Robert Lemos

As Chinese President Xi Jinping promised U.S. technology leaders in Seattle that China would not support hacking for economic gain, two security research firms released a joint report linking a Chinese intelligence unit with attacks on national and international government groups in the Asia-Pacific region. The espionage group, known as “Naikon,” has been active for […]

Security firms continue to warn smartphone users of the digital dangers of mobile malware, adware and spyware, but ironically, almost 80 percent of infected devices on mobile networks are tethered Windows laptops, not phones or tablets, network-security firm Alcatel-Lucent said on Sept. 16. The company’s Motive Security Labs found that the proportion of mobile-network-connected devices […]

When the U.S. Department of Commerce proposed a rule to regulate the international trade and sharing of “intrusion software,” worried security firms immediately went on the defense. Industry giants, such as Symantec and FireEye, teamed up with well-known technology firms, such as Cisco and Google, to criticize the regulations. The proposed rules, published in May, […]

Manufacturers of connected devices still have a lot of growing up to do when it comes to security. Consumer devices are increasingly designed to be connected to the Internet, but continue to have basic design flaws and security vulnerabilities that leave them open to attack. In a test of nine baby monitors, for example, security […]

Sophisticated attackers increasingly use little or no malware to compromise and steal data from their targets, according to an alert posted by managed security services firm Dell Secureworks on Sept. 2. Instead, in nearly every intrusion investigated by security analysts at the company in the past year, the attackers used compromised credentials to gain entry […]

Rogue retailers are unpacking phones made in China, installing malware and then selling the infected phones on the open market, security firm G DATA stated in a report released Sept. 1. The scheme involves infecting mainly local brands of Android phones—such as Alps, Xiaomi and even a line of devices known as “NoName”—but also it […]

Many network compromises start with phishing—a social engineering attack that arrives via email to dupe corporate workers into divulging passwords or other network application details—and employees continue to be vulnerable to these scams. In its latest annual Data Breach Investigations Report, for example, Verizon found that more than two-thirds of espionage-related breaches started with a […]

A slim minority—only 5 percent—of men and women aged 16- to 35-years-old believe that current safeguards will protect their data from exposure, according to a survey by security firm Intercede that polled the opinions of 1,000 U.S. and 1,000 U.K. millennials. Millennials are roughly defined as people born starting in the 1980s. About 70 percent […]

Attackers have started using a common network service to amplify Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks and flood targeted networks with data packets, telecommunications firm Level 3 Communications stated in an analysis published on Aug. 17. Using the service, known as portmap or portmapper, an attacker can send a simple request and create a much larger stream of […]

Driven by a seemingly unending parade of breaches, investors looking for the next big score—the rare “unicorn” company that becomes valued at $1 billion or more—are pouring money into security startups and early-stage ventures. So far in 2015, cyber-security firms received more than $1.2 billion in nearly 100 funding deals in the first two quarters, […]