• U.S. Internet hosts are essential for criminal botnets

    Cybercrime is often associated with Russia and China, and rightly so — but many of the servers vital to their activities are located elsewhere; facilities provided by Internet companies in the United States and Europe are crucial to these criminal gangs’ activities

  • Best 300 U.S. student hackers compete for cybersecurity scholarships, prizes

    The seventh Annual Cyber Security Awareness Week competition at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University; 120 teams from high schools across the country — consisting of 300 of the U.S. best student hackers — competed under the watchful eyes of representatives from the CIA, NSA, DHS, and NSA; the students compete for scholarships and prizes by solving simulated security crises likely to emerge in an increasingly wired world

  • Keystroke biometric solution will protect against hacking

    Virginia Tech researchers develop an authentication framework called “Telling Human and Bot Apart” (TUBA), a remote biometrics system based on keystroke-dynamics information; the technology will prevent hackers from using a computer program designed to produce keystroke sequences in order to spoof more conventional security systems

  • PwC recruits cybersecurity talent with online puzzles

    PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found a new way to recruit IT security professionals; it aimed to dig out U.K. talent hidden under the radar by settling up tests for hackers at different levels of ability, uncovering teenagers and people already working in the IT profession; PwC says that winning these cyber contests is typically an indication of good problem solving, curiosity to learn, and a driven work ethic

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  • U.K. opens cybersecurity test range to test critical networks

    The U.K. Ministry of Defense has opened a cybersecurity test range, where utilities and banks can pit their networks against human hackers and computer viruses

  • Chinese hackers steal South Korean defense secrets

    Chinese hackers have stolen secrets on South Korea’s defense and foreign affairs by using bogus e-mails claiming to come from Seoul officials and diplomats; similar attacks originating in China-based servers briefly crippled U.S. and South Korean government and commercial Web sites in July 2009

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  • U.S. considering Aussie Internet security program

    The Obama administration is considering adoption of parts of an Internet security scheme which will go into effect in Australia in December; the plan will allow Internet service providers to alert customers if their computers are taken over by hackers — and could limit these customers’ online access if they do not fix the problem

  • U.K. security firms say GCHQ's cyberattack warning overwrought

    U.K. cybersecurity industry insiders say last week’s warnings by Britain’s cybersecurity chief about the cyber threat the U.K. was facing may have over-hyped threats — and may have been related more to the run-up to the U.K. government’s comprehensive spending review announcement than to new threat information

  • Microsoft releases barrage of fixes at Stuxnet and more

    Microsoft on Tuesday released a record high number of software patches aimed at countering computer threats including a Stuxnet “worm” attacking industrial networks; the 49 fixes released by Microsoft were ranked in importance from “critical” to “moderate” and addressed vulnerabilities in an array of Microsoft programs used in personal computers

  • Microsoft cleaned 6.5 million zombie PCs during April-June 2010

    Microsoft cleaned in excess of 6.5 million zombie computers between April and June 2010, but the company’s efforts alone are not enough to put a stop to the increasing threat that botnets represent to users, businesses and critical infrastructure

  • Britain faces "real and credible" cyber threat: intelligence chief

    In a rare public speech, Iain Lobban, director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), said that there is a “real and credible” cyber threat to U.K. infrastructure, and that Britain’s economy could be at risk if effective protection against cyber attacks was not developed

  • Ethical hacking conference coming to Charleston, WVA

    A major ethical hacking event will take place in Charleston, West Virginia, 23-24 October; the event will focus on “white hat hacking” — meaning learning how to think like the “black hat hackers” or bad actors and how they operate; a Hacker Village will be set up at the Charleston Civic Center featuring a network of systems designed with vulnerabilities so attendees can try their stuff with mentors on hand

  • Students think hacking is "cool"

    A third of students surveyed thought that hacking was “cool,” and a similar number thought it was “easy”; the survey found that 37 percent had hacked Facebook accounts, 26 percent e-mail accounts, with 10 percent breaching online shopping accounts; an entrepreneurial 15 percent revealed that they hacked to make money

  • The most pressing cybersecurity issue

    According to Red Hat’s Gunnar Hellekson the most pressing cybersecurity issue is “the threat that comes from our reactions to real and perceived threats…I see this growing ‘Fortress America’ movement around computer security and the security of the software-supply chain”

  • Smartphone security products begin to make it to market

    A modern smartphone has many of the same capabilities as a PC and is way more vulnerable to certain kinds of attack; even so, few smartphone users see security apps as essential; Austrian security testing lab AV-Comparatives has justreleased a study comparing four smartphone security products