attacks

The feared Zeus Trojan is expected to make a comeback in the next six months. According to security research firm Trend Micro, many cybercriminals are returning to this form of malware as a tool for compromising website security. Zeus is by no means ... new. Its source code was originally spread across the world wide web more than two years ago, and since that time has been customized by cybercriminals. Popular variants of Zeus included 'Citadel' and 'GameOver'. Overall, Zeus (sometimes called Zbot) is one of the oldest forms of financial malware still being used by cybercriminals today. Zeus a ... (view more)

Academic institutions need to take steps to protect themselves against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, a new report finds. Right now, many online systems used by colleges and universities are vulnerable to hacker hijacking. REN-ISAC, ... the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center, has completed a report which finds that academic institutions must begin reviewing their Domain Name System (DNS) and network configurations or face hijacking by sophisticated hacking techniques. Universities Unprepared for DDoS Attack REN-ISAC is a membership of more ... (view more)

Spanish police have arrested a man on suspicion of masterminding one of the largest online attacks ever recorded. The suspect appears to be the chief of a controversial web hosting company who had begun a rivalry with the anti-spamming group hit by ... the attack. According to Dutch prosecutors the man arrested was a 35-year-old Netherlands resident with the initials 'S.K.' That appears to match Sven Kamphuis, a senior figure at Cyberbunker. (Source: om.nl ) Cyberbunker is a web hosting company known for having a particularly relaxed attitude to the online activities of its customers. That led to ... (view more)

According to a new study from Verizon, almost one in three of the world's cyber attacks originate in China. The study also revealed that Chinese attackers are more interested in cyberespionage than stealing money. The figures are part of Verizon's ... annual Data Breach Investigations Report. The report aims to bring together data from cybercrime experts from around the world. This year the data covers a total of 47,000 "security incidents," though the vast majority of these incidents appear to have been failed attacks. Only 621 cases are known to have involved an actual breach of security with ... (view more)

The intensity of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is on the rise, a new report suggests. According to Florida-based security firm Prolexic, such attacks have become eight times more potent in just the past quarter. Prolexic says that the ... average attack bandwidth associated with DDoS attacks seen during the first quarter of 2013 was just over 48 gigabytes per second (Gbps). That's a huge increase from the last quarter of 2012, when average attack bandwidth was just 5.9 Gbps. A DDoS attack involves flooding a website with bogus traffic to the point that the website's server can no ... (view more)

The war of words between China and the United States over alleged cyber-espionage continues. A Chinese government official has revealed data that he says shows US sources are behind more than a million annual attacks on two Chinese websites. An ... American security firm recently published a report indicating that a Chinese hacking group has carried out at least 140 security breaches of US websites in an attempt to steal sensitive information. US Firm Tracks Hacks Back to China The report said the group's attacks could be traced back to a specific building in Shanghai known to be operated by a ... (view more)

The President of the United States has the right to authorize an online attack on another nation if he has credible evidence to suggest that country plans to attack the US. That's the conclusion of a secret review of rules governing the US ... military's online behavior. Officials are said to be planning the first comprehensive set of guidelines for the military's online activities, though the rules themselves will be classified. The review was prompted by concerns over the current division between the military and intelligence services. For example, the armed forces are only allowed to launch ... (view more)

In the past, someone upset by a newspaper article would write a letter of complaint to the editor. But The New York Times (NYT) says Chinese hackers have unleashed a campaign of cyber attacks in response to an article about Chinese leader Wen Jiabo. ... Though the hackers haven't publicly explained their actions, NYT staff believe the attacks are a response to an article published in October 2012 about Jiabao. The story reported that his relatives had made billions of dollars in business deals. (Source: nytimes.com ) The attackers gained access to New York Times computers through malicious ... (view more)

The United States Air Force (USAF) plans to add 1,000 cybercrime experts to its current workforce of 6,000 computer professionals. The reason: there is a concern that Iran may soon pose a serious threat to US Internet security. Although the Air ... Force budget as a whole is likely to be cut, observers expect extra recruits in Space Command, the unit responsible for monitoring and controlling United States Internet security, satellites, and long-range missiles. (Source: ohsonline.com ) Cyber Command: Leading, Preventing Online Attacks Space Command is a unit within the larger Air Force Cyber ... (view more)

United States officials believe Iran is responsible for a string of recent cyber attacks on American banks. They say the sophistication of the attacks and the hacks' aim of disrupting services rather than stealing cash both suggest government rather ... than private activity. The attacks have been coming since September and have disrupted the online services of many U.S. banking institutions, including Bank of America, BB ... (view more)