Editor's News

2016 saw a near-threefold rise in mobile malware detections compared to 2015 – with a total of 8.5 million malicious installations identified. This means that, in the space of just one year, a volume equivalent to 50 per cent of all the malware detected in the previous 11 years (15.77 million in 2004 – 2015) was released. Leading the way were mobile advertising Trojans which now make up 16 of the top 20 malicious programs,...

Financial organisations are being increasingly targeted by cybercriminals looking to capitalise on alternative lending and payment models. Online fraudsters are exploiting the time delays inherent in reporting loan agreements to credit bureaus for substantial financial gain. According to the latest ThreatMetrix® Cybercrime Report 1 million cyberattacks targeted online lending transactions throughout 2016, and this number will continue to grow in 2017. The total potential loss value of these transactions globally is estimated at £8 billion....

Research by Equiniti, the FTSE listed FinTech and regulatory services business, shows that lifestyle factors such social media and banking habits can make people targets of cybercrime. The study, conducted by YouGov, revealed that as many as 11.7 million people in the UK had been victims of financial cybercrime1. What makes people more likely to be victims?  1. Your Phone Respondents with HTC (37%) and Motorola (27%) phones were the most likely to be targeted....

CloudPets, a company which makes internet connected toys for children, has suffered a data breach exposing voice recordings between family members as well as sensitive account information. The Guru reached out to security experts for their reaction on the news. David Kennerley, Director of Threat Research at Webroot: “The CloudPets breach is just another in a long list of poorly secured internet-connected devices, although in this case sensitive information was barely secured at all. Aside...

A new global study ‘The Internet of Things: Today and Tomorrow’ published by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), reveals that IoT will soon be widespread as 85% of businesses plan to implement IoT by 2019, driven by a need for innovation and business efficiency. While the analysis confirms the clear business benefits from investments in IoT, Aruba’s report cautions that connecting thousands of things to existing business networks has already resulted in...

Ad agencies, search engines and cybersecurity specialists should work collectively to tackle the security threat from rising malvertising. Ben Williams, Head of Operations and Communications at Adblock Plus, argues that without this, more users will be exposed to potential security compromises such as malware and phishing, and push further adoption of adblockers as a solution to these threats. According to a report from digital threat management firm Risk IQ, in 2016, total malvertising rose at...

Thales, a leader in critical information systems, cybersecurity and data security, announces the results of its 2017 Thales Data Threat Report, Healthcare Edition, issued in conjunction with analyst firm 451 Research. The fifth annual report indicates global healthcare IT professionals are confronting a rapidly changing, challenging landscape, with 66% of respondents experiencing a data breach and 88% feeling vulnerable as a result. In response, 73% are increasing IT security spending to offset threats to data. ...

To combat the increasing risk of cyber-attacks, CompTIA, the world's leading information technology (IT) association, today unveiled a ground-breaking, vendor-neutral certification, CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+). It is the first of its kind to bring behavioural analytics to the forefront cyber threat detection, rather than focusing solely on the technical aspects of the sector. In recent years, hackers have learnt to evade detection from traditional systems such as firewalls, with increasingly sophisticated attacks such as Advanced...

Android banking botnet malware based on publicly available source code has been discovered on Google Play. Weak security of the C&C server allowed ESET to analyse the botnet.  In their investigation of the botnet-forming Android banking malware, discovered on Google Play, ESET researchers discovered that both the Android Trojans and the C&C server were built using source code that was made public in December, 2016. Android users were exposed to malware, disguised as weather forecasting...

This weekend, Protection Group International (PGI) and Cyber Security Challenge UK, pitted 30 of the UK’s best cyber security amateurs against each other in an ultra-realistic simulated cyber-attack on an automotive company, all in a bid to find the country’s best cyber talent. In a role known as ‘red teaming’, candidates were tasked to infiltrate Internet-connected GPS tracking devices to find critical vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit, and protect the Internet of Things (IoT) based...