News

• U.S. urged to let companies 'hack-back' at IP cyber thieves

  U.S. companies should be allowed to take aggressive countermeasures against hackers seeking to steal their intellectual property, contends the private Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.

• Oracle renumbers Java patch updates, confuses users even more

  Oracle has changed the numbering of its Java security updates, prompting one expert to say, "As if Java updates weren't confusing already."

• Pentagon accuses China of cyberattacks on U.S military, business targets

  Chinese cyberespionage activities are fueling a rapid modernization of the country's defense and high tech industries, the Pentagon said in an unusually candid assessment of China's military and security developments last year.

• Breached dam data poses no threat to public, Army says

  A spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today downplayed the significance of a recent incident of unauthorized access to a database containing potentially sensitive information on thousands of high hazard dams across the country.

• Judge rejects FBI's bid to hack computer of suspect in attempted cyberheist

  A federal court in Houston has rejected an FBI request for a warrant to hack into the computer of a suspect in an attempted cyberheist.

• Vulnerable terminal servers could let bad guys hack stoplights, gas pumps

  Thousands of older systems, including those used to manage traffic lights, fuel pumps, point-of-sale terminals and building automation can be tampered with because they're insecurely connected to the Internet.

• AP's Twitter account hacked; false 'Obama injured' tweet sent

  The Twitter account of the Associated Press was hacked today and a bogus tweet was sent claiming President Obama had been hurt in an explosion.

• Schnucks supermarket chain struggled to find breach that exposed 2.4M cards

  The Schnucks supermarket chain struggled for two weeks to find the source of a breach that exposed credit and debit card information on as many as 2.4 million customers.

• White House signals it won't support CISPA in present form

  In what's quickly turning out to be a replay of events from last year, the White House today signaled that it would not support the recently reintroduced Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in its present form.

• DHS warns of spear-phishing campaign against energy companies

  The Department of Homeland Security has a warning for organizations that post a lot of business and personal information on public web pages and social media sites: Don't do it.

• Prosecutors, others involved in Swartz case express safety, privacy concerns

  The U.S government and two other entities involved in investigations leading to the indictment of the late Internet activist Aaron Swartz have asked a federal court in Boston to redact the names of people involved in the case from documents being sought by Swartz's estate and by some lawmakers.

• Spamhaus attacks expose huge open DNS server dangers

  Massive distributed denial of service attacks on Spamhaus this week focused widespread attention on the huge security threats posed by millions of poorly configured Internet Domain Name System servers.

• Spamhaus hit by biggest-ever DDoS attacks

  Anti-spam service Spamhaus has been hit with what several security firms today described as the largest distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks ever seen.

• Victim of $440K wire fraud can't blame bank for loss, judge rules

  A federal court in Missouri has rejected an escrow firm's attempt to blame its bank for a $440,000 cyberheist in March 2010.

• South Korea cyberattacks hold lessons for U.S.

  U.S companies and government agencies can learn from the large-scale disruptions that have hit several banks and media outlets in South Korea in the last 24 hours, security analysts said.