The 5.8 magnitude earthquake that shook cities all along the Eastern seaboard just minutes ago is likely to get Internet scammers up and moving, looking for ways to capitalize on the event by preying on people’s natural curiosity and hunger for news. As with any big event — especially a natural disaster — that draws people to the Web, online crooks quickly spring into action with enticing footage, “never-before-seen” pictures and donation sites, all designed to lure users into handing over their personal information or, in some cases, their money. Read More…

LONDON — A group of computer hackers on Thursday claimed to have breached NATO security and accessed hoards of restricted material. The group called Anonymous said it would be “irresponsible” to publish most of the material it stole from NATO but that it is sitting on about 1 gigabyte of data.
Anonymous posted a PDF file on its Twitter page showing what appeared to be a document headed “NATO Restricted” and dated Aug. 27, 2007. Read more…

People who are careful about their Facebook security and friend requests may not need to hear this, but for everyone else — or if you’ve ever received a friend request and thought “I might have known this person in high school” — consider this new vulnerability that lets hackers bypass the Facebook security question with fake friends. Read More…

The scam emails, spotted by researchers at the security firm F-Secure, appear to be from the “Apple AppStore,” with a message informing the recipient that their app order “has been successfully cancelled.” Users are directed to click on a link titled “order information,” to get to the bottom of the problem. Read More…

Global software piracy reached a record figure of $59 billion last year, a new study from the Business Software Alliance has found.
That figure represents a 14 percent increase compared with 2009 and a doubling since 2003, the trade group said today. Forty-two percent of PC software was pirated worldwide last year, the group added, down one point from the previous year. Read more..

External attacks from cybercriminals will soon pose a greater risk to the corporate world than insider threats, according to the results of a Cyber-Ark survey (PDF) released yesterday.
Polling more than 1,400 IT staffers and top-level executives around the world, Cyber-Ark Software’s fifth annual “Trust, Security and Passwords” report tried to get a sense of the security dangers that concern the corporate world for now and in the near future. The survey found that 57 percent of the executives believe that over the next one to three years, cybercriminals will present more of a security risk than will any insider threats.
Read More Here!

As some of you know, Epsilon (a large Email Service Provider) was recently hacked and many large organizations were affected. Over the last year almost a dozen ESP’s have been hacked and email address’ stolen. Watch This Video!!!

More than 1 million Web sites were believed to be infected with malware in the fourth quarter of last year, nearly double from the previous year, according to figures released today by Dasient.
Malvertising, advertising containing malware, also is on the rise, with impressions doubling to 3 million per day from the third quarter of 2010. Read more…

Sen. Charles Schumer wants online companies to switch to a more secure protocol to better protect consumers who access Web sites via public Wi-Fi hot spots. The New York Democrat yesterday issued a call to such companies as Amazon and Twitter to switch their default pages to HTTPS from HTTP to help prevent cybercriminals from stealing online passwords and credit card numbers over public Wi-Fi networks. In his request, Schumer said that programs such as Firesheep allow even hackers with no programming skills to easily capture usernames, passwords, browsing history, and other private information from unsuspecting users in spots with unsecure Wi-Fi. Read More…

Beyond tweeting its success in hacking Barr’s account, Anonymous revealed information about the CEO claiming to be his home address, Social Security number, and cell phone number. The group was also able to hack into the LinkedIn account of HBGary Chief Operating Officer Ted Vera, a task that Forbes said took a little more than two minutes and another 10 minutes to get Vera’s address and phone number.
In addition to defacing the Web page, Anonymous downloaded more than 60,000 of the company’s e-mails, which it then posted to the Pirate Bay file-sharing site along with its statement touting its attack against the security firm. Read More…