UK ‘Has Cyber-Attack Capability’

The U.K. has the ability to launch cyber attacks but does not use it for industrial espionage like some other countries, England’s security minister Lord West said.

According to BBC, West has refused to elaborate on the matter and explain whether cyber attacks have been used for military purposes. However, he told BBC Radio 4′s PM program the country faces…

Study: Millions of Swedes Potential Victims of Phishing Scams

With nearly 4 million Facebook members, Sweden has one of the highest rates of users of the popular social-networking site. But as familiar as the Swedes are with online networking, many will still fall victim to cyber crime and scams, according to a recent study.

Swedish IT security company Check Point Sverige examined how easily Facebook users can be duped…

Bob Dix of Juniper Networks: The Threat Has Evolved from Script Kiddies to Nefarious Forms of Criminal Activity

After graduating from college, Bob Dix joined the utility industry, and shortly thereafter transitioned into the retail automobile business. After 15 years, he decided to chase his dream of serving his community as an elected official, and subsequently spent the next 12 years as a local government-elected representative. Additionally, Dix  served on two different occasions…

Businesses in Wales Get Educated to Fight Cyber Crime

With the staggering number of cyber attacks hitting businesses in Wales, companies are now getting a chance to learn more about how to protect themselves against criminals on the Internet.

Participants at the e-Crime Wales Summit held July 15 in Newport, Wales, will hear from ex-CIA agent Richard Hollis of Orthus on how to remain secure on social networks, and ex-FBI man Ed Gibson on…

Phishing Experiment Reveals Many Students Ready to Hand Over Personal Info

An experiment conducted to find out how many would fall victim to a phishing scam netted nearly 1,000 out of 10,000 unsuspecting students at a university in the United Arab Emirates, according to The National.

The first part of the university-sanctioned experiment at the American University of Sharjah was conducted in April on 10,000 students, alumni, staff and faculty and tricked nearly 1,000 individuals into trying to change their university…

33 South Korean Poker Scammers Booked

Police in South Korea recently arrested 33 hackers who used a DDoS program to cheat online poker players out of 55 million won, roughly $45,265, during a six-month period, according to Korean English-language newspaper JoongAng Daily.

The Cyber Terror Response Center in South Korea said the hackers, led by a 30-year-old and a 29-year-old, used a DDoS attack to infect 11,000 computers across the country.

According to police, one offender bought…

Hackers Target IM Apps

Security experts in Germany are warning about a new threat to MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, V3.co.uk reports.

G Data SecurityLabs research noted a recent increase in spam and phishing sites that link to the services, as well as a surge of seemingly never-ending fake friend requests. Adding to these issues is an application that falsely promises to reveal to users who is blocking them.

The messages include links that…

Nantucket Man Charged with Stealing Income Tax Refunds

Authorities in Massachusetts have charged a Belorussian man for his alleged role in an international phishing scheme to steal income tax refunds intended for U.S. taxpayers.

According to the indictment, Mikalai Mardakhayeu and his co-scammers ran websites that offered lower-income taxpayers free online tax return preparation and tax return e-filing services. After taxpayers entered their tax information seeking refunds for federal and state taxes, co-conspirators in Belarus…

FAA Audit: Medical Data of Airmen Not Secure

A recent audit by the Inspector General has found that the medical data, social security numbers, names and addresses of airmen are not being properly secured. The report found that the FAA has failed to fully implement cybersecurity standards as outlined by OMB.

“We found serious security lapses in FAA’s management of AMEs private medical support staff access to the…

Cyber Attacks via Excel?

In order to conduct cyber espionage, miscreants need to find a way to access victims’ computers remotely. This often takes the form of sending an infected document, generally a PDF, to the victim.

A new targeted attack has been discovered by researchers at F-Secure who look to take advantage of people’s greater trust in Excel files. Rather than send infected PDF documents, this cyber attack uses infected Excel files that…