Robert Lemos

The U.S. Department of Defense wrapped up a 20-day series of cyber-exercises incorporating more than 100 federal and state organizations as well as private industry and academia, the DOD announced on July 1. The exercises, known as Cyber Guard 15, involved a closed network that allowed distributed access for participants across the United States and […]

Since the U.S. Office of Personnel Management announced a pair of network breaches this month, Michael Brown, a former admiral in the U.S. Navy, has waited for the notification that his sensitive personal information was stolen in the breach. While the Office of Personnel Management estimated that attackers had stolen the employment and insurance records […]

When security firm Kaspersky Lab announced in June that a sophisticated attacker had infiltrated its network and stole research data, the apparent act of espionage became the latest incident to target a company whose products protect many other firms. The attack, which also targeted nations and organizations involved in nuclear talks with Iran, used at […]

Fitness monitors popular with consumers are at risk of leaking data and allowing attackers to modify information on the devices, according to a study released on June 23 by German security testing firm AV-Test. The testing firm did not attempt to hack the devices, but instead eavesdropped on their communications and looked for security weaknesses. […]

Studies have shown that denial-of-service attacks on Websites continue to increase in numbers and volume—doubling in the past year. Yet, weak passwords and vulnerabilities in common Website software continue to be the most significant attack vectors, according to security experts. Web administrators who lack knowledge about Web security, or just the time to attend to […]

An embarrassing leak of sensitive information from the Houston Astros baseball team last year may have been the result of hacking by its National League rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, according to a New York Times article published on June 16. The FBI is currently investig An embarrassing leak of sensitive information from the Houston […]

Google will pay thousands of dollars to researchers who find and report vulnerabilities in the Android mobile operating system as part of a new bug bounty program announced by the company on June 16. The Android Security Rewards program builds on the format used in the company’s well-known bug-hunting initiative for its Chrome Web browser. […]

Corporate information-security executives and managers lack confidence in their company’s ability to fend off cyber-attacks and protect their customer and business data, according to a survey published on June 9 by security firm RSA. About three-quarters of the 400 companies polled by RSA considered their overall information-security capabilities to be average or below average, the […]

Microsoft issued an emergency patch on June 3, acknowledging reports that a simple eight-character string could crash the program on certain platforms. On June 2, Skype users on the product’s community forums reported that sending a simple string—http://:—could crash the Skype client on Windows and Android platforms. The issue resulted from the improper handling of […]

From late February to mid-March, a group of attackers used a versatile piece of malware, dubbed Grabit by its authors, to infect computers and steal about 10,000 files from small and midsize businesses in Thailand, India and the United States. The malware, analyzed by security firm Kaspersky Lab, stole usernames and passwords from nearly 5,000 […]