Robert Lemos

A concerted takedown effort led by the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency has disrupted the Shylock botnet, taking down key servers on July 8 and 9. While the takedown will likely hobble their efforts, the Shylock group’s success shows that smaller botnets can still be very profitable, according to security researchers. The cyber-criminals behind the […]

While cyber-insurance could significantly help companies reduce their risk and direct businesses to develop better security practices, the insurance industry still lacks the maturity and the ability to determine clients’ risk, according to an analysis conducted by security-information firm NSS Labs. In the wake of the Target breach, the cyber-insurance industry has done a great […]

Security teams at critical infrastructure firms have little trouble understanding that their networks are vulnerable. But the companies themselves have failed to make security a priority, according to a survey of nearly 600 security executives by the Ponemon Institute published on July 10. External attackers and malicious or negligent employees managed to compromise two-thirds of […]

After nearly a week, the last users of the dynamic domain-name system known as No-IP are back online and able to reach their servers through the service, following technical glitches resulting from Microsoft’s seizure of 23 domain names belonging to company. Microsoft seized the domains on June 30 without notifying No-IP in an attempt to […]

Cyber-criminals have infected nearly 200,000 computers in Brazil and used their access to issue payment vouchers with an estimated value of $3.75 billion, according to an analysis of the attack published by security firm RSA on July 1. Dubbed the “Bolware” gang, the criminals abused the Brazilian payment system known as Boleto Bancário, which allows […]

Four major trends threaten the future of the Internet and could result in a network restricted by governments, fenced off by corporations and no longer trusted by citizens, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center and published on July 3. The study, in which Pew canvassed more than 1,400 Internet experts, identified […]

A group of online hackers exhibiting the hallmarks of nation-state attackers have infiltrated the networks of hundreds of energy firms and industrial control system makers, according to analyses by security firms and the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT). The attackers, dubbed “Dragonfly” by security-software firm Symantec and “Energetic Bear” by security-services provider […]

An analysis of three studies of phishing attacks—each focusing on different data sets—has suggested that online fraudsters are increasingly attacking social network and email services because they offer the best prospects for success. In a survey of some 9,000 software programs and scripts used for phishing published on June 25, security firm PhishLabs found that—while […]

Countries that seek to improve their economy through cyber-espionage undermine the trust in the Internet and could harm the future of the global economy, the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) argued in a policy paper published on June 20. While a number of countries, such as China, are exploiting uncertainty in international policy and […]

Three years ago, companies that wanted to exchange information on the latest cyber-threats needed to belong to one of several exclusive clubs, such as the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), Microsoft’s Active Protections Program (MAPP) or the Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network (AVIEN). Since then, new information-sharing tools and networks have emerged to […]