Editor's News

Panda Security, The Cloud Security Company, has identified malicious apps on Google Play that can sign users up to premium SMS subscription services without their permission. These new threats have been able to infect at least 300,000 users so far, although the number of malicious downloads could have reached 1,200,000. “Easy Hairdos”, “Abs Diets”, “Workout Routines” and “Cupcake Recipes” are among the malicious apps available for download on Google Play. In the case of “Abs...

According to BT research, the UK is trailing in cyber security awareness rankings.  In fact, less than 20% of UK business leaders see cyber security as a "major priority" the study commissioned by telecoms giant BT showed.  It surveyed 500 IT decision makers in medium and large businesses in finance, pharmaceutical, retail and government sectors in seven countries. Out of the seven countries including the US, UK, Brazil, Germany, France, Singapore and Hong Kong, the...

With 75% of trains from Paddington already cancelled because of flooding, the Capital is in meltdown. This means that, as much as many Londoners would have liked to take a duvet day, the reality is that thousands will be working from home remotely. They will need to access email, share documents and collaborate with other colleagues from home PCs, Macs or smartphones. The problem however lies in that whilst many employees use the likes of Google Drive...

A malicious campaign that sends a blast of nasty emails that are disguised as MasterCard updates but contain an assortment of malicious files pointing to the Andromeda botnet has been detected. Last week, AppRiver warned of a set of virus campaigns where “enormous volumes of traffic are sent to data centres” which are designed to deliver a new Trojan which targeted Bank of America users. In its latest detection, AppRiver has continued to track a...

This year’s White Hat Ball is set to make £150,000 for charity, according to the organisers.   White Hat Events chair Gerry O’Neill told IT Security Guru that it was close to the figure and it had achieved its aim of breaking the £1 million barrier since the beginning of the events nine years ago.   He said: “We raised £144,000 on the night and we were delighted to find that the hotel is going...

Microsoft released seven patches last night, adding two more to its planned release of five.   Of these, four were rated as critical and three as important. Tyler Reguly, manager of security research at Tripwire, said: “The biggest discussion point with Microsoft's patch drop this month is probably the change in bulletins. To go from five to seven bulletins says to me that initial testing was completed last minute so they decided to slip the...

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack which was registered at 400Gbps has been spotted, eclipsing the Spamhaus attack from last year.   Last June, the anti-spam organisation was hit by a 300Gbps attack. Content delivery firm CloudFlare, who were tasked with protecting Spamhaus and were also hit, announced this week’s attack.   Matthew Prince, CEO and co-founder and CloudFlare, said via his Twitter account that a “very big NTP reflection attack hitting us right now. Appears...

Authentication board the FIDO Alliance has launched its first public review draft specifications for the delivery of standards for simpler and stronger authentication.   Emphasising a device-centric model that reflects the Alliance's dedication to usability, privacy and security, it bolsters the board’s principle of simplified but secure login. Its concept is to allow a user to login to an application using an approved and standard method, using a user’s account identifier which is verified with...

After the mobile application Flappy Bird was pulled by its creator, malicious versions are now being detected.   According to detections by Malwarebytes and Trend Micro, fake versions of Flappy Bird are spreading online. According to Malwarebytes, a free game has been detected not only for Android, but also for iOS. Malwarebytes security researcher Chris Boyd said that clicking the link took the user to surveys, which have now been taken down.   Boyd said...

Today sees two notable events online: Safer Internet Day and a “fight back” against mass surveillance.   The latter is backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), who called it the day “we fight back against mass surveillance”. It said that a broad coalition of organisations, companies and individuals are loudly voicing their stance against unwarranted mass spying. It said that over 6,000 websites have joined together “to demand reform” as it called for reform...