FBI Director Robert Mueller told the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence this week that cyberthreats will equal or surpass the threat from counterterrorism in the relatively near future.

It would be funny if it weren't so serious -- Symantec is urging customers to disable its pcAnywhere remote control software because it lost the source code to hackers back in 2006 and never made attempts to change the code to protect users. The ensuing joke would go something like, "Where is Symantec's software not secure? Anywhere!" Granted, it's not a very good joke, so maybe someone will come up with a better one that attempts to mask the gravity of the situation.

In yet another dangerous escalation of hackers sabotaging infrastructure, an alleged attack from overseas disrupted service on three unnamed Pacific Northwest railway lines. In the attack, the hackers managed to change railway signals, causing short delays in schedules.

In a sudden outbreak of cyberwarfare Saudi and Israeli hackers are in a heated and escalating battle to see who can capture more enemy credit card numbers. Although far gentler than traditional warfare, this latest Mideast flareup may prove most costly in Riyals and Shekels to the citizens of both countries.

Conventional security wisdom holds that the distributors of malware leverage massive amounts of botnet infrastructure to deliver their payloads. While historically that has been true, these days the sheer size of those botnets is making it easier to discover those botnets, predict what attacks are building on those botnets, and ultimately apprehend the cybercriminals who built them.

There's a saying that 50 million Frenchman can’t be wrong, but this month about 13 million Koreans can be -- and were -- wronged in one of the worst hack attacks in any company’s history.

Last week the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and Better Business Bureau (BBB) issued alerts warning of phishing attacks targeted at both banks and their depositors.

Even in the heart of Silicon Valley, where the high-tech cognoscenti live and shop, there is no immunity from cyber breaches: Lucky Supermarkets, located all across northern California, this week advised its customers to “close their bank account and open a new one.”

 
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR3523) now working its way through Congress “encourages” the private sector to voluntarily share and exchange information with members of the “intelligence community.” But does HR3523 dilute years of privacy data protection in the name of security?

For the second time in as many months a Federal court has taken the atypical position of siding with plaintiff in a suit for damages following following a data breach.

Perhaps the toughest part of securing your endpoints is finding out who in the company has administrative rights to the computer they’re using. This is especially the case in companies where there hasn’t really been a consistent procurement or configuration policy, which is probably most companies.

American standardization. We’re known for it. So why is it when it comes to Information Technology the same words don’t often mean the same thing?

The IT space is perhaps one of the biggest offenders in creating its own language with a unique terminology and jargon. That's all well and good if everyone means the same thing when they are using the same words.

Hey! You! Yes, I’m talking to you, the person who is sitting at a computer reading this blog entry. You can check, but I’m willing to bet you the computer you’re using allows you full administrative rights. In other words, you have the ability to do pretty much anything you wish with your machine. You can install software, change security settings and even open malware-laden e-mails that can then install Bad Stuff on the computer.

An SEC advisory regarding a company’s obligation to shareholders in estimating its financial risk following a cybersecurity event may cause some friction among C-level executives.

It seems as though USB drives are everywhere. Go into the office and chances are there are hundreds of them lying around like so many paper clips. People tend to use them randomly, so no one is quite sure what sensitive files might be on a particular drive. Of course, chances are high that they have no idea where that drive is, either.