Top 10 Stories

A new strain of encrypting ransomware that forced PC gamers located in the U.S. to pay up $500 in Bitcoin or $1,000 in PayPal My Cash cards, or permanently lose their user profile data, saved games, maps, mods, etc., is now targeting the Far East. The new ransomware with file encryption capabilities, named Crypt0L0cker (the "o" letter is a zero) by its authors, is targeting only machines based in European and Asian countries, as well...

Last week, Allentown, Pa. based point-of-sale (POS) maker Harbortouch disclosed that a breach involving "a small number" of its restaurant and bar customers were impacted by malicious software that allowed thieves to siphon customer card data from affected merchants. KrebsOnSecurity has recently heard from a major U.S. card issuer that says the company is radically downplaying the scope of the breach, and that the compromise appears to have impacted more than 4,200 Harbortouch customers nationwide....

Researchers with security firm Proofpoint have identified a sneaky social engineering-style operation in which attackers are submitting weaponized Microsoft Word documents – in lieu of actual résumés – to job postings listed on the CareerBuilder website. On CareerBuilder, employers that post job openings will receive an email notification when an applicant submits a résumé, and the résumé is included as an attachment in the notification, according to a Wednesday post. View full story

The largest ever distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack happened earlier this year, according to a threat intelligence and monitoring service. Arbor Networks said the attack had traffic of up to 334 Gbps, accounting for tens of thousands of connections, targeting one Asian network operator. View full story

A Wilmington school was attacked by a hacktivist group called Team System DZ – a pro-ISIS organization. The school's webpages were defaced with messages praising terrorist groups. Officials for the school have said that no student of faculty information was compromised in the attack. The FBI characterized the attacks from this group as "unsophisticated methods to exploit technical vulnerabilities." View full story

The top cyber official for the Air Force says the service’s space and satellite networks are being constantly hacked by outside groups. ‘There’s millions of probes every year into our networks, from every corner of the world,’ Gen. John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command, said Tuesday during a Defense Writers Group breakfast, discussing the scale of the cyber threat.” View full story

The South African Right2Know campaign has released its “Big Brother Exposed” report. The report revealed details about the way activists and community leaders are being “monitored, spied and harassed” by South African intelligence agencies. View full story

All of us dread the prospect of having our personal bank accounts hacked. But imagine what it must be like for a company to have its business bank account plundered by hackers for millions of dollars? According to reports, controversial budget airline Ryanair has fallen victim to hackers who managed to steal €4.6 million (almost US $5 million) via a fraudulent electronic transfer to a Chinese bank last week. View full story

A phishing attack targeting employee email accounts has led to a breach of protected health information at Saint Agnes Health Care Inc. On Monday the Baltimore health system sent letters to 25,000 who were affected, reported the Baltimore Business Journal. Affected information included names, dates of birth, gender, medical record numbers, insurance information and limited clinical information. Four patients had their Social Security numbers accessed as well. The health system is working with its email...

Cisco researchers have created a tool that can decrypt files encrypted by the TeslaCrypt ransomware without having to pay the ransom. The tool does not work in all cases, and researcher Andrea Allievi said he's currently working on an algorithm for instances where the master key cannot be recovered. TeslaCrypt targets over 180 file extensions, and it made news in March for targeting video game and iTunes-related files. Previous tools have been released by other...