Editor's News

Mobile payments provider CurrentC has issued a warning to customers that “unauthorised third parties” obtained tester email addresses. The email addresses were “participants” in its pilot programme, or people who had requested information about CurrentC. It said: “Within the last 36 hours, we learned that unauthorised third parties obtained the e-mail addresses of some of you. Based on investigations conducted by MCX security personnel, only these email addresses were involved and no other information .”...

UK workers feel that their data is more secure in the workplace than at home, but one in ten is unaware if there is even an IT department at work. According to the survey of 2,000 employees by Varonis, 42 per cent feel that the data they handle is more secure at work, while 21 per cent said it was more secure at home. 54 per cent of UK respondents felt that their data is...

The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has issued a warning on the Dyre banking malware. It warned that, since mid-October 2014, a phishing campaign has targeted a wide variety of recipients while employing the Dyre/Dyreza banking malware, and elements vary from target to target including senders, attachments, exploits, themes, and payloads. “The Dyre banking malware specifically targets sensitive user account credentials,” it said. “The malware has the ability to capture user login information and send the...

London music venue 93 Feet East has confirmed it has stopped a process of storing scans of payment cards, after attendees complained about the privacy aspects of it.   Someone who had visited the venue told IT Security Guru that upon entering, their credit card details and photographs were taken at the door by the security staff and when asked what they did with the information, they were told that they “hold on to it...

The FBI has raided the home of a suspected “second leaker”.   The unnamed person, who had been suggested and confirmed in the Laura Poitras documentary “Citizen Four”, has apparently been identified by the FBI.   According to Yahoo news, the accused leaker turned over sensitive documents about the US Government's terrorist watch list to a journalist closely associated with ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The FBI recently executed a search of the suspect's home and federal prosecutors in Northern...

A privacy initiative to address the surveillance menace and help build a stronger bridge between the technical and the policy worlds will begin in January.   Named Code Red, the think tank will work to accelerate reform of secret institutions and will provide support for whistle blowers in those domains, according to Privacy Surgeon.   It said: “Code Red will be a strategic think tank and campaign clearinghouse to provide new resources and tactical advice to...

More than three-quarters of security professionals believe that traditional perimeter tools like firewalls and anti-malware are robust enough to combat today’s advanced persistent threats (APTs).   According to a survey of 130 delegates at this year’s Black Hat USA conference, 78 per cent were confident in the strength of traditional technologies, while 22 per cent were not confident.   Philip Lieberman, CEO of Lieberman Software, said: “Our survey reveals that while the majority of organisations...

Software which redirected Tor browser users to ransomware has been detected.   According to a statement by the Tor Project, several people had contacted it reporting that software had told them to install the Tor browser to access a website, which infected visitors with the Cryptolocker ransomware.   It said: “In this case, the authors of CryptoLocker set up a website which is only reachable by using Tor. That is why people are thinking that the software...

Alert Logic has announced its first European security operations centre (SOC). This week the Houston, Texas-based company opened the centre in Cardiff to support demand from its rapidly expanding customer base in Europe. The centre will be staffed by a team of local security and threat intelligence experts, delivering a fully managed, enterprise-grade service for the Alert Logic suite of network, system and application security technologies. Gray Hall, CEO at Alert Logic, said: “The opening...

A lack of cyber security skills in the UK makes it a potential easy target for attackers, while a lack of education on threats is the most serious threat facing businesses today.   According to research of delegates at this year’s 44CON conference in London, 75 per cent believed that a lack of cyber security skills in the UK makes it a potential easy target for attackers, while 74 per cent believed that people's lack...