Robert Lemos

Hacktivists’ threat to wreak digital havoc on U.S. government sites and financial institutions fell well short of the mark on May 7, the first day of the so-called “OpUSA” attack. On April 21, hacktivists calling themselves the N4m3le55 cr3w and affiliating themselves with the Anonymous movement promised in a Pastebin post to attack nine government […]

McAfee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, will acquire next-generation firewall maker Stonesoft in a deal worth $389 million, the companies said May 6 in a joint statement. The security maker expects the acquisition of the Finnish firm to round out its lineup of security products, giving it a strong contender in the market for […]

Hackers compromised the U.S. Department of Labor’s Website this week, modifying pages about nuclear-related illnesses with malware that could compromise visitors’ computers through a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8, according to security experts. While security firms first released details of the attack on May 1, endpoint protection firm Invincea reported on May 3 that […]

For more than three years, hackers linked to China thoroughly compromised U.K.-based QinetiQ, a firm that bills itself as “a world leading defense technology and security company,” to steal intellectual property and sensitive defense information, according to reports of the incident. The long-running breach resulted in numerous visits from federal investigators from December 2007 until […]

Frustrated by the inability of U.S. Internet service providers to deliver needed intelligence and court-ordered wiretap capabilities, military and law-enforcement officials are reportedly seeking to expand their surveillance powers. A task force plans to propose legislation that would fine Internet firms who cannot provide court-mandated surveillance, according to an April 28 article in The Washington […]

A breach that potentially leaked the user names and passwords of LivingSocial’s more than 70 million users could seriously impact the subscribers, if they reused their passwords on other sites, security experts said this week. On April 27, the deal-finding service alerted its users that criminals had breached the company’s security and taken some customers’ […]

Nation-state attacks through the Internet continue to escalate, with a massive surge in cyber-reconnaissance activity appearing to come from North Korea at the same time the country ratcheted up its nuclear rhetoric, according to security experts. In February, attackers operating from North Korean Internet addresses probed U.S. servers more than 1,000 times, up from the […]

A majority of consumers finds password-based security frustrating, with nearly half encountering failed transactions due to authentication failures, according to a survey published by the Ponemon Institute. The survey, sponsored by authentication-technology startup Nok Nok Labs, found that consumers are unhappy with passwords, while at the same time skeptical about the security they provide. About […]

The fight over the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has just begun. On April 18, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill, which aims to ease information sharing between private companies and the government, a weak spot in the nation’s ability to defend itself against cyber-attacks. The latest bill, however, trumps privacy […]

Cyber-attackers compromised systems at the Associated Press, gaining access to two Twitter accounts from which they falsely reported on April 23 that explosions had rocked the White House and President Barack Obama had been injured. The fake reports caused a short-lived panic on Wall Street, and markets dropped more than 1 percent but quickly recovered. […]