Top 10 Stories

The online hacktivist group ‘Anonymous Honduras‘ has hacked and defaced 6 high profile Honduras government ministries websites against the alleged fraud in country’s presidential elections. Hacked websites belong to Interpol Honduras, two websites of National Police of Honduras, Superintendent of Public Alliance, Honduras, Ministry of Culture and Zolitur Island under Ministry of Tourism. Anonymous left a deface page along with a message on all hacked websites against alleged rigging and fraud in 2013 during country’s Vice Presidential Election....

Constantly updating technology coupled with the dynamic and evolving nature of data breaches may be stalling notification laws from becoming uniform across the United States. The World Law Group (WLG), a network of 53 independent law firms, released the “Global Guide to Data Breach Notifications, 2013” in mid-November, a hundred-plus page report compiled as a go-to global resource for how breached entities are legally mandated to respond to incidents involving a loss of client information. The report...

Investigators from around the world worked together to seize hundreds of domain names Monday being used to sell counterfeit merchandise online.   Law enforcement agencies from eight countries partnered to take down 690 domain names seized as part of an ongoing operation called 'In Our Sites – Transatlantic 3.' The operation was coordinated by Europol for the participating EU Member States as well as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination...

When end users circumvent the IT department and start using software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications without permission, the IT pros complain about the plague they call "shadow IT." But it would seem the professionals are also operating in the shadows, according to a survey out today. The report entitled “The Hidden Truth behind Shadow IT,” was a collaboration of consultancy Frost & Sullivan and McAfee. The survey asked 300 IT pros and 300 line-of-business employees whether they...

The boss of RBS has admitted the bank "has to do better" amid a day of disruption for many customers following a computer failure. An estimated 750,000 RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank customers were unable to use their credit and debit cards for three hours on Monday. Customers continued to report problems on Tuesday, with some saying funds had vanished from their accounts. The RBS group said that it would compensate those left out of...

The attorney general is to publish guidance on Twitter to help prevent social media users from committing a contempt of court by commenting inappropriately on criminal cases. Dominic Grieve QC said it was designed to make sure fair trials took place. Comedian Alan Davies, Commons speaker's wife Sally Bercow and celebrity Peaches Geldof have all recently run into legal difficulties with careless tweets. The advice will apply to court cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A wide variety of government officials could gain access to live data concerning users of ISPs and online services including content-hosting sites, without the approval of a judge, under a draft law approved by members of the French National Assembly on Friday. The measure, a rider on the 2014-2019 defense appropriation bill, would require ISPs and content hosting companies to provide government officials with access to details of their users' activity without judicial oversight. Law enforcement...

Two million logins and passwords from services such as Facebook, Google and Twitter have been found on a Netherlands-based server, part of a large botnet using controller software nicknamed "Pony." Another company whose users' login credentials showed up on the server was ADP, which specializes in payroll and human resources software, wrote Daniel Chechik, a security researcher with Trustwave's SpiderLabs. It's expected that cybercriminals will go after main online services, but "payroll services accounts could actually have...

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) stamped its avian emblem on the Twitter account belonging to Time on Friday. “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here via @Official_SEA16.. Next time write a better words about the Syrian president #SEA,” the hacktivist collective tweeted from the Time Twitter account. The post was deleted within ten minutes.  

Security is always a concern for IT professionals, and media news reports of breaches and leaks, combined with internal threats, have further increased worries. A recent Tech Pro Research survey focused on IT security. The survey attracted 244 respondents from around the globe and from organizations of all sizes. The resulting report, IT Security: Concerns, budgets, trends and plans, focuses on the key findings from the survey. Budgets were a hot subject. Overall, 41 percent of...