Top 10 Stories

An October study by Cisco Systems’ Talos security unit estimated that unnamed hackers using Angler Exploit — just one of a handful of commonly used ransomware bugs — netted $60 million annually. In December, a Kaspersky Lab report found that ransomware infections doubled last year compared to 2014. The lab found ransomware on 50,000 corporate machines. And researchers at Britain’s University of Kent found that 41 percent of victims of ransomware software CryptoLocker paid to recover files. View full story ORIGINAL...

Japan has been in the sights of global cyber-attackers in recent months, with some estimating more than 1,000 organisations have been significantly hacked. The tax office, the Prime Minister's office and the Nissan motor vehicle company are just a few of the high-profile entities to have fallen victim to attack. Many of the incidents have been claimed by the hacking collective Anonymous and were in protest against Japan's annual whale hunt in the Southern Ocean....

Apple has patched 33 problems, collectively named in 58 CVEs, in its latest TV-enhancing computer-puck, of which 10 enable arbitrary code execution, six with system privileges. 32 of the flaws hit third-generation Apple TV devices and just one its newer, fatter, fourth-gen beast. The good news is that the changes will automagically appear for those users with automatic updates turned on. The rest are susceptible to nasties like a memory corruption flaw (CVE-2015-5776) that allows...

Security researchers have exploited notoriously porous hospital networks to gain access to, and tamper with, critical medical equipment in attacks they say could put lives in danger. In tests, hospital hackers from the Independent Security Evaluators research team popped patient monitors, making them display false readings which could result in medical responses that injury or kill patients. They say other critical medical equipment could be accessed using the same attacks. The team examined 12 healthcare...

Australia's major political parties have slapped down a motion by the Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam to acknowledge the need for strong encryption. The conservative Turnbull Government and Labor opposition rejected the motion put forward in the Senate this week by the technology-savvy communications spokesman. Ludlam's motion asked that the need for encryption as a protector of privacy and financial security be acknowledged. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: The Register

UK businesses are battling a huge rise in cybercrime capable of bringing down entire companies, according to analysis by accountancy company PwC. In a report that singled out the UK as a hotbed of economic crime, PwC said the threat of cyber offences was now a “board-level issue”, but warned that not enough companies were taking it seriously enough. PwC also warned of a surge in the number of “silver fraudsters” – older staff who...

YORK, Maine — York Hospital has been hit by cyber criminals who stole identifying information from employees, but the hospital says patient information was not targeted. A press release sent out Wednesday afternoon said there is no indication at this time that patient health information, which is stored on a system separate from staff employment information, was targeted in the Feb. 22 attack, nor was any medical information of York Hospital staff compromised. Jody Merrill, director...

The popular Nissan Leaf electric car can be drained of its battery life using little more than its vehicle identification number (VIN). The major security hole was found by researcher Troy Hunt, who figured out that the Leaf's smartphone app interface (API) uses only the VIN to control car features remotely without passwords. These features include seeing the car's current battery life, times and distances the car has traveled, and remotely-controlling climate control. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Business...

FireEye security wonks Abdulellah Alsaheel and Raghav Pande have twisted the barrels of Microsoft's lauded EMET Windows defence gun 180 degrees and fired. The result of their research is p0wnage of the enhanced mitigation toolkit so that instead of defending Windows it attacks it. The attacks the pair found effect older versions of Windows which rely on EMET for modern defences like address space layout randomisation and data execution prevention. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE:...

The legal showdown between Apple Inc (AAPL.O)and U.S. law enforcement over encryption, no matter the outcome, will likely accelerate tech company efforts to engineer safeguards against government intrusion, tech industry executives say. Already, an emerging industry is marketing super-secure phones and mobile applications. An Apple executive said the company will strengthen its encryption if it wins its court battle with the federal government, which last week secured a court order requiring Apple engineers to help extract...