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Thousands of people in Russia have protested against plans to introduce tighter restrictions on the internet. A mass rally in Moscow and similar demonstrations in two other cities were called after parliament backed the controversial bill last month. The government says the bill, which allows it to isolate Russia's internet service from the rest of the world, will improve cyber-security. But campaigners say it is an attempt to increase censorship and stifle dissent. Activists say...

Zscaler, Inc., the leader in cloud security, announced today the release of its semi-annual 2019 Cloud Security Insights Threat Report – An Analysis of SSL/TLS-based Threats, which examines encrypted traffic across the Zscaler™ cloud from July through December 2018. The report, compiled by the ZscalerTM ThreatLabZ research team, delves into a variety of attacks executed over SSL and blocked by Zscaler, including phishing attacks, botnets, browser exploitation, and malicious content. As the use of SSL...

The cost to companies from malware and “malicious insider”-related cyberattacks jumped 12 percent in 2018 and accounted for one-third of all cyberattack costs, according to new research published today by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and the Ponemon Institute. Based on interviews with more than 2,600 security and information technology (IT) professionals at 355 organisations worldwide, Accenture’s 2019 "Cost of Cybercrime Study" found that the cost to companies due to malware increased 11 percent, to more than...

IoT devices in synchronised attacks on targets represent a growing part of global Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) weapon arsenals. There is a significant potential for attackers to use an IoT-related protocol, the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), deployed on IoT devices to marshal attacks. Source: Help Net Security

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have uncovered new malware spreading through Pirate Bay, the popular torrent tracker. The malware, which aims to infect users' PCs with adware and tools for additional malware installation, has a multi-layered structure. Due to its hidden, seemingly endless stack of functionality, the threat has been named PirateMatryoshka, after the traditional Russian stacking doll. Source: IT Web

Cybercrime has become the worst threat to every company in the world. It is estimated that about 54 per cent of companies globally, experience at least one cyber attack every year. In Nigeria, it is even a menace that appears to have defied any solution. This is despite the array of solution providers in the market. Both large and small organisations in the country fall victim to cyber attacks on daily basis, losing valuable data,...

Hackers are leveraging Termite and EarthWorm, packet relay tools written by an employee of Beijing-based security research firm 360Netlab, to create a botnet of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, according to a report by AT&T Cybersecurity (formerly AlienVault). Source: Tech Republic

Security researchers have been aware of the OceanLotus hacking and cyber espionage group since at least 2015, but new information about the scope of the group's operations were revealed here at RSA. Researchers are now confident the group has been running a sophisticated fake news operation targeting activists in Vietnam. Source: PC Mag

Facebook has taken down more than 130 British accounts, groups and pages that it claims were part of a UK-based 'fake news' network. The pages posed as both far-right and anti-fascist outlets in a co-ordinated attempt to 'manipulate' the political debate in Britain, said Facebook head of cybersecurity Nathaniel Gleicher. He said the 137 accounts, which had more than 180,000 followers, deliberately used hate speech and misinformation in a bid to spread division on social networks. Source:...

Researchers at the penetration testing specialists invested nearly £4,000 ($5,000) in high-end smart car alarms systems in order to put them to the test. Ken Munro, the founder of Pen Test Partners, explains that an advert by one of the vendors concerned and stating the system was unhackable had piqued interest initially. That's never a great claim to make as any security expert will tell you that there is no such thing as being 100% secure. Unsurprisingly,...