malware

Remember Stuxnet, the malware targeted at the Iranian nuclear industry? Say hello to Flame (Win32.Flame), a 20MB piece of modern cyberwar weaponry.

A technically savvy gang of East Europeans that has been extorting money from Europeans using 'Police Trojan' ransomware for two years is also responsible for the rush of ransomware in the U.S., after Americanizing its social engineering pitch, according to TrendMicro.

Risk analyses list malware, espionage and user negligence among top threats; Anonymous and other hacktivists are usually farther down the top 10. So why do the alarm bells start ringing about semi-anarchistic protest-hackers as votes on unpopular cybersecurity bills approach?

Symantec captured a new version of the module the Stuxnet descendant Duqu uses to penetrate new systems, but not the part that shows where it gets its orders. Kaspersky, meanwhile, cracked the mystery of Duqu's mysterious coding language and identified characteristics of the coding team that built it; nothing's sure, but the profile is consistent with government work.

Everyone falls for malware come-ons occasionally, but most of us learn how to identify and avoid the most obvious traps for the unwary. Anonymous OS, a Linux distro packed with hacker tools, is one of those traps. More than 20,000 installed it and its malware anyway. n00bz!

The International Space Station is the most-obvious symbol of international, first-world cooperation on the exploration of space. It's also a potential death trap for astronauts, a kinetic weapon bomb and indication NASA's security staff and CIO should be replaced.

A stenographer who ignored the belt-and-suspenders policy of transcribing trials on both paper and disk was fired after a virus destroyed data on her computer, destroying the only transcript of a murder conviction, which was thrown out by appellate court that had no record to consider.

Iran claims it shot down a U.S. RQ-170 spy drone, but won't release proof or say if a new Russian electronic counter-measures system brought it down. Killed or crashed, the drone is one shot in a a cyber/real war using malware, murder and explosive sabotage as weapons.