Editor's News

Akamai has announced that it plans to acquire cloud-based security vendor Prolexic for $370 million (£226 million).   Adding cloud-based security solutions for protecting data centres and enterprise IP applications from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the acquisition will see Akamai add these services to its web optimisation and security offerings once the definitive agreement is signed.   Akamai said that upon completion, it will be able to provide users with a portfolio of...

The CryptoLocker ransomware has shifted its focus away from consumers and small businesses to enterprises.   Speaking to IT Security Guru, Symantec security strategist Sian John said that in the last two weeks, enterprises had begun to see it getting blocked at the gateway and she expected that those who had been hit was due to “bad hygiene”.   She said: “It has hit a few enterprises and not only is this a big development,...

Research has showed that 41 per cent of IT professionals believe it is only a matter of time before there is a major cyber attack against the United Kingdom’s critical national infrastructure. The research, commissioned by RedSeal of 350 IT professionals and conducted by OnePoll, found that 17 per cent are simply not convinced it will not happen. Also, only 44 per cent of respondents said that they could sincerely say that their company is...

Kaspersky Lab has detected a banking Trojan that specifically targets online banking sites. It creators claim can that Neverquest can attack “any bank in any country” and several thousand attempts to infect computers used for online banking have been recorded. To date there have been posts made in hacker forums about buying and selling databases to access bank accounts and other documents, which are used to open and manage the accounts to which stolen funds...

Hacktivist group Anonymous claimed to have launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) against Japanese Microsoft domains, which took down global websites. In a pastebin statement, it said that the attack was launched a couple of days ago at “Japanese Microsoft (domain) websites and servers” and while they “did not go down as planned”, it did take “pretty much the entire Microsoft domains down”. It said that this included sites such as: Hotmail.com; MSN.com; Live.com; Outlook.com; and Microsoft.com. It...

Microsoft has said that it is investigating new reports of a vulnerability in a kernel component of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Saying in an advisory that it is aware of limited, targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability, it confirmed that the flaw is exclusive to users of XP and Server 2003 and that the vulnerability is an elevation of privilege. “An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel...

The European Parliament disabled its public WiFi network following the detection of a suspected hack. Linked to the exposure of weak security practices at the institution by EurActiv, the Register reported that the private network is thought to be secure but administrators are advising users to avoid the public network following a possible man-in-the-middle attack that has allowed a (white-hat) hacker to capture a number of email passwords. Users have been advised to change their passwords...

According to science minister David Willetts, the UK’s largest companies are failing to take IT security into account in their decision making. In a report by the Telegraph, a survey conducted by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills found that only 14 per cent of FTSE 350 firms are regularly considering cyber threats, despite the increasingly high level of online crime. Science Minister David Willetts said: "The cyber crime threat facing UK companies is...

Latin American malware infections have increased in 2013, as new malware rapidly emerges.   According to PandaLabs' report for the third quarter of 2013, there has been 10 million new strains of malware detected in 2013, matching the total figure for 2012.   The most infected country was China, while the Latin America region featured highly, with Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Chile all among the top ten infected nations.   Europe has the lowest infection...

Chris Gibson has been named as the head of the UK’s national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). Gibson took up his post on 11th November of CERT-UK, which is expected to launch in the New Year. As part of his duties, the new CERT will provide a core incident management response, lead international CERT engagement and provide cyber situational awareness and information sharing for the benefit of the UK as a whole. Gibson was previously been the director of e-crime...