Robert Lemos

A Chinese mobile advertising firm has reaped more than $300,000 a month by infecting 85 million Android smartphones with malware, known as HummingBad, and using its control over the devices to fake advertising clicks and install unwanted applications, according to research published by security firm Check Point Software Technologies. The firm, known as Yingmob, also […]

The shortage of security professionals is hurting small businesses far more than large enterprises, according to a survey conducted by IT service provider Spiceworks. Fifty-nine percent of businesses with fewer than 500 employees had no access to a security expert, whether internally or through a third-party contractor or managed security provider. The problem was less […]

Big data. Business analytics. Threat intelligence. User behavior profiling. The common wisdom of innovative firms is that the future is all about data collection and analysis. The big winners of the Internet, such as Facebook and Google, seemingly prove the point: Both companies collect an enormous amount of information on their users. In mid-June, however, […]

A federal judge for the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled that the user of any computer that connects to the Internet should not have an expectation of privacy because computer security is ineffectual at stopping hackers. The June 23 ruling came in one of the many cases resulting from the FBI’s infiltration of PlayPen, […]

In early May, Igor Kabina, a researcher with security firm ESET, noticed that the group behind the third most prevalent ransomware operation, TeslaCrypt, had seemingly taken a breather. Following the April release of version 4 of its data-encryption malware, the group’s development efforts slowed. Wondering if the group was closing up shop, Kabina pretended to […]

Two more cyber-security firms have found evidence that the hack of the Democratic National Convention’s servers bears the hallmarks of known Russian espionage groups. On June 20, Fidelis Cybersecurity published its own analysis of the malware used in the attack, concluding that the attackers likely were members of two Russian espionage groups. Earlier claims made […]

The U.S. Department of Defense finally revealed how its systems fared in a $150,000 bug-finding contest, where vetted hackers were given rewards for finding significant vulnerabilities. On June 10, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told attendees at the Defense One Tech Summit that more than 1,400 security specialists applied to take part in the “Hack the […]

On Oct. 23, 2008, Microsoft revealed a critical flaw that could allow an attacker to remotely compromise and infect Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 systems. It took only a week for the Internet’s seedier element to create the first malware based on the vulnerability. While initial attacks targeted specific companies and infected […]

More companies have faith that cloud applications are as secure as their on-premises counterparts, but their control over the security of cloud applications continues to fall short, according to two surveys released this week. Fifty-two percent of cyber-security professionals believe that cloud applications are at least as secure as the on-premises applications they are replacing, […]

The fast pace of innovation by the information technology industry has seemingly left businesses in that industry behind in the race to secure their Web applications, according to the annual WhiteHat Security Web Applications Security Statistics Report released on June 7. As an industry, IT firms came in dead last in measures of security—and first […]

In October 2015, hackers compromised the Website of British telecommunications firm TalkTalk, likely using one of 11 known vulnerabilities in the site to steal the personal details of 157,000 customers, including bank-account information on more than 15,000 people. Earlier this month, the bill for the lapse in security came due: The company saw its profits […]

The number of distinct Website links in phishing attacks jumped by more than 150 percent in five months, showing that phishing remains a major vector of compromise, the Anti-Phishing Working Group stated in a report released on May 24. In March 2016, phishing emails seen by APWG members contained more than 123,000 unique URLs, up […]