Top 10 Stories

IB Times: Facebook has continued to splash the cash by completing a $2 billion (£1.2bn) deal to purchase Oculus VR, the startup company which has created the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality gaming headset - also used for virtual team building experiences. The acquisition - which follows the $19bn acquisition of messaging app WhatsApp last month - was announced by a statement by Facebook with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that the social network was beginning to look beyond mobile:

Microsoft: On Tuesday, we dusted off the source code for early versions of MS-DOS and Word for Windows. With the help of the Computer History Museum, we are making this code available to the public for the first time. The museum has done an excellent job of curating some of the most significant historical software programs in computing history. As part of this ongoing project, the museum will make available two of the most widely used software programs of...

ICO: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ruled that the Disclosure and Barring Service breached the Data Protection Act after failing to stop the collection of information about low level convictions that was no longer required for employment checks. The error occurred after the service failed to update its application form and continued to include the question ‘Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence or received a caution, reprimand or warning?’. The form did...

Graham Cluley: If you enable the feature, then you’ll not only need your username and password to log into Tumblr. You’ll also need a one-time authentication code that will be accessible via your mobile phone. In short, the bad guys won’t just need your username and password, they’ll also need that code (or physical access to your phone). In a world where it’s not at all unusual for users to be careless with their password...

  Guardian: The UK government will unveil its lead cyber emergency response unit on 31 March, after delays had put the digital squadron on hold, the Guardian has learned. The UK Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UK) will work on developing the UK’s cyber resilience to state-sponsored and criminal attacks on critical systems, including those controlling the national energy supply and within government departments, according to the Cabinet Office.  

  Webroot: For years, cybercriminals have been building ‘hit lists’of potential targets through automated and efficiency-oriented reconnaissance TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures).  The aim is to fraudulently/maliciously capitalize on these databases consisting of both corporate and government users. Seeking a positive return on their fraudulent/malicious activities, cybercriminals also actively apply basic QA (Quality Assurance) processes, standardization, systematic releasing of DIY (do-it-yourself) cybercrime-friendly applications – all to further ensure a profitable outcome for their campaigns. Thanks...

ZDNet: Dell on Monday said it acquired StatSoft, a company that specializes in analytics and data visualization software. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. StatSoft is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma and operates in 25 countries. The purchase gives Dell an information management and analytics play for its software portfolio. StatSoft's tools will go along with Dell's database management, optimization and integration applications.  

  ESecurity Planet: The San Jose Mercury News reports that Stanford Hospital & Clinicsand former contractor Multi-Specialty Collection Services (MSCS) will likely pay $4.1 million to settle a class action lawsuit over a 2010 data breach that exposed approximately 20,000 emergency room patients' medical information (h/t Becker's Hospital Review). The patients' medical record numbers, hospital account numbers, billing charges and emergency room admission and discharge dates were made available online for almost a year beginning on September 9, 2010....

  Computerworld: A new entry in the cash-for-bugs business, the Internet Bug Bounty, recently paid out its first $10,000 rewards. And on Friday, one of the researchers who judges bug report entries issued a plea to other security experts to join the hunt for flaws in Adobe's Flash Player, the media player notorious for its vulnerability volume and frequent patching. The Internet Bug Bounty (IBB) paid $10,000 each to a pair of security researchers in...

Washington Post: Federal agents notified more than 3,000 U.S. companies last year that their computer systems had been hacked, White House officials have told industry executives, marking the first time the government has revealed how often it tipped off the private sector to cyberintrusions. The alerts went to firms large and small, from local banks to major defense contractors to national retailers such as Target, which suffered a breach last fall that led to the...