cybercrime

The People's Liberation Army unit (PLA) allegedly responsible for cyberspying on Western targets has collaborated with a top Chinese university on networking and security research papers.

In a finding uncovered by Reuters, Shanghai Jiaotong's School of Information Security Engineering (SISE) and the People's Liberation Army Unit 61398 have worked in partnership on at least three papers in recent years. PLA Unit 61398 is well-known for its alleged links to cyberattacks on the West, after a report was released by security firm Mandiant which stated that an "overwhelming" number of cyberattacks originate from the single unit … Read more

Corporations are increasingly under fire from the rapidly rising threat of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to new research from security firm Radware.

The study notes that DDoS attacks on corporations rose 170 percent in 2012 over the previous year.

After analyzing data from a number of security breaches and responses from 179 participating firms, Radware said that many corporations can be compared to "someone who brings a knife to a gun fight." In other words, businesses are attempting to protect themselves from cyberattacks but often fail because they are unprepared.

A number of trends point toward a … Read more

Facebook helped the FBI take down an international crime ring that used a botnet to infect 11 million computers and steal more than $850 million, one of the largest cybercrime hauls in history.

The FBI announced today that with the social-networking giant's assistance, it had arrested 10 people from countries around the world who it said used the Yahos malware and Butterfly botnet to steal victims' credit card, bank account, and personal information.

"Facebook's security team provided assistance to law enforcement throughout the investigation by helping to identify the root cause, the perpetrators, and those affected by … Read more

Cyberattacks against Lockheed Martin -- one of the largest defense contractors for the U.S. government -- have stepped up significantly in both pace and savvy, according to Reuters.

"The number of campaigns has increased dramatically over the last several years," Lockheed vice president and chief information security officer Chandra McMahon said in a news conference today, according to Reuters. "The pace has picked up."

McMahon claims that roughly 20 percent of the attacks are being perpetuated by other countries or groups that aim to steal information or threaten the company's operations. She told reporters … Read more

Staffers in the SEC's Trading and Markets Division left their computers totally unprotected from possible security attacks, forcing the organization to scramble to determine if any sensitive data was stolen, Reuters reported, citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the situation.

As it turns out, the trading and markets division is charged with ensuring that markets don't fall victim to cyberattacks.

Reuters also reports that the staffers attended the annual Black Hat Conference for hackers and brought the unprotected computers with them.

Soon after the security issues were identified, the SEC hired a third-party company and paid it "… Read more

Residents and city workers in Burlington, Wash., have been told to check their accounts after $400,000 was stolen from a city bank account.

City officials believe that the security breach resulted from the infiltration of a government account used to pay workers in the town, which is about 65 miles north of Seattle.

Although the exact amount of money stolen is not fully tallied, more than $400,000 has been transferred over the past two days, according to Seattle-based KOMO News.

The city first learned of the attack after an East Coast bank queried a number of account transfers … Read more

Days after a strict cybersecurity law went into effect in the Philippines, the country's Supreme Court suspended it.

According to the Associated Press, the court issued a temporary restraining order to freeze the government's enforcement of the Cybercrime Prevention Act 2012. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the law will be suspended for 120 days. The court plans to hear oral arguments from the law's supporters and critics in January.

President Benigno Aquino III signed the law last month and it became official last week. There were no reports of anyone violating the law.

Thousands of people … Read more

I once dated a Filipina.

On her fridge were the words: "Believe in the miracle of the Blessed Virgin."

I mention this because what was written there was not quite what I experienced. There was a certain recondite, draconian, and rather unforgiving aspect to the miracle of meeting her, which undercut my initially blessed beliefs.

Naturally, not for a moment would I suggest she is representative of everyone -- or even anyone else -- in the Philippines. However, some citizens there are worried that there might be one or two difficult revelations in a miraculous new law that … Read more

The same flexibility and freedom companies get from having their software and services hosted in the cloud is enabling cybercriminals to conduct highly automated online banking theft -- without doing much of the necessary information processing on their victims' own computers.

Security and privacy experts have long worried that criminals would launch attacks on the servers storing the data in cloud environments. But, a report released this week from McAfee and Guardian Analytics shows that criminals are now using the cloud infrastructure itself to get more capability out of their campaigns.

"They are leveraging the cloud," Brian Contos, … Read more