VirtualThreat the quieter you become, the more you are able to hear

Chiranjeev Bordoloi VentureBeat   If there is any weakness in security, you can guarantee the criminals will try to exploit it. And if a cyber criminal discovers a weakness in one community, it won’t be long before that isolated crime turns into a trend. The commercialization of malware is rapidly becoming a well-organized and highly lucrative business. So what can …

Michelle Lowry KJRH Channel 2 News   TULSA – Smartphone malware attacks.  The Internet Crime Complaint Center says there is malware attacking operating systems for mobile devices. Just two examples of this malware according to the FBI are Loozfon and FinFisher. Information-stealing malware could come in as a work-from-home opportunity that promises big bucks for just sending out emails. The …

Arik Hesseldahl AllThingsD.com   The next great target for criminals and digital troublemakers in 2013 is hacking medical records. According to a long report in the Washington Post and based in part on research by the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, despite numerous technology standards written into federal regulations, the many ways that health care professionals access health …

Ingrid Lunden Techcrunch   PSA to all Facebook Camera users on iOS: If you haven’t updated your app in the past few days, update it now. The older version of the app, pre-1.1.2 and released before December 21, has a security loophole. When used over WiFi networks, malicious hackers can tap the network and hijack accounts, picking up information like email addresses …

Natasha Lennard Salon.com   “KnightSec,” an arm of the Anonymous hackers, attacked the website of an Ohio high school football team to demand a public apology for the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl reportedly perpetrated by players. Last weekend, the website of the locally celebrated Steubenville High School Big Red football team was replaced with a note and a …

Lucian Constantin PC World   Several malicious Android apps designed to steal mobile transaction authentication numbers (mTANs) sent by banks to their customers over SMS (Short Message Service) were found on Google Play by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab. The Android malware apps were created by a gang that uses a variant of the Carberp banking malware to target …

Chris Dougherty Virtual Threat Contributing Writer   As the Christmas season and holiday shopping hits full swing, cyber criminals are using sophisticated attacks to steal your money and credit card data. The latest scheme infects cash register machines with a malicious piece of software called Dexter malware. Seculert, an Israeli security firm, has identified a growing trend where criminals are …

David Goldman CNN Money   Security firm McAfee on Thursday released a report warning that massive bank cyber attacks on 30 U.S. banks has been planned, with the goal of stealing millions of dollars from consumers’ bank accounts. McAfee’s research upheld an October report from RSA, the security wing of IT giant EMC Corp. RSA startled the security world with …

Gerry Shih Reuters – Sidney Morning Herald   When the Israeli army and Hamas trade virtual blows in cyberspace, or when hacker groups like Anonymous rise from the digital ether, or when WikiLeaks dumps a trove of classified documents, some see a lawless internet. But Matthew Prince, chief executive at CloudFlare, a little-known internet start-up that serves some of the …

Cynthia Hodges The Examiner   Former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), John “Mike” McConnell said that United States officials have already been warned about a huge potential cyber attack that could have a tremendous negative impact on the country. In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, McConnell said the warnings should serve as a wake-up call …