Security

After lying low for several months, the Chinese military's hacking division has reportedly resumed attacks on U.S. businesses and government agencies. Earlier this year a US security firm published a report that linked cyber attacks to a ... Shanghai-based residence. Given that the building is known to belong to the Chinese army, it was widely concluded that China's military was directly involved in the operation. Chinese officials denied the claims. However, security experts continued to insist that the Shanghai-based unit was responsible for attacking U.S. government agencies, businesses that ... (view more)

A Romanian man convicted of ripping off ATM machines is hoping to make amends by offering an iron-clad way to protect those same machines. Valentin Boanta, who is currently six months into a five-year prison term, first started working on his ... project while awaiting trial back in 2009. Boanta's system uses a Secure Revolving System (SRS) that can be installed in any ATM machine. Its appearance resembles a metallic box measuring about 6 inches long and features a card slot in the middle. (Source: torontosun.com ) Internal Rotation Prevents Skimming SRS allows the bank card to be inserted for a ... (view more)

Law enforcement officials in Italy have reportedly arrested four members of Anonymous. The suspects allegedly carried out attacks on a number of prominent Italian websites and online services. The suspects are all aged between 20 and 34 and were ... placed under arrest in the Italian cities of Turin, Venice, and Bologna. One suspect was arrested in the southern community of Lecce. According to police, the suspects were part of Anonymous Italy, which carried out hacks of prominent commercial and government websites. Some of those sites were owned by the Vatican, Italy's prime minister's office, ... (view more)

International cybercriminals with advanced hacking skills are continuing to launch cyber attacks on American banks. That's why the Federal Bureau of Investigation is encouraging United States financial institutions to work together to prevent such ... attacks from succeeding. At a recent press event held by Reuters, FBI executive assistant director Richard McFeely said his agency has been working closely with U.S. bank leaders to devise a strategy for preventing the successful execution of cybercrimes. Cooperation Key to Protecting Against Cyber Attacks McFeely said his primary message in those ... (view more)

A new study has found that Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10 is the best browser when it comes to defending against malware threats. The study, which was carried out by NSS Labs, involved more than 700 different types of malware. NSS collected data ... over the course of 28 days by studying the impact malicious software had on the built-in protection measures found in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. Internet Explorer 10 Blocks 99% of Malware Threats NSS says it found that Internet Explorer 10 blocked 99 per cent of the malicious threats tossed its way. (Source: pcworld.com ... (view more)

Microsoft earlier this week released a Patch Tuesday security update that addressed two 'critical' security flaws, one of which was found in its Internet Explorer browser. Now, Adobe has released its own security update package. The goal: to fix ... vulnerabilities in its Reader, Acrobat, and Flash Player products. Remote Code Execution a Concern Adobe's security update for its Reader and Acrobat software involves almost thirty different vulnerabilities. Most of those flaws are related to potential arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities that, if exploited successfully, could allow a hacker to ... (view more)

Microsoft has issued a warning about a new type of malware that assumes the form of a Google Chrome extension and Firefox add-on. The Trojan horse is reportedly designed to target the Facebook accounts of its victims and, once a machine is ... compromised, performs a number of automated social media tasks, including "liking" certain pages and posting comments. The malware, which was first detected in Brazil, is named 'Trojan:JS/Febipos' and operates by checking to see if the current user is logged into Facebook. If this is the case, the bug attempts to download a configuration file that contains ... (view more)

Academic institutions need to take steps to protect themselves against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, a new report finds. Right now, many online systems used by colleges and universities are vulnerable to hacker hijacking. REN-ISAC, ... the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center, has completed a report which finds that academic institutions must begin reviewing their Domain Name System (DNS) and network configurations or face hijacking by sophisticated hacking techniques. Universities Unprepared for DDoS Attack REN-ISAC is a membership of more ... (view more)

Eight men have been accused of using bogus bank cards to empty ATMs worldwide. In one single-day attack, the gang allegedly took $40 million. The crimes were kept quiet while investigators hunted down those believed responsible. Only seven men will ... stand trial, with the other having been shot by unknown attackers in the Dominican Republic. He's thought to have masterminded the operation. And the hunt isn't complete: prosecutors believe a total of two dozen people were involved in the highly sophisticated operation. Prepaid Cards Key to Heist It appears the first step was for hackers to gain ... (view more)

Kaspersky Lab product specialist Wayne Kirby says that the complex design of Microsoft's newest operating system (OS), Windows 8, increases its vulnerability to hackers. Not helping the situation, according to Kirby: the availability of multiple ... versions of Windows 8, including Windows RT. Kirby says that, by offering consumers several different editions of its new OS, Microsoft has increased the number of flaws in the platform. Multiple Operating Systems, Multiple Vulnerabilities Kirby says that the multiple OS approach gives hackers more vulnerabilities to exploit. "Because it contains ... (view more)