Robert Lemos

Following a spike in activity earlier this year, the online seeding of malicious mobile programs subsided in the third quarter, while ransomware took off, according to Kaspersky Lab’s latest malware report, “IT Threat Evolution Q3 2016.” While ransomware accounted for less than 1 percent of attacks, the number of Kaspersky users attacked by such malware […]

Almost all companies see Agile software development practices, such as DevOps, as a critical step toward creating more secure software, but few are integrating security testing into the application development process, according to a recent study by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The small-population survey of security teams, industry leaders, enterprises and developers found that 99 percent […]

When a 20-year-old Pokémon Go player sought to capture a digital creature in a Creve Coeur, Mo., parking lot in the wee hours of July 10, he instead found himself robbed at gunpoint by two teenagers who used the app to set lures and track potential victims, according to police in O’Fallon, Mo. The two […]

Tech support scams used to involve cold-calling computer users to convince them to buy dubious software that did little to help victims or their computer systems. Over the past few years, however, the scams have become far more insidious, according to a report by security firm Malwarebytes. From fake antivirus alerts to notices that seem […]

In March, five months after credit-card companies mandated a “liability shift” for most retailers who had not adopted chip-card technology, a Florida supermarket chain and a liquor store filed a class-action suit against Visa, MasterCard and other credit card issuers as well as several large banks. The lawsuit alleges that the mandated “liability shift” made […]

Small and medium-size businesses have major problems in managing their use of cloud applications, according to a survey published on Oct. 12 by Spiceworks, a community for information technology workers. The survey of 338 IT managers found that more than 80 percent of the technology professionals had end users who had “gone behind their backs […]

The Obama administration squarely blamed the Russian government on Oct. 7 for a series of hacks aimed at influencing the 2016 presidential election. Over the past 18 months, online attackers have compromised the networks and computers of the Democratic National Committee, leaked email and other documents, targeted election systems, and attempted to interfere or undermine […]

Companies need to help their cyber-security specialists not only keep their skills up to date, but also develop new ones—a hard idea to sell when these workers change jobs so often, according to a new survey released Oct. 5 by the Information System Security Association. The survey of more than 430 security professionals, conducted by […]

Sharing information on cyber-threats has garnered a great deal of U.S. government support over the past 18 months. In February 2015, President Obama signed Executive Order 13691, encouraging collaboration between private companies and with the government through organizations known as information sharing and analysis organizations, or ISAOs. Nearly a year later, Congress passed a 2,009-page […]

The well-known CryptoWall ransomware has run into a wall of its own. Over the past year, the criminals behind CryptoWall have seen their profit drop dramatically, according to a report published by the Cyber Threat Alliance, a group of eight security companies that exchange information on current cyber-threats. During the first 10 months of 2015, […]