Week in review: Booz Allen Hamilton breach, Google+ related scams and malware ecosystems
Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news and articles:
“Casey Anthony confession video” scam spreads
The verdict in the high-profile Casey Anthony case has ultimately disappointed a lot of people who believe that she did kill her two-year-old daughter, and scammers have seized upon the fact that they would welcome some proof of her guilt.
Can the Google .co.cc ban be effective?
Google has recently decided to block all pages hosted on the .co.cc domain from appearing in its search results, and the move has sparked discussions.
U.S. to consider a new, secure Internet
While Iran thinks about instituting a national Internet in order to minimize the “poisoning” of Iranian minds with Western ideas and culture, the U.S. is toying with the idea of setting up a new Internet infrastructure for critical services in order to minimize the cyber attack threat.
Law enforcement winning the battle against cybercrime
June was a difficult time for cybercriminals as it saw some notable successes for various law enforcement agencies in the war on cybercrime, according to Kaspersky Lab’s June 2011 Malware Statistics.
How to secure a moving target with limited resources
Today, as security threats increase and regulatory requirements grow more complex, businesses are recognizing that compliance and security are business-critical priorities. However, recent industry studies have concluded that investment in compliance does not necessarily reduce risks.
140,000 children could be identity fraud victims
While children are less at risk for identity fraud than adults, when it happens it can be much more devastating because the fraudulent activity can go undetected for years, making it all that much harder to restore the victim’s good name.
Anonymous releases 90,000 military emails and passwords
Anonymous persists with its AntiSec campaign and the latest target to fall has been Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the biggest U.S. military contractors. Here’s also a look at the leaked passwords.
Travelers left 11,000 mobile devices at U.S. airports
Surprisingly, travelers tend to leave laptops, tablets and smart phones behind at a much higher rate than USB sticks.
Why Dropbox’s security changes are going to improve cloud computing
On July 1, Dropbox announced a revision to its terms of service, privacy policy and security overview document. While the intention of the update was to make Dropbox’s terms and conditions more transparent through new language surrounding privacy and security, the changes made by Dropbox have much broader implications for users of cloud based applications than it would appear at the surface.
An examination of malware ecosystems
A new Blue Coat report examines the interactions of malware ecosystems, including user behavior, malware hosting sites and delivery networks.
Credit card numbers stolen in Kiplinger breach
Kiplinger Washington Editors – the publisher of well-known business and economic publications such as the The Kiplinger Letter and the Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine – has suffered a breach that resulted in the compromise of customer information of their online subscribers.
Massive sentence for Wi-Fi hacking neighbor
The Kostolnik family’s nightmare is over – the neighbor that has hacked into their Wi-Fi network and misused the access for terrorizing them has been sentenced to 18 years in prison
Spammers switch to compromised accounts, shift away from botnets
The changed tactic has emerged as spam levels dropped dramatically, following several high-profile botnet takedowns.
Google+ related scams move to Facebook
Scammers continue to take advantage of the great interest raised by the introduction of Google+ and have begun tricking Facebook users into giving them access to their accounts via a rogue application.
Is WordPress next in line for silent updates?
WordPress is one of the most popular blogging and publishing platforms in the world, but it’s plagued by vulnerabilities and by the fact that many users and administrators don’t keep it up to date.
New Hotmail security features against account hijacking
Microsoft has decided to introduce two new security features for its web-based Hotmail service, in the hope that this will make the accounts more difficult to hijack and eventual hijackings spotted faster.
Did U.K. journalists use malware to spy on people?
The scandal that led to the demise of U.K. newspaper News of the World and to an investigation into the illegal methods used by journalists and editors in order to acquire information seems not to be limited to just phone hacking.
Vodafone femtocell hack allows call interception on unpatched devices
News that The Hacker’s Choice had revealed a proof-of-concept attack for hacking Vodafone’s Sure Signal femtocells (routers for boosting phone signals) and turning them into call interception devices has hit the Internet and created quite a sensation.