Top 10 Stories

Universities have been warned about students running cryptocurrency mining operations on academic networks as one of the key security risks targeting the sector. According to cyber security firm Vectra, it is not just hackers targeting university systems to run cryptocurrency mining campaigns, but students looking to make extra cash by exploiting their inside access to university networks. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Computing

Software vulnerabilities more than doubled between 2012 and 2017, but vendors are doing a better job of patching the holes in a timely manner, with 86% of vulnerabilities having patches available on the day of disclosure. These are among the key findings from Flexera’s latest Vulnerability Review. The annual report found that 19,954 vulnerabilities were documented in 2017, up 14% from 2016 and more than double the 9895 vulnerabilities recorded in 2012. View full story...

Pop-up ads have long been the scourge of the internet. But the rise of ad blockers, plus anti-pop-up moves by Google and Firefox had given us hope that those days would soon be behind us. So why are even the most tech-savvy among us starting to see ads appear congratulating us for being "selected as a winner" of a $1,000 Amazon gift card? View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Mashable

Pop-up ads have long been the scourge of the internet. But the rise of ad blockers, plus anti-pop-up moves by Google and Firefox had given us hope that those days would soon be behind us. So why are even the most tech-savvy among us starting to see ads appear congratulating us for being "selected as a winner" of a $1,000 Amazon gift card? View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Mashable

Almost All Instant Messaging Platforms Like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Line, And Viber Targeted By The Malware. Researchers at cyber-security firm Trustlook Labs have identified new Android Trojan that is stealing data from all mainstream instant messaging apps for mobile. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Hackread

Security researchers say they've identified at last 1,000 Magento sites that have been hacked by cybercriminals and infected with malicious scripts that steal payment card details or are used as staging points in the delivery of other malware. "The Magento sites are being compromised through brute-force attacks using common and known default Magento credentials," Flashpoint researchers say. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Bleeping Computer

Intel originally promised to fix the Meltdown and Spectre hardware flaws in all of its processors, but in a recent microcode revision guidance, the company says that won’t be possible and some chips would no longer receive updates. The company has assigned the “Stopped” production status to a total of 10 product families covering more than 200 processor models. “After a comprehensive investigation of the microarchitectures and microcode capabilities for these products, Intel has determined...

A software bug in a telecom provider's phone number blacklisting system caused the largest telephony outage in US history, according to a report released by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the start of the month. The telco is Level 3, now part of CenturyLink, and the outage took place on October 4, 2016. View Full Story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Bleeping Computer

Some cybersecurity experts and regular users were surprised to learn about a Chrome tool that scans Windows computers for malware. But there’s no reason to freak out about it. View Full Story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Motherboard

Now that Congress has agreed on its spending package, states are drafting plans on how to implement new post-election audits and install paper-based voting machines. View Full Story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Statescoop