Security

Over the past week major American banks -- including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo -- have faced a torrent of cyber attacks. At the moment, no one seems to know who was behind the campaign. Besides JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, Bancorp, ... Citigroup, and Bank of America were also targeted by hackers. It appears the attacks did not capture any customer information, though they did affect online banking services. DDoS Attacks Launched by Advanced Hackers Rodney Joffe, a security expert and senior vice president of the Virginia-based Neustar Inc., says the attacks were carried out by highly ... (view more)

Software developer Kevin Burke claims Virgin Mobile customers face an unacceptable risk of falling prey to hackers. Unlike many security issues, this isn't an unexpected bug that's produced by an oversight during the coding process. Burke says weak ... security within that system might allow hackers to hijack a user's phone number. According to Burke, he reported the problem a month ago but has not yet seen any sign that the firm is taking steps to fix it. He is now publicizing the issue in the hope of forcing Virgin Mobile into action. Six Digit Pin Insufficient The weakness stems from Virgin ... (view more)

Microsoft has admitted hackers are carrying out targeted attacks to exploit a newly-discovered bug in its popular Internet Explorer web browser. The company is working on a fix, but suggests users consider technical workarounds in the meantime. The ... bug affects all versions of Internet Explorer from version 6 (which shipped with Vista) to version 9 (the current edition). It won't affect Internet Explorer 10, which will first become available with Windows 8 in late October, 2012. Eric Romang, a security researcher, discovered the bug while examining a web server used by hackers. Romang found ... (view more)

The company that conned cellphone owners into signing up for expensive data plans will now pay a $500,000 fine to the New York Attorney General's office. Game Theory LLC has also been told it must stop sending unsolicited texts. Game Theory is said ... to have sent more than 150,000 misleading texts in less than two months last summer. The texts told people that an unnamed person had a romantic crush on them and they could find out who it was by replying with the word 'yes.' It's not clear how many people replied affirmatively. While it's likely most people ignored the texts, an operation of this ... (view more)

Is your new PC already infected with malware? It's possible, experts say. According to a new report, a number of computers recently built in China are not only shipping with counterfeit software but also come laced with malware. Thanks to ... "bloatware" -- the pre-loaded third-party trial software included with most new computers -- getting a new system to run the way you want can be a real hassle. However, finding your new PC pre-loaded with malware is downright frightening. But that's exactly what Microsoft says it found on some new computers built and distributed in China. Microsoft Files ... (view more)

After initially indicating that it would not fix an Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) security bug until Windows 8's official October, 2012 release, Microsoft now says it will provide a patch "shortly". The problem is associated with Adobe Flash, software ... that supports multimedia and interactive content for web pages. A recently discovered bug in Flash led to Adobe issuing a security update for the Flash Player. The security update addressed six individual security flaws, all rated 'critical' by Adobe. Any one of them could allow a hacker to crash a computer when trying, for example, to disrupt a ... (view more)

The man convicted of infecting 72,000 computers has been sentenced to two and a half years behind bars. Joshua Schichtel created a network of hijacked machines and then -- for a fee -- allowed others to control them. Schichtel first came to the ... attention of authorities in 2004. At the time, he was part of a group charged with using infected computers to carry out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Earlier DDoS Attack Goes Unpunished Under a DDosS attack, a hacker uses many computers to send service requests to legitimate website servers. Because servers are set up to respond to all ... (view more)

With firms like Dell unveiling new products that run the upcoming Windows 8 operating system (OS), set for release in late October 2012, interest in Microsoft's newest OS is steadily mounting. However, the growing buzz could benefit hackers, who -- ... as always -- will be seeking to take advantage of public interest in a new software product. That's why it's not surprising that PC security firm McAfee claims to have found a fake antivirus and anti-spyware software utility that calls itself the "Win 8 Security System." Fake Security Software Claims to Keep Windows 8 Systems Safe McAfee says ... (view more)

A hacking group says it has acquired personal information associated with 12 million Apple user accounts, and that it got those details by hacking into an FBI agent's computer. So far, the group has published data from one million of those Apple ... accounts. The publication comes from LulzSec , a group whose name is a combination of "security" and a slang term for carrying out online activities for the sake of amusement ("Lulz"). Last summer, the same group leaked documents belonging to Sony Pictures. LulzSec claimed it ceased operations after a 50-day campaign. But later it re-emerged ... (view more)

The US Air Force (USAF) has made a public appeal for tech experts to help design cyber weapons. The call for help comes in a solicitation document, which is a formal request for non-military organizations to submit ideas. To encourage a response, ... the Air Force has announced that it could award contracts worth a total of $10 million. The document asks for ideas that could help the USAF "disrupt, deny, degrade, destroy, or deceive an adversary's ability to use the cyberspace domain to his advantage." It specifically refers to using cyber technology to weaken an enemy's ability to wage physical ... (view more)