cybercrime

Chronic Condition: Study Finds Medical Device Flaws Go Unfixed

In-brief: Old and outdated software continues to plague medical environments, opening the doors to infections and data loss, even by long-forgotten computer viruses, according to a report by the security firm TrapX.

Ctrl + Esc from New York: NYMag Envisions Hack of Gotham

In-brief: A New York Magazine article imagines a massive, online attack on New York City in 2017. The scary thing: most of what it imagines has already happened.

Banks Scrutinize SWIFT Following Electronic Heists

In-brief: U.S. banking giant JP Morgan Chase is limiting employees’ access to the SWIFT  messaging service, the latest response to a string of attacks on the critical, interbank service.

Duck and Cyber: Berkeley Report Imagines Dark, Technology Driven Futures

In-brief: technology advances including the growth of the Internet of Things will make cybersecurity a top concern for individuals and governments, enabling a variety of futures – some sunnier than others, according to a report from UC Berkeley and the Hewlett Foundation.

Blurred Lines: Sophisticated Hacks Building On Commodity Crime Tools

The information security industry has long operated with the premise of two, very different kinds of threats: indiscriminate, cyber criminal activity aimed at making money quick and sophisticated, targeted attacks intended to provide long term competitive advantage to another company (or economy), disrupt the operation of the target or provide a (future) strategic advantage in some kind of cyber conflict. But new research from FireEye suggests that the lines between sophisticated and unsophisticated cyber operations are blurred, making it hard for organizations to know if a given infection is merely bad luck, or evidence of a larger and more dangerous operation. Writing about a new financially motivated hacking crew called Fin6, FireEye said that the group, which targeted point-of-sale systems made off with “millions of payment card numbers.” Still, FireEye said that it couldn’t figure out how the group compromised its victims. “In Mandiant’s investigations of FIN6, the group already […]