Top 10 Stories

CSO Online - While government leaders often use attention-grabbing buzzwords like cyberwarfare, such expressions do not have much impact on security budgets within private industries, experts say. The possibility of cyberwarfare has been in the spotlight for more than a year, when then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a policy speech that the nation faced the threat of "another Pearl Harbor."

LinkedIn - Facebook, the popular social network with over a billion users world wide, has just been hit with a class-action lawsuit. The allegations, revealed in the FT, are that Facebook systematically scans the content of private messages so it can sell the data to third parties such as advertisers. Facebook’s entire business model is based on the fact that it monitors what users write, like and up-load in order to sell this information on to...

The Hacker News - Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious criminal's money making schemes out there. Ransomware malware was mostly known by the people when Cryptolocker comes into play. At the time when readers were getting aware of ransomware, Cryptolocker threat had touched the peak and other money motivated cyber criminals have started developing their own Cryptolocker versions. Two hackers going by the name of 'gyx' and 'Porphyry' (admin of maldev.net hacking...

CNet - Soon your face could be your calling card. An upcoming app for Android, iOS and Google Glass called NameTag will allow you to photograph strangers and find out who they are — complete with social networking and online dating profiles. When you spot someone out and about that you want to identify, you can capture their face using your device's camera. The app will send the photo wirelessly to NameTag's server, where it...

Arstechnica - With seven weeks to go, at least 8 speakers cancel their RSA Conference plans. By Tuesday afternoon, there were eight previously scheduled RSA participants who had publicly cancelled their engagements. They included Adam Langley and Chris Palmer, both on various security teams at Google; Chris Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union; EFF special counsel Marcia Hoffman; Mozilla Global Privacy and Public Policy Leader Alex Fowler; Josh Thomas, who is listed as...

Spamfighter.com - Security vendor McAfee in its recently released 2014 A/NZ (Australia and New Zealand) report for threat predictions anticipates that cyber crooks will increasingly employ ransomware, malware and hacktivism in 2014 to move further into the profitable business marketplace. McAfee has released its 2014 A/NZ threat report noting the drift towards ransomware and targeted attacks in 2014.

The Hacker News - After Snapchat hack, this can be another worst data breach of the new year. A Pakistani hacker 'H4x0r HuSsY' has successfully compromised the official Forum of 'openSUSE', a Linux distro developed, sponsored & supported by SUSE. The hacker managed to deface the Forum and uploaded its custom message page as shown and account information of 79,500 registered users' may have been compromised.

New York Times - Palo Alto Networks has acquired Morta Security, a two-year-old Silicon Valley security start-up run by former employees of the National Security Agency and the United States Air Force. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, though the deal marks the first acquisition of a company by Palo Alto Networks, a security company that went public in 2012 and has seen its shares jump more than 20 percent over the last...

It's the first calendar quarter of the year. With February and March on the visible horizon, we're seeing the annual reappearance of "Facebook is closing" hoaxes. It certainly sounds unlikely, doesn't it? Facebook closing down because it has too many members?

At the beginning of May 2013, the Dutch government proposed a new law that brought fresh impetus to an old idea: law enforcement’s right to hack back. “The controversial proposal”, said Dutch cyber rights organization Bits of Freedom, “doesn’t only allow the hacking of mobile phones and computers, it extends to spying on users and the deletion of data. It would also include devices which are located abroad. Furthermore, keeping your password secret from the police and...