Top 10 Stories

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), the parent company for more than 5,000 hotels worldwide including Holiday Inn, says it is investigating claims of a possible credit card breach at some U.S. locations. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Krebs on Security

The New York State Department of Financial Services adjusted its proposed cybersecurity regulation to give firms more flexibility after weighing critiques it received during an open-comment period. The updated proposal, published Wednesday, still requires banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions to establish a cybersecurity program and appoint a chief information security officer, but pushes back the deadline to March 2017 instead of January. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Wall Street Journal

Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), China’s chief internet regulator, has released a strategy framework for the country’s cybersecurity law passed in November and called on foreign countries to respect its cyber laws, Reuters reports. CAC has stressed increased cybersecurity surveillance, including security review of technology in industries, both foreign and local. Top Chinese industries have been asked to follow this keeping national interest in mind and to prevent unfair competition. The country is also planning...

The Food and Drug Administration has issued its final guidance on protecting medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps from cyberattacks. To start with, it wants manufacturers to boost their cybersecurity measures by incorporating a way to monitor and detect vulnerabilities into the products they make. The FDA also wants them to establish a process for receiving information about potential vulnerabilities from cybersecurity researchers. If they do detect any exploitable flaw, the agency wants the...

Uber Technologies Inc has removed its self-driving cars from San Francisco streets, halting the autonomous program one week after its launch as the company faced a regulatory crackdown. The California Department of Motor Vehicles said on Wednesday it revoked the registration of 16 Uber self-driving cars because they had not been properly permitted. View full story Original source: Reuters

It's third time unlucky for the scumbags behind CryptXXX ransomware, as their shoddy coding has been cracked yet again. CryptXXX is a particularly nasty form of the species – a ransomware app that not only encrypts over 40 file formats on a host PC and any external storage devices, but also steals any Bitcoins it can find on there and demands a hefty ransom for a cure. View full story Original source:The Register

Tumblr reportedly down in US and Europe and it may be the result of a DDoS attack. The outage reportedly began at around 8.30pm UK time. Users trying to access the blogging site are currently met with the message:“Service is temporarily unavailable”. Tumblr wrote on its official Twitter account: "Some users are experiencing latency affecting the dashboard. We’ll get it fixed ASAP." View full story Original source: Mirror

The Netflix US Twitter account - with 2.5m followers - has been compromised by a hacker group. The group, OurMine, posted tweets promoting its own website and services. However, the tweets were removed about an hour after the first one appeared. OurMine has hacked several high-profile Twitter accounts this year, including those of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai. View full story Original source: BBC

In a recent study, IBM found that 70% of executives who had been confronted with a ransomware infection gave in and paid their attackers. Like many victims, they felt like there was no acceptable alternative. If you're properly prepared, however, ransomware can actually be quite easy to deal with. The security professionals at Cybereason think their new, free Windows app can help. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Forbes

'Methbot' is a sophisticated cybercrime scheme that has hit major US advertisers and publishing brands and pilfered millions of dollars per day. Cybercriminals out of Russia are behind a newly discovered massive online advertising fraud operation hiding in plain site that steals up to $5 million per day from big-name US advertisers by posing as some 6,000 major US media sites including The Huffington Post, Fortune, ESPN, CBS Sports, and Fox News, and generating fake...