Over the past year and a half, federal agencies operating out of Pittsburgh have unveiled a string of landmark cybercrime cases, including the July takedown of Darkode, described by U.S. officials as one of the most sophisticated computer-hacking forums online. A big factor in the city’s success is an unusual level of private-public collaboration in fighting cybercrime.
Google Inc. has been given an extra two weeks to respond to European Union charges of abusing its market power in a dozen EU countries and stave off a possible billion-euro fine. The European Commission has extended the deadline for replying to the charges until Aug. 31, a Google spokesman said.
The government's war against online drug sales isn't working, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Despite law enforcement crackdowns, online drug black markets have matured into a resilient criminal industry that enables more than $100 million worth of worldwide sales a year, a new paper from researcher Kyle Soska and computer science professor Nicolas Cristin reports.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says San Francisco’s Bay Area has suffered more than a dozen attacks on its fiber optic infrastructure over the past year. The attacks slow Internet service and disrupt financial transactions and emergency phone calls.
A federal appeals court appeared skeptical of claims by a government trade panel that it can block Internet communications it finds infringe U.S. patents. The U.S. International Trade Commission last year took the unprecedented step of ordering ClearCorrect LLC of Round Rock, Texas, to cease receiving digital models and data from Pakistan to manufacture dental aligners, plastic orthodontic devices used to straighten teeth.
American business groups are lobbying U.S. President Barack Obama to press Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on technology protectionism concerns during Xi's upcoming U.S. visit, according to a letter addressed to Obama seen by Reuters. In the letter dated Aug. 11, 19 U.S. business lobbies including the American Chamber of Commerce in China and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and sector-focused groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and Information Technology Industry Council, prodded Obama to raise the issues faced by the information and communications technology sector.
BMW said it was looking into whether Google infringed any trademark rights after the Silicon Valley-based group set up a new company called Alphabet, which is also the name of a BMW subsidiary. "We are examining whether there are any implications over trademarks," a BMW spokeswoman said, adding there were currently no plans to take legal steps against Google.
Car hacking has been the story of the moment, with a lack of cybersecurity understanding evident among large automakers. Tesla, however, is a different case.
U.S. prosecutors have charged nine people over their alleged roles in a hacking scheme to obtain corporate press releases before they were made public, which they said generated more than $30 million of illegal trading profit. Prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York made public an insider trading indictment charging four traders: Vitaly Korchevsky, a former hedge fund manager from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania; Vladislav Khalupsky, of Brooklyn and Odessa, Ukraine and Leonid Momotok, of and Alexander Garkusha of Georgia.
China has long been notorious for rampant music piracy, but Beijing is now taking bigger steps to crack down on illegal online distribution. The National Copyright Administration of China said 2.2 million songs have been removed from online music platforms in China, after the government copyright watchdog ordered service providers to remove unlicensed music from their platforms by the end of July.
Ten videos were removed from Vimeo, after a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint claimed that the videos contained copyrighted content from "Pixels," the 2015 feature film that's plaguing vintage video game lovers all across the land. The supposed copyright violation, it seemed, was that the videos all contained the word "pixels" in their titles. Vimeo ended up restoring the videos on Monday, after it became clear that many of the removed videos had nothing to do with the film -- and, in fact, predated it by several years.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo will be among the first technology companies to use the Internet Watch Foundation’s “hash list” to identify and remove child abuse images uploaded to their services, the British anti-abuse organization announced. Sharing the list of digital fingerprints with Internet companies will allow victims’ images to be identified and removed more quickly, preventing them from being repeatedly shared.
The Federal Trade Commission, the de facto federal watchdog for consumers' privacy and data security, knows it needs help. FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny and the agency's chief technologist Ashkan Soltani are in Las Vegas to talk with hackers and security researchers attending the Black Hat and DEF CON conferences.
Carphone Warehouse said that hackers had gained access to the personal information of 2.4 million of its online customers, in the latest high-profile breach of online privacy. In a press release, the U.K. cellular retailer said its websites and mobile Internet services had been penetrated by hackers and that an investigation indicated that “personal data which may include name, address, date of birth and bank details of up to 2.4 million customers may have been accessed.”
The European Commission failed to find evidence of collusion among the major music labels and Apple to quash free music streaming services such as those offered by Spotify, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter. Investigators examined whether the labels conspired with one another or with Apple on Apple’s new streaming music service in a way that would hurt rivals.
A group of China-linked hackers that has mowed through the databanks of major American health insurers and stolen personnel records of U.S. military and intelligence agencies has struck at the heart of the nation’s air-travel system, say people familiar with investigations of the attacks. Sabre Corp., which processes reservations for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels, confirmed that its systems were breached recently, while American Airlines Group Inc., the world’s biggest carrier, said it is investigating whether hackers had entered its computers.
U.S. officials tell NBC News that Russia launched a "sophisticated cyberattack" against the Pentagon's Joint Staff unclassified email system, which has been shut down and taken offline for nearly two weeks. According to the officials, the "sophisticated cyber intrusion" occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Researchers at Check Point Software Technologies have identified a vulnerability in Android phones that could let hackers take over devices remotely, steal personal data and even turn phones into spying devices. The "Certifi-gate" vulnerability takes advantage of preloaded apps that allow mobile carriers and manufacturers to remotely access your phone to troubleshoot problems.
Internet firms such as Cisco, Google and Amazon will be subject to a new EU cybersecurity law forcing them to adopt tough security measures and possibly report serious breaches to national authorities, according to a document seen by Reuters. The so-called Network and Information Security Directive has been stuck in talks between member states and EU lawmakers because of disagreements over whether to include digital platforms such as search engines, social networks, e-commerce sites and cloud computing providers.
YouTube has removed an official song for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics due to “multiple third-party” complaints of copyright infringement. The song, called “The Ice and Snow Dance”, had come under fire after various reports and YouTube users said it sounded too similar to “Let it Go”, a song featured in Disney’s 2013 hit film “Frozen.”
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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.