SecurityWeek

LOUISVILLE, KY — A computer programmer from central Kentucky who once did contract work for Toyota has been charged with hacking into and damaging computers used by the automobile maker.

RSA's latest services offering includes incident response and breach readiness assessment to help organizations prepare for, respond to, and mitigate cyber-threats.

According to research from security firm AlienVault, there appears to be a connection between the "PlugX" gang out of China and the latest Internet Explorer vulnerability. The connection comes from a payload being delivered by sites using the vulnerability to target systems, which has the same attack process used by the PlugX gang.

Google has always had a sharp nose for rising Internet trends. Just recently, the search giant announced that it had acquired VirusTotal, an anti-malware start-up company to beef up protection for its Internet services.

TOKYO - At least 19 Japanese websites, including those of a government ministry, courts and a hospital, have come under cyberattack, apparently from China, police said Wednesday. Many of the websites were altered to show messages proclaiming Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyu islands, a Japanese-administered chain Tokyo calls Senkaku, the National Police Agency (NPA) said in a statement.

Researchers at FireEye recently detected two new Grum command servers, as the botnet’s owners attempted to remain under the radar as they rebuilt it. The rebirth was short-lived, as the C&Cs (hosted in Turukey) were taken offline within hours.

TAIPEI - (AFP) - Nearly 1,000 civil servants in Taiwan must take classes in cyber security after falling for a trap set up by their employer to test Internet safety, an official said on Wednesday. The government of New Taipei City, near capital Taipei, sent out an email last month which claimed to contain a steamy sex video in order to check how carefully its 6,000 staff were protecting their computers against hacking and virus attacks, she said.

Much of the talk about cybercrime remains focused on East Asia. But according to Trend Micro, it is hackers in Eastern Europe that have actually emerged as more sophisticated.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine media groups said Tuesday a new law targeting cybercrime could also be used to curb press freedom.

Two women have been given probation and hit with a minor fine for their role in a credit card skimming scam. The two worked at a steakhouse in Alton, Illinois where the scheme gained traction, but were given the lighter sentences for their passive roles. The mastermind behind the operation, a “romantic partner” to one of the women, was sentenced to 57 months in prison last summer.

In August, word spread that after the Senate rejected the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 the Obama administration was considering an executive order that would deal with some of the provisions in the failed bill. Last week, a draft of such an order was leaked to the Web.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — An Ohio man will plead guilty to sending anonymous YouTube threats in which he claimed to have hacked into the University of Pittsburgh's computer system on the heels of a series of unrelated disruptive bomb threats, his attorney told The Associated Press. Brett Hudson will admit he's guilty "and he's going to get on with his life," defense attorney Warner Mariani said.

Cigital announced the release of the fourth version of the Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) study, gathering data from 51 security initiatives at corporations around the world.

On Monday, Google announced that IMAP/SMTP and XMPP would be getting a security boost in the form of OAuth 2.0. The transition comes as the company depreciates older standards (OAuth 1.0a) on the GMail and Google Talk services. Ryan Troll, a member of Google’s Application Security Team, said in a blog post that the changes are part of a long term plan to support additional mechanisms to protect user information.

HONG KONG - Chinese telecom giant Huawei is perplexed at its treatment in the West, with the United States fearful it is a Trojan horse for cyber warfare even as Europe eagerly courts its business. The contrast was stark last week when the private company's elusive founder and chief executive officer, Ren Zhengfei, appeared alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron at the signing of a $2 billion investment deal in London.