Cybercrime

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which has been troubled by repeated DDoS attacks, has gone offline, following publication on Scribd of a purported internal memo alleging a multiyear server theft totaling nearly 745,000 Bitcoins. At Tuesday morning's price of $518.84 CoinDesk, that would amount to about $3...

Google on Friday announced its purchase of online ad fraud fighter Spider.io. It initially will include Spider's fraud detection technology in its video and display ad products. Over time, Google will incorporate Spider's iFramed ads view technology in its products. Its long-term goal is "to improve...

"Very big NTP reflection attack hitting us right now. Appears to be bigger than the #Spamhaus attack from last year. Mitigating." That Monday evening tweet from Matthew Prince, the cofounder and CEO of CloudFlare, signaled what's being touted as the largest distributed denial of service attack ever ...

The Target data breach exposed more than 100 million customers, riled up U.S. intelligence agencies, sparked a Justice Department investigation, involved the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, triggered congressional hearings, and led several banks to re-issue their credit cards. The ...

With all the headlines about Internet cybersecurity breaches, there seem to be few headlines about the consequences for cybercriminals. That is because not all cybercriminals are caught, and when they are it often takes months, if not years, before trials. Even when the cybercriminals plead guilty,...

The security breach that initially appeared to affect as many as 40 million customers may put many more at risk, Target revealed Friday. In addition to accessing those customers' payment card data, hackers stole the names, mailing addresses, phone numbers or email addresses for up to 70 million peop...

Target has disclosed that 40 million customer accounts might have been accessed by hackers between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. Customer names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates and the three-digit security codes on the backs of cards were compromised when they were swiped through machine...

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes," wrote Benjamin Franklin in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789. You have to wonder if Old Ben wouldn't add cyberattacks to that list were he alive today. We live in a world in which hundreds of thousands of new threats ar...

Microsoft on Tuesday forked out what might be the biggest payment to a bug hunter yet: $100,000. The money went to James Forshaw, head of vulnerability research at Context Information Security, for coming up with a new exploitation technique that affects Windows 8.1 Preview. "James' Mitigation Bypas...

U.S. law enforcement officials have shut down Silk Road, the online marketplace that allegedly facilitated the anonymous sale of illegal drugs as well as illicit services such as murder for hire. FBI officials also on Tuesday arrested the site's alleged founder, 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht, at a publi...

Following in the footsteps of rivals including Google and Mozilla, Microsoft this week hung a figurative "Wanted" sign in its Security Response Center offering rewards up to $100,000 for those who find vulnerabilities in its software. Specifically, the software giant announced three "Bug Bounty" pro...

LivingSocial's customers received some bad news on Friday: The popular daily deal site had been hacked, compromising some 50 million members' customer data. There was some good news -- credit card data was not affected, the company promised in its notice to customers. Also, the Facebook credentials ...

The Federal Trade Commission filed a suit against Wise Media this week, accusing the company of slipping unauthorized charges into consumer cellphone bills. Wise Media allegedly charged cellphone users fees for services to which they'd never subscribed, a practice referred to as "cramming." The comp...

Users of the Internet and electronic gear are vulnerable to criminals near and far, but we don't always hear about what happens at court and whether the alleged criminals are convicted or acquitted. Here is an update on some those crimes for consideration. After an 11-day jury trial in Denver, membe...

Barnes & Noble revealed this week that PIN pad devices at 63 of its stores nationwide were hacked, putting some of its customers at risk. The company discovered the hacking in September, and for the past month, the FBI has been investigating the case. Fewer than 1 percent of Barnes & Noble P...