Top 10 Stories

Some Mazda cars could reportedly be hacked, thanks to several vulnerabilities spotted by security experts, which would allow hackers to launch automatic attacks just by inserting a USB drive into a car's dashboard. The bugs were first discovered three years ago by users of the Mazda3Revolution forum, who have since then, been "hacking" the cars to customise the vehicles' infotainment systems and install new apps, BleepingComputer reported. The hacking technique was brought to light by Bugcrowd application security engineer Jay Turla,...

University College London is tonight tackling a serious ransomware outbreak that has scrambled academics' files. It is feared the software nasty may be exploiting a zero-day vulnerability, or is a previously unseen strain of malware as antivirus defenses did not spot it in time, we're told. Eggheads at the UK uni are urged to not open any more email attachments, which may be booby-trapped with the ransomware. The UCL Information Services Division (ISD) said it...

The National Security Agency has linked the North Korean government to the creation of the WannaCry computer worm that affected more than 300,000 people in some 150 countries last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The assessment, which was issued internally last week and has not been made public, is based on an analysis of tactics, techniques and targets that point with “moderate confidence” to North Korea’s spy agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, according to an individual...

Multiple cyberattacks on major bitcoin exchanges this week highlight the many challenges for the young digital currency world. A surge in investor interest also overwhelmed major bitcoin websites, while record-breaking levels of fundraising for new digital currencies add to worries that the largely unregulated cryptocurrency industry will be unable to manage the hype. "Investors with assets on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges should be careful. The track records of these organizations are not good, and as the...

Microsoft has declared that the next major Windows 10 update dubbed Redstone 3, will not have SMB1 protocol. The WannaCry attacks that took down thousands of systems across the world was largely based on SMB1 exploits that were leaked by Shadow Brokers. SMB1 is a file sharing protocol that Microsoft developed in the early 90s which the company has been working to detach for a while now. In fact, Microsoft has already disabled SMB1 for internal...

Email remains the No. 1 threat vector for businesses, with a full 76% of ransomware attacks starting with a malicious message. According to a survey from Barracuda, phishing—and particularly spear phishing—has become a lucrative art. The attackers also do not discriminate based on company size. Email remains one of the most widely used business communications tools, as well as one of the most commonly targeted threat vectors. “Whether you are a mid-sized business with limited...

Nine out of 10 consumers and banking professionals want biometric authentication put in place, but a skills gap stands in the way. Both banks and their customers favour the use of biometrics in consumer financial services, but adoption remains sluggish due in part to the lack of technical know-how within financial institutions, according to a new study. Research carried out by MasterCard and Oxford University found consumers overwhelmingly preferred biometrics – such as fingerprint or iris scans – over...

Nine out of 10 consumers and banking professionals want biometric authentication put in place, but a skills gap stands in the way. Both banks and their customers favour the use of biometrics in consumer financial services, but adoption remains sluggish due in part to the lack of technical know-how within financial institutions, according to a new study. Research carried out by MasterCard and Oxford University found consumers overwhelmingly preferred biometrics – such as fingerprint or iris scans – over...

The U.S. government on Tuesday issued a rare alert squarely blaming the North Korean government for a raft of cyber attacks stretching back to 2009 and warning that more were likely. The joint warning from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that "cyber actors of the North Korean government," referred to in the report as "Hidden Cobra," had targeted the media, aerospace and financial sectors, as well as...

Cyber-experts working for the Israeli government were able to hack into ISIS's computer systems. Israeli intelligence was able to discover that ISIS bombmakers were capable of creating explosives that looked like batteries in laptops, which would fool X-ray machines, according to the New York Times. President Donald Trump is accused of sharing the information with Russian's foreign minister, Sergey Kislyak -- a move that reportedly infuriated Israeli officials. The revelations are what led the US to enact a...