Top 10 Stories

Security types are warning hospitals to stay on alert for a "widespread campaign" targeting vulnerable servers with new strains of ransomware. The SamSam ransomware variant targets vulnerable servers with criminals breaking into networks and infecting as many systems as they can access. Cisco's Talos threat man Nick Biasini says SamSam's writers are popping servers in the healthcare sector, using stolen logins to infect individual systems. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: The Register

Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent is to be updated to protect it from cyber attack. Software in the nuclear missile system will be upgraded as defence officials admitted there was “legitimate concern” about threats from cyber hackers. The Trident missiles, which are shared with America, will be updated amid growing worries defence computers and systems could be vulnerable to cyber attacks from Russia, China, groups such as Islamic State or organised crime gangs. View full story...

Some 1.5 million Verizon Enterprise customer records have been stolen and are being sold on a criminal hacking forum, according to reports. A trusted seller on a popular but shadowy unnamed criminal forum asked for US$100,000 for the database or US$10,000 for batches of 100,000 records, investigative blogger Brian Krebs reports. Verizon Enterprise counts 99 percent of the Fortune 500 among its customer base. The company has been contacted for comment. Verizon told Krebs it...

The FBI is asking businesses and software security experts for emergency assistance in its investigation into a pernicious new type of "ransomware" virus used by hackers for extortion. "We need your help!" the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a confidential "Flash" advisory that was dated March 25 and obtained by Reuters over the weekend. Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts a victim's data so they cannot gain access to it on their computers, then...

A virus infected the computer network of MedStar Health early Monday morning, forcing the Washington health-care behemoth to shut down its email and vast records database and raising additional concerns about the security of hospitals nationwide. The FBI is investigating the breach, which comes just weeks after similar cyberattacks on at least three other medical institutions in California and Kentucky. Still, MedStar officials said they had found “no evidence that information has been stolen.”  ...

The majority of US federal agencies say they feel vulnerable to data threats, a new study has found. The new Vormetric study, conducted in collaboration with analyst firm 451 Research, is part of a bigger study of around 1,110 senior IT executives worldwide. The report essentially shows opinions of IT security leaders in US federal agencies on data breaches, security planning, and IT security spending. According to the report, skill (44%) and budget (43%) constraints...

It would appear that much of Coinkite's decision to get out of the online Bitcoin wallet business was due to the company constantly dealing with harassment, with a blog post announcing the move describing that they had been under constant Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks over the last three years, and that they had also had to deal with Government agencies and attempted intrusions into client privacy. In an interview with Coindesk, Chief Executive Officer...

Senior threat intelligence man Yonathan Klijnsma says the web site of the EC-Council, the organisation responsible for the Ethical Hacker certification, is serving the dangerous Angler exploit kit. Klijnsma of Dutch firm Fox-IT says the website was serving the world's most highly-capable and dangerous exploit kit hours ago to users of Internet Explorer. Checks by this writer appear to show it is still serving the exploit at the time of publication. View full story ORIGINAL...

ISIS is set to come under renewed attack from hackers following its terrorist atrocities in Brussels yesterday. Hacking group Anonymous have issued a declaration that it will up its cyber attacks on the terror group in the wake of the bombings in Belgium. The group unveiled its so-called 'Op Brussels' today in which it vowed to continue 'hacking their websites, shutting down their Twitter accounts and stealing their Bitcoins'. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Daily Mail

The Obama administration is expected to blame Iranian hackers as soon as Thursday for a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks in 2012 and 2013 on several U.S. banks and a New York dam, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Newsweek