Security

Cybercrime and Hacking Topic Center

Get the latest news and analysis on cybercrime and hacking

N.J. mayor arrested on hacking, conspiracy charges

The mayor of West New York, New Jersey, was arrested together with his son on Thursday, for allegedly hacking into a website that criticized him and his administration.
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Lawmakers call on DOJ to reopen investigation into Google Wi-Fi spying

Two U.S. lawmakers have called on the U.S. Department of Justice to reopen its investigation into Google's snooping on Wi-Fi networks in 2010 after recent questions about the company's level of cooperation with federal inquiries.

Security researcher urges IT to keep up with SAP patches

More than 95 percent of over 600 SAP systems tested by security firm Onapsis were vulnerable to espionage, sabotage and fraud, mainly because patches had not been applied, according to a researcher.

Anonymous claims it hacked a DOJ site

The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday it was looking into the unauthorized access of a website server in its statistics wing, after hacker group Anonymous claimed to have collected and released 1.7GB of data from it.

Banking malware spies on victims by hijacking webcams, microphones, researchers say

A new variant of SpyEye malware allows cybercriminals to monitor potential bank fraud victims by hijacking their webcams and microphones, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab.

Is cloud-based security really less expensive?

Businesses in new study were five times more likely to have decreased spending on managing security over three years as a percentage of their overall IT budget.

Mac-based Flashback click fraud campaign was a bust

The hackers in charge of the Flashback botnet managed to generate $14,000 from their click fraud campaign, but have not been paid, Symantec said today.

Android hackers hone skills in Russia

The malware business growing around Google Android -- now the leading smartphone operating system -- is still in its infancy. Today, many of the apps built to steal money from Android users originate from Russia and China, so criminal gangs there have become cyber-trailblazers.

Utah CTO takes fall for data breach

The executive director of Utah's Department of Technology Services has resigned over a data breach two months ago that exposed the Social Security numbers of about 280,000 Medicaid recipients.

UNC Charlotte: 350,000 SSNs exposed in decade-long breach

Two issues exposed financial data and Social Security numbers for 350,000 people, although it is thought the information has not been abused, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte said.

Embedded data, not breasts, brought down hacker

FBI tracks down Higinio Ochoa using geo-tagged photos

A clear-eyed look at APT

Setting aside the hype, advanced persistent threats do present CISOs with a few to-dos

Cisco's John Stewart on the latest security threats and what enterprises can do to fight back

Freelance writer Susan Perschke recently sat down with Cisco Vice President and Chief Security Officer John N. Stewart for an in-depth discussion of the state of enterprise security. Insider (registration required)

Security Manager's Journal: Hackers Call Home, on Our Dime

Someone is making calls costing thousands of dollars via the IP telephony setup in a small European office.

4 keys for IP protection

Do you think data breaches are up or down in 2011 compared to 2007 or 2008? The official answer may surprise you. According to DatalossDB and the 2011 Data Breach Investigations Report [PDF link] by Verizon, the number of records compromised per year has been decreasing since its 2008 peak. But these reports are missing something very important. It all comes down to what is reported. Last year I met with more than 450 CIOs and CSOs, and almost all of them said that incidents are way up. New breaches are constantly making headlines, so why is there a discrepancy between our perception and what these reports are finding?

Many pcAnywhere systems still sitting ducks

Symantec warns that its product should not be connected directly to the Internet, yet an estimated 140,000 computers are configured to allow direct external access

Cyber insurance offers IT peace of mind -- or maybe not

Cyber insurance can help mitigate damages after a breach, but it's no substitute for top-notch security, IT pros say.

2012 Outlook: The end of everything?

Gibbs reviews last year's predictions and sees that the end could be nigh ...

Cloud SWAT teams

Cloud computing poses unique security challenges. Here's how cloud-specific 'security incident-response teams' could help governments and large enterprises respond to malicious activity and make the cloud more trustworthy. Insider (registration required)

10 IT news stories to expect in 2012

Well, we erred in our 2011 predictions in not repeating a 2010 forecast that Carol Bartz would be ousted as Yahoo CEO -- it was bound to happen, we just called that one too early. Then again, we also predicted last year that Oracle would buy Salesforce.com and have decided not to repeat ourselves this year, so we'll see if we were just ahead on that one, too. Meanwhile, these are our predictions for the next 12 months: