Top 10 Stories

Internet companies may have to provide more information on people and businesses who sell goods and services online, in a crackdown on tax evasion. HM Revenue & Customs wants to target businesses that have failed to register for tax, and individuals who fail to declare the money they make online. It said this "hidden economy" could equate to £5.9bn a year in tax. HMRC has launched a consultation on extending its powers to collect extra...

American officials are concerned that the Chinese government could use the stolen records of millions of federal workers and contractors to piece together the identities of intelligence officers secretly posted in China over the years. The potential exposure of the intelligence officers could prevent a large cadre of American spies from ever being posted abroad again, current and former intelligence officials said. It would be a significant setback for intelligence agencies already concerned that a...

Watchdog sparks mass recall, sheds light on ridiculous flaw. Fiat Chrysler's bad week just got even worse: the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recalled 1.4 million of the manufacturer's cars after a dangerous software flaw was revealed just days ago. Renowned hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek warned on Tuesday of a ridiculous vuln in the computer systems built into Fiat Chrysler cars: the flaw can be exploited by an attacker to wirelessly...

The underground world of computer hackers has been so thoroughly infiltrated in the US by the FBI and secret service that it is now riddled with paranoia and mistrust, with an estimated one in four hackers secretly informing on their peers, a Guardian investigation has established. Cyber policing units have had such success in forcing online criminals to co-operate with their investigations through the threat of long prison sentences that they have managed to create...

A fake Dubsmash application, which is actually a porn clicker Trojan, has been uploaded to the Google Play Store—again. According to ESET, this same piece of malware has been uploaded to the app store at least nine times in the form of various fake Dubsmash apps, resulting in tens of thousands of installs. It has also found that there are another 51 Trojan porn clickers out there as well: Four of them had more than...

A UK bitcoin vendor may have suffered a security breach, temporarily exposing customer data to the public. Visitors to the website for CoinCut, based in London, were able to access directories that included images of passports, credit and debit cards and personal IDs. The site was taken offline, and it is unclear how long the information was publicly available. CoinCut representative Dax Chan said that the team is "treating this as malicious", adding that further investigation is taking place at...

Donald Trump is hard to ignore, but could he perhaps be erased? On Wednesday, Trump's Wikipedia page was vandalized twice by editors who tried to delete the entry about the billionaire business mogul, reality TV star, and US presidential candidate. Trump is a magnet for media attention, and has a tendency to court controversy and criticism with brash statements that, well, aren't too classy. Since announcing his campaign, Trump has referred to Mexican immigrants as "killers" and "rapists," and said Senator John...

The best-selling smartwatches on the market all have security problems, according to US tech giant Hewlett-Packard. The company tested 10 wearables for security features, such as password protection and data encryption. It found all the watches had at least one area of concern. One security expert said manufacturers needed to pay closer attention to customer security. "Keeping up with other manufacturers to be a forerunner in this technology field may force products to be released...

Iowa state lottery's IT security boss hacked his employer's computer system, and rigged the lottery so he could buy a winning ticket in a subsequent draw. On Tuesday, at the Polk County Courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa, the disgraced director of information security was found guilty of fraud. Eddie Tipton, 52, installed a hidden rootkit on a computer system run by the Multi-State Lottery Association so he could secretly alter the lottery's random number generator,...

The European fraud landscape is in a state of constant flux, but some trends can pop out over time. For instance, new research has revealed that card fraud losses rose 6% across Europe in 2014, and £29 million in the UK alone. Most of this increase was due to cross-border fraud, with domestic losses remaining flat. Also notable (and related): 70% of losses were due to card-not-present fraud. According to FICO, formerly known as Fair...