Top 10 Stories

Reuters - Cyber criminals have infected hundreds of thousands of computers with a virus called "Pony" to steal bitcoins and other digital currencies, in the most ambitious cyber attack on virtual money uncovered so far, according to security firm Trustwave. Trustwave said on Monday that it has found evidence that the operators of a cybercrime ring known as the Pony botnet have stolen some 85 virtual "wallets" that contained bitcoins and other types of digital...

A new piece of ransomware that emerged earlier this month is encrypting its victim’s files with an easily breakable cryptographic algorithm. BitCrypt, as it is known, purports to lock down files with 1024-bit RSA encryption but actually only deploys a much weaker 426-bit key. According to researchers Cedric Pernet and Fabien Perigaud, the makers of BitCrypt may have accidentally deployed this much weaker encryption algorithm that is incredibly easy to break. So easy in fact,...

GMA News - In yet another reminder to owners of Apple Macintosh computers their machines are not immune from viruses, a security firm has uncovered a new Trojan that mines Macs for bitcoins, an Internet-based currency. SecureMac said the malware, which it dubbed OSX/CoinThief.A, is being "actively distributed" through legitimate sites, thus exposing hundreds of Mac users to malware. SecureMac said the malware, which it dubbed OSX/CoinThief.A, is being "actively distributed" through legitimate sites, thus...

SC Magazine - Hackers and InfoSec experts need to stand up and become part of a wider plan to influence and reform government legislation on information security, so says Rapid 7 global security strategist Trey Ford. Ford, the former Black Hat General Manager, was speaking at fifth B-Sides San Francisco where he gave an impassioned plea for the hacking community to get involved in order to change the dated laws in place for cyber security,...

Infosecurity - Sharing threat intelligence is considered by both government and industry as essential to countering online criminality; but it seems that industry can move faster than government. This week, both AlienVault and HP are announcing separate information sharing initiatives; and both describe the issue in similar terms. "Criminal attackers have a community," blogs Barmak Meftah, president and CEO of AlienVault ahead of a speech this week; "they have long shared information quite successfully to...

SecTechno - Moneypack malware ransomware variants have been observed by Trendmicro security researchers. The malware encrypt files and asks victim to pay online for having their files recovered. The attack is targeting users in Turkey and Hungary. Cybercriminals spread their malwares by sending an email prompts to download an executable file the file is a Trojan that encrypts sensitive data and instruct user to make online transaction in order to recover them.

BBC news - South Korea is to develop cyber-attack tools in an attempt to damage North Korean nuclear facilities. The country's defence ministry wants to develop weapons similar to Stuxnet, the software designed to attack Iranian nuclear enrichment plants.

Yahoo! News - US intelligence has stepped up eavesdropping on hundreds of key figures in Germany, including a government minister, after Chancellor Angela Merkel was dropped as a direct target, a German report said Sunday. Bild am Sonntag newspaper said that 320 political and business leaders in Germany were being monitored by the US National Security Agency (NSA), including Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.

Malware must die - Today, I almost went to bed when bumping into this threat. Please kindly bear the sleepy eyes on writing these. I am combining the screenshot and log/details in texts, hopefully there will be no filtration product would block this post for a bit of URL's paste. This writing contains many points that are important information for fellow friends and the mentioned public services to be aware of being abused by this...

Krebs on security - Apple on Friday released a software update to fix a serious security weakness in its iOSmobile operating system that allows attackers to read and modify encrypted communications on iPhones, iPads and other iOS devices. The company says it is working to produce a patch for the same flaw in desktop and laptop computers powered by its OS X operating system. The update — iOS 7.0.6 — addresses a glaring vulnerability in the way Apple devices handle encrypted communications. The...