attacks

The number of malware infections targeting banking information has reached its highest level in more than a decade. A new report finds that there were more than 200,000 of these kinds of infections between July and September 2013. The report, which ... is called the Q3 2013 Security Roundup and comes from security firm Trend Micro, says that this three-month infection rate is the highest seen since 2002. U.S. Bears Brunt of Malware Attacks It's important to note that the infections are not uniformly distributed around the world. The United States, which comprised 23 per cent of new infections, ... (view more)

Here's a scary statistic: the number of incidents involving people shining laser pointers into airplane cockpits has increased roughly 1,100 per cent since 2005. That number comes from the United States' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which ... recently reported that the number of laser pointer attacks in January 2013 was 346. Meanwhile, throughout the year 2005 there were only 283 of these attacks. For the FAA, this is a very serious matter. So serious, in fact, that it has established a web site dedicated to outlining the threat such attacks pose to pilots and airline passengers. ( ... (view more)

Microsoft has issued an emergency software fix for a critical flaw in its Internet Explorer web browser. According to reports, hackers have already exploited the vulnerability. Microsoft released the "Fix It" software in an attempt to prevent what ... it calls "targeted attacks" on a vulnerability in its Internet Explorer browser. Microsoft is calling this a "zero day" vulnerability, meaning software developers were unaware of the issue before it was exploited by hackers. Hackers Launch Remote Code Execution Attacks Reports indicate that hackers have used the flaw to carry out remote code ... (view more)

A member of international hacking group Anonymous has been sentenced to three years in prison for attacking a series of law enforcement websites. John Anthony Borell III will spend the next thirty-six months in a federal penitentiary. The ... 22-year-old Borell is a native of Ohio but the sites he targeted were based in all parts of the continental United States. During the early part of 2012 Borell hacked the websites of police agencies located in Utah, New York, and California. He also targeted a municipal government website based in Missouri. Utah Police Site Disabled For Three Months Court ... (view more)

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)