaguing American consumers. Thieves have been hijacking mobile phone account numbers and then transferring services to a different device. Further, hackers have begun using mobile numbers to raid digital wallets and similar accounts. This type of theft has been successful even against the most sophisticated of consumers.

There are no good outcomes of an electronic data system breach. At best, companies dealing with e-commerce technologies face the formidable task and the resulting cost of repairs. In addition having to fix information technology systems, companies suffering breaches may be increasingly vulnerable to legal action taken by customers whose personal data was affected.

Increased use of open source software could fortify U.S. election system security, according to former CIA head R. James Woolsey and Bash creator Brian J. Fox. The two made their case for open source elections software after security researchers demonstrated how easy it was to crack some election machines at the recent DefCon hacking conference in Las Vegas.

HBO on Wednesday admitted that it had been targeted by a cyberattack, confirming an anonymous email the alleged hackers distributed to media outlets last weekend. Among the content that may have been compromised were upcoming episodes of the series Ballers, Barry and Room 104, along with script outlines of the channel's hit show Games of Thrones.