Banking applications on Android phones are most vulnerable to cyber crime, the chief executive and co-founder of Russian anti-virus software maker Kaspersky Lab said. Eugene Kaspersky said 99 percent of mobile attacks are towards Android-based phones, since Apple has strict controls and does not allow third-party applications.
U.S. government agents have arrested Charlie Shrem, the CEO of Bitcoin exchange BitInstant, charging him with laundering money for customers of online drug bazaar Silk Road. A U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York said Shrem, along with alleged co-conspirator Robert Faiella, sold more than $1 million worth of bitcoins to Silk Road customers.
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed its first lawsuits over counterfeit smartphone apps, charging four men who now face up to five years each in prison. "These crimes involve the large-scale violation of intellectual property rights in a relatively new and rapidly growing market,” Mythili Raman, acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s criminal division, said in a statement.
Ten tech firms, including Google, Amazon, Intel and Facebook, spent a combined $61 million on lobbying last year, according to Consumer Watchdog, a consumer group which compiled the data from disclosure forms. That’s up almost 16 percent from last year, even though Google actually cut spending by $4 million.
Unidentified hackers took aim at the federal court system, blocking access to its public website while preventing lawyers and litigants from filing legal documents online. The incident affected uscourts.gov, the federal court’s public hub, as well as most if not all federal court sites — not to mention the federal court system’s electronic filing system and its access page, PACER, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said.
A federal appeals court judge has overturned an $11 million jury award made in favor of Robin Antonick, a key developer on the original, 1988 PC version of John Madden Football. The court has ordered a new trial to determine whether EA owes Antonick royalties for decades of sequels based on his original design.
In what may be the latest in a continuing spate of cyberattacks on American retailers, Michaels Stores said that it was investigating a potential security breach involving customers’ credit card information. Michaels, an arts and crafts retailer based in Irving, Tex., said it was looking into reports of fraudulent activity on credit cards belonging to its customers.
Coca-Cola said that laptop computers stolen from its Atlanta headquarters held the personal information of up to 74,000 people. The company has recovered the laptops and spokeswoman Ann Moore said Coca-Cola has no indication that the information on the stolen computers was misused.
Romanian hacker "Guccifer", famous for breaking into emails of former U.S. president George W. Bush's family and entertainment figures, appealed against his arrest but the chances for his release appeared slim. A source in the prosecutor's office confirmed that masked police had netted Marcel Lazar Lehel, known by the aliases "Guccifer" and "Small Fume", and said he was currently being detained for 29 days in Bucharest pending a criminal investigation.
A German court has ordered Google to block search results in Germany linking to photos of a sex party involving former Formula One boss Max Mosley. The court said that although Google had not taken the pictures it was responsible as a distributor of the images.
Qualcomm has bought a large cache of patents, including some stemming from Palm, from Hewlett-Packard, a move officials with the chip maker said includes patents pertaining to a mobile operating system. Qualcomm officials said Jan. 23 that the portfolio includes patents related not only to Palm, but also to iPaq and Bitfone.
Hunter Moore, who has been called “the most hated man on the Internet” for his alleged operation and defense of a revenge porn website, was indicted by a federal grand jury, according to an official at the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Moore, 27, has claimed to be the operator of isanyoneup.com, a site that posted nude photos of people, many of whom say they did not consent to having their images appear on the Internet.
The FBI has warned U.S. retailers to prepare for more cyber attacks after discovering about 20 hacking cases in the past year that involved the same kind of malicious software used against Target Corp in the holiday shopping season. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation distributed a confidential, three-page report to retail companies describing the risks posed by "memory-parsing" malware that infects point-of-sale (POS) systems, which include cash registers and credit-card swiping machines found in store checkout aisles.
Some of CNN's social media accounts and blogs were compromised, including CNN's main Facebook account, CNN Politics' Facebook account and the Twitter page for CNN. Blogs for Political Ticker, The Lead, Security Clearance, The Situation Room and Crossfire were also hacked.
Neiman Marcus said that about 1.1 million customer credit and debit cards may have been hacked by malicious software. The sophisticated, self-concealing malware was "clandestinely" installed on the department store operator's system.
A Twitter account of Hamas's armed wing has been suspended by administrators, the Palestinian Islamist movement said, accusing the social media site of censorship. The account of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, @AlqassamBrigade, appeared to have been suspended several times over the past week, and was still inaccessible with a "suspended" notice.
Washington District Judge Robert Lasnik ruled simply that IP addresses are not individuals, according to a report by Torrentfreak. An "Internet Protocol" address is a numerical value placed on a computer that is participating in Internet traffic.
Google's Chrome browser has a dangerous security flaw that can let malicious sites eavesdrop on your every word. Discovered by web developer and Gizmodo reader Tal Ater, the bug in question is simple when exploited.
Judge Lucy Koh has struck two blows against Samsung in its ongoing lawsuit with Apple. Koh ruled that Samsung was infringing on one patent, and she invalidated one of the patents it was preparing to bring against Apple in court.
A U.S. cybersecurity firm says it has gathered evidence that the Russian government spied on hundreds of American, European and Asian companies, the first time Moscow has been linked to cyber attacks for alleged economic -- rather than political -- gains. According to the firm, CrowdStrike, the victims of the previously unreported cyber espionage campaign include energy and technology firms, some of which have lost valuable intellectual property.
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