Fahmida Y. Rashid

Cyber-criminals may be employing new tactics and technology to execute their online campaigns, but botnets remain lucrative and effective, according to a report from Damballa. New botnets emerged in the first half of 2011 and were more active than older botnets, Damballa researchers found in its Threat Report for the first half of 2011. The […]

Automobiles are getting smarter as carmakers put in computers that can help drivers parallel park and add Internet connectivity to post Facebook or Twitter updates. They are also driving into uncharted territory as the smart features expose the vehicles to cyber-attacks, McAfee said in a recent report. Vehicles are enhanced with embedded chips and sensors […]

Microsoft has permanently blocked all digital certificates issued by Dutch company DigiNotar after it became clear that the attack on the certificate authority was broader than originally thought. The update for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows XP sends all five DigiNotar Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates to a block list, Microsoft said in an […]

In the 10 years since hijackers flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York City and a third one into the Pentagon, federal, state and local governments have struggled to secure transportation systems and physical infrastructure from terrorist attacks. However, the damage was done. The attacks ended-probably forever-Americans’ belief that we […]

Imperva has launched a cloud-based service designed to help businesses defend against distributed-denial-of-service attacks.The Imperva Cloud DDos Protection service will help organizations defend against various types of DDoS attacks, including network-based attacks, such as SYN or UDP floods, and application attacks that consume server resources, Imperva said Sept. 6. With the cloud-based model, Imperva can […]

Philip Reitinger, former director of the United States National Cyber-Security Center, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, will be joining Sony as a chief information security officer, Sony said Sept. 6. The appointment is effective immediately and Reitinger will become a senior vice-president, reporting directly to general counsel Nicole Seligman, according to Sony. […]

Attackers changed the Internet routing information on major Websites to redirect users to different pages over the weekend, affecting dozens of companies, including Microsoft, the United Parcel Service and computer producer Acer. Visitors to the affected sites on Sept. 4 were shown a black page with a message that read in part, “Hacking is not […]

Cloud security news was prominent at the VMworld user show in Las Vegas the week of Aug. 29 where Symantec and VMware announced a desktop-as-a-service offering, which would allow IT departments to integrate security protections integrated into their virtualized environments from the start.Juniper also added antivirus capabilities to its virtual gateway platform, transforming the Web […]

A lawsuit filed in Washington state accused Microsoft of tracking Windows Phone users without their consent even after users have opted out of information sharing. Microsoft is allegedly developing a targeted location-based advertisement system and is using Windows Phone users to collect the information about the locations of cell towers and wireless networks, said plaintiff […]

The United States Department of Homeland Security warned the security community about potential attacks from hacking collective Anonymous over the next few months.The Sept. 2 security bulletin from the DHS National Cyber-Security and Communications Integration Center warned financial services companies to be on the lookout for attackers operating under the Anonymous umbrella to “solicit ideologically […]