Top 10 Stories

All too often we hear about people not using strong enough passwords for their online accounts. But it's not just online accounts that are secured using weak passwords. Take the humble garage door for example. If you are fortunate enough to have one that can be opened remotely, then you may be shocked to learn that many rely upon 12-bit codes, meaning the number of possible combinations is capped at 4096. An independent security researcher has detailed...

The phony tech support scam is an all-too-common danger of surfing around in cyberspace. But, they mainly target PCs. Now, a new iteration on the form has cropped up to menace Mac users—with a malvertising-driven attack vector. Blue Coat researcher Chris Larsen has found three scam domains (macsupports.info, macworldservices1.com and macsecurityalerts.co), which, when visited, offer pop-up warnings about “dangerous viruses,” supposed malware and unauthorized access. View full story

The US army has temporarily taken down its website after a hacking attack. It says an element of the army.mil website was compromised and preventative measures had to be taken to ensure there was no breach of data. The Syrian Electronic Army - which supports President Bashar al-Assad - says it was behind the attack. View full story

The personal banking details of Apple Pay users could be compromised by fraudsters using equipment that is easy to get hold of and costs less than £65. The potential social engineering attack was created in a lab by security supplier Wandera, which revealed the method that enables hackers to create a fake page that pops up on a user’s phone requesting details, including the security code. View full story

Microsoft is ready to abandon the longstanding patching schedule that saw patches and security updates being delivered on the second Tuesday of every month. With the advent of Windows 10, security updates and other software innovations will be pushed to PCs, tablets and phones as soon as they are ready. View full story  

Sophisticated Mumblehard spamming malware flew under the radar for five years. Several thousand computers running the Linux and FreeBSD operating systems have been infected over the past seven months with sophisticated malware that surreptitiously makes them part of a renegade network blasting the Internet with spam, researchers said Wednesday. View full story

The malware strain targets Oracle's MICROS retail platform which is used in 330,000 customer sites worldwide. Researchers have discovered MalumPoS, a new point-of-sale malware designed to steal credit card data from hotels and other US businesses. View full story

PandaLabs today published its Quarterly Report for Q1 2015, analysing the IT security events and incidents from January through to March. The global security vendor detected over 225,000 new malware strains per day in the first quarter of the year, with peaks reaching 500,000. View full story

Skype users, beware. There are nefarious links being spread around through Skype, and if you click them you will be presented with a lot of adware. However, there are good news, and bad news here. View full story

We are in the early years of a cyber war arms race, security guru Bruce Schneier warned delegates at the Infosecurity Europe exhibition on Wednesday. Schneier, CTO of Resilient Systems, said the much publicised Stuxnet attacks on Iran by the US and Israel in 2010, Iran’s attack on Saudi Aramco, China’s apparent role in hacking GitHub, and the North Korean assault on Sony Pictures last year are all examples of the phenomenon. View full story