Robert Lemos

A cyber-espionage group has compromised the computer systems of corporate executives by infecting the networks of the hotels where they typically stay and then serving up malware while they connected to the Internet, according to an investigation published by security firm Kaspersky Lab on Nov. 10. The group, which Kaspersky dubbed “Darkhotel,” has successfully targeted […]

While malware has never been highly prevalent on Apple’s Mac OS X and iOS, attackers continue to show their persistence in developing advanced techniques to compromise the operating systems. For the latest malware, dubbed WireLurker, the attackers used trojanized applications delivered through a third-party app store that infect users’ systems and then attempt to infect […]

International law enforcement agencies teamed up to take down more than 410 alleged criminal services operating on the Tor anonymizing network, and arrested 17 operators and administrators, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Europol. Law enforcement agencies in 16 European countries and the United States carried out raids and made arrests as part […]

Companies will spend marginally more money on technology and staff to defend their IT systems and data in 2015, but they continue to have problems hiring knowledgeable security professionals, according to a survey conducted by business-services firm Ernst & Young. About 52 percent of the more than 1,800 organizations surveyed expect security budgets to increase, […]

Recent incidents have highlighted that attackers are quickly turning public vulnerability information into exploits, leaving defenders with a shrinking window in which to patch software flaws. On Oct. 29, the security team for the popular content management system, Drupal, warned users that a SQL injection vulnerability disclosed on Oct. 15 was exploited so quickly that […]

A malicious program targeting the retail computer systems used to process credit- and debit-card transactions has continued to spread, doubling the number of infected systems in two months, despite efforts to curb its propagation, according to data from network-security firm Damballa. The program, known as Backoff, infects the point-of-sale computer terminals used by cashiers to […]

The cloud allows for the convenient storage of information for on-the-go workers and gives them the ability to broadly share information with colleagues, but many people do not consider the security implications of putting sensitive data in the cloud, according to a recent study done by cloud-security firm Elastica. The survey found that each worker […]

Retail stores hit by cyber-criminals have to worry about consumer backlash, as customers are more likely to avoid compromised retailers, according to a study released this week by CreditCards.com. The survey of 865 Americans by phone found that 45 percent would either “definitely” or “probably” not shop at a retailer this coming holiday, if they […]

Man-in-the-middle attacks on Apple’s iCloud service and the compromise of a handful of pro-democracy Websites have targeted Chinese users over the past three weeks, according to analyses of the attacks. On Monday, GreatFire.org, a Website shedding light on the filtering done by China’s Great Firewall, posted an analysis of a man-in-the-middle attack that masquerades as […]

More than 4 million consumer and business devices—such as routers, media servers and Web cams—could be conscripted by attackers to participate in a distributed denial-of-service attack because of weaknesses in the Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) standard, Internet infrastructure firm Akamai warned in an advisory posted on Oct. 15. Attackers have exploited the protocol to send control […]