Hospitality giant Hilton Hotels & Resorts recently started offering Hilton HHonors Awards members 1,000 free awards points to those who agreed to change their passwords for the online service prior to April 1, 2015, when the company said the change would become… Read More »
The world is about to get another reminder about just how much of the Internet runs on technology maintained by a handful of coders working on a shoestring budget. OpenSSL — the software used by thousands of companies to encrypt online communications — is set to get a security makeover this week: The OpenSSL Software Foundation said it plans to release new versions of its code to fix a number of security weaknesses, including some classified as “high” severity.
Premera Blue Cross, a major provider of health care services, disclosed today that an intrusion into its network may have resulted in the breach of financial and medical records of 11 million customers. Although the company isn’t saying so just yet, there are independent indicators that this intrusion is once again the work of state-sponsored espionage groups based in China.
A recent phishing campaign targeting customers of several major U.S. banks was powered by text messages directing recipients to call hacked phone lines at Holiday Inn locations in the south. Such attacks are not new, but this one is a timely reminder that phishers increasingly are using lures blasted out via SMS as more banks turn to text messaging to communicate with customers about account activity.
It’s time once again to update my Value of a Hacked Email Account graphic: According to a recent alert from the FBI, cyber thieves stole nearly $215 million from businesses in the last 14 months using a scam that starts when business… Read More »
When Karim Rattani isn’t manning the till at the local Subway franchise in his adopted hometown of Cartersville, Ga., he’s usually tinkering with code. The 21-year-old Pakistani native is the lead programmer for two very different yet complementary online services: One lets people launch powerful attacks that can knock Web sites, businesses and other targets offline for hours at a time; the other is a Web hosting service designed to help companies weather such assaults.
Almost once a week, I receive an email from a reader who has suffered credit card fraud and is seeking help figuring out which hacked merchant was responsible. I generally reply that this is a fruitless pursuit, and instead encourage readers to keep a close eye on their card statements and report any fraud. But it occurred to me recently that I’ve never published a primer on the types of card fraud and the likelihood with each of the cardholder ever learning how their account was compromised. This post is an effort to remedy that.
Several media outlets are reporting that authorities in the United Kingdom early this morning arrested an 18-year-old in connection with the denial-of-service attacks on Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox systems over Christmas. The arrest is one of several tied to a joint U.K. and U.S. law enforcement investigation into a group calling itself the “Lizard Squad,” and comes as the group’s attack-for-hire online service was completely compromised and leaked to investigators.
President Obama on Monday outlined a proposal that would require companies to inform their customers of a data breach within 30 days of discovering their information has been hacked. But depending on what is put in and left out of any implementing legislation, the effort could well could lead to more voluminous but less useful disclosure. Here are a few thoughts about how a federal breach law could produce fewer yet more meaningful notice that may actually help prevent future breaches.
The online attack service launched late last year by the same criminals who knocked Sony and Microsoft’s gaming networks offline over the holidays is powered mostly by thousands of hacked home Internet routers, KrebsOnSecurity.com has discovered.
