SecurityWeek

The developers of Simplocker, a piece of ransomware that locks Android smartphones and encrypts files on their external storage, have improved the malware to make it more difficult to recover files without paying the ransom.

BlackBerry has appointed David Kleidermacher as its new chief security officer, the smartphone maker announced on Tuesday.

A study conducted by HP shows that a majority of popular Internet-connected home security systems can be easily accessed by malicious parties due to their lack of proper protection mechanisms.

We’ve likely all heard the phrase “complexity is the enemy of security” many times. It’s an oft-used sound bite, but what can we learn from this concept to improve our respective security postures? Although there are many angles one could approach this concept from, I’d like to examine it from a security operations and incident response perspective.

Since the days of Friendster and GeoCities, fraud has thrived on social media. Social media is the fraudsters’ playground—an unregulated, highly visible, easily exploitable platform that connects with billions of people and serves a host of purposes in a hacker’s repertoire. Many fraudulent accounts are mere satire or innocuous trolling, but others are created with far more devious intentions.

One of the security bulletins released by Microsoft on Tuesday fixes a privilege escalation vulnerability which, according to researchers, can be exploited by malicious actors to bypass all the security measures in Windows by modifying a single bit.

Washington - The FBI is investigating the hijacking of Newsweek's Twitter feed Tuesday by pro-Islamic hackers in which a threat was made to President Barack Obama's family, the White House said. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that "this particular intrusion is one that is already being investigated by the FBI," without elaborating.

San Francisco - US cyber security firms on Tuesday said that a Chinese espionage team hacked Forbes magazine to hunt defense contractors, financial firms, and other unsuspecting prey visiting the popular news website.

Obama Administration to Create New Cyber Security Agency to Improve Threat Intelligence Sharing The U.S. government is establishing a new federal agency tasked with correlating threat intelligence information and providing analysis of cyber-security risks.

Microsoft issued nine security bulletins today for this month's Patch Tuesday.

In recent months, cybercriminals have started relying on DNS poisoning to target Brazilian Boletos, RSA reported on Monday.Boleto is a popular payment method that allows people in Brazil to purchase services and products by using vouchers instead of credit cards. Boletos can be paid online, at ATMs, banks, post offices, and even in some supermarkets.

The price of gas may have recently dropped well below the highs consumers have seen in recent years, but the cost of leaving an Internet-connected gas pump exposed can still be high.

Researchers at Cisco have come across a campaign in which malicious actors sent out bogus Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) emails in an effort to trick corporate users into installing a piece of malware.

In an effort to contribute to making authentication more secure, a researcher has decided to publish 10 million username/password combinations that he has collected over the years from the Web.

Wandera, a startup that helps protect mobile data from external threats and optimize data usage, today announced that it has raised $15 million in additional funding led by 83North, with participation from existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners. This additional cash brings Wandera's total funding to $23 million.

Symantec has been ordered by a federal court in Delaware to pay $17 million in damages to Intellectual Ventures for violating two patents owned by the company.

When presented with a glass that is filled halfway, an optimist will say it is half full. The pessimist will say the glass is half empty. The engineer will say the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Enterprise technology giant HP announced on Monday afternoon that it has agreed to acquire data security solutions provider Voltage Security for an undisclosed sum.

Advantech - a maker of industrial PCs, embedded single board computers and automation controllers and software – has patched a critical vulnerability in its EKI-1200 series Modbus gateways that can be used by hackers to execute code.

Government requests for Twitter user data worldwide nearly doubled between 2013 and 2014, according to the company's latest transparency report.