Small and big firms working online have to be prepared for ‘unprecedented levels of attempted fraud’ this month, say payments experts. Payments business Worldpay claims instances of fraud could rocket by as much as 80 per cent in February as hackers capitalise on customer data harvested during the Christmas shopping period.

But it should be mentioned that small firms are the biggest target for hackers. Virtually all breaches happen online, the rest being at point of sale. The costs of being targeted can run to tens of thousands of pounds, with an investigation costing £11,250 on average and attracting a penalty of at least £8,000. There is also the cost of lost goods and damage to reputation.

The British army is going to create Facebook warriors, good at psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age. The brigade will be responsible for what is described as non-lethal warfare. Both the Israeli and the army of the USA already engage heavily in psychological operations.

The force will attempt to control the narrative. The army will include reservists and regulars. Soldiers with journalism skills and familiarity with social media are among those being sought. The move is partly a result of experience in counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan.

Former head of Secret Intelligence Service uses first speech since leaving to say there cannot be 'no-go areas' on internet as he warns of 'all but inevitable' attack on UK. The British security services will not be able to prevent terrorism unless they monitor the internet traffic of innocent people, the former head of MI6 has said.

He said the revelations the former CIA contractor had captured the public's attention because they had not been properly informed about the security services' online surveillance capabilities. Snowden, who revealed top secret details about online monitoring, had "thrown a massive rock in the pool", but he admitted that the move had led to a public debate.

If reelected, British Prime Minister David Cameron would consider banning messaging apps, if they don't make their data available to intelligence agencies.

He cited the recent Paris terror attacks in his remarks which were aimed at messaging apps that encrypt messages to secure users' communications. These apps provide "safe spaces" for terrorists to communicate and make their users' data inaccessible to intelligence agencies and government officials. Cameron reassured citizens that obtaining such information with permission from the apps would still require a warrant. 

Some 16 British nuclear power plants are acutely vulnerable to drone attacks, a confidential report conducted by a leading nuclear expert reveals.

Carried out by British nuclear specialist John Large, the report tracked the movements of tiny unmanned vehicles as they flew over French nuclear power plants and installations. Grave concerns, which arose in the course of the project, are equally relevant to Britain’s 16 operational reactors that are estimated to generate in the region of 18 percent of the state’s electricity, Large said. While giving evidence to the French parliament, he argued plausible drone attacks on standard nuclear power stations.

Evaluating online cybersecurity awareness of 2,011 consumers from the USA and United Kingdom, a new survey by One Poll and Dimensional Research revealed that a lot of respondents believe using a third party payer such as PayPal or Google Wallet is the safest way to pay for goods online.

With so many retail breaches this year, it is not surprising that people are now more comfortable shopping online. However, consumers still need to be wary of where they are storing their data. Third party payment providers make the online shopping experience easier, but they can and will be targeted just the same as the retailers themselves.

Seventy-six percent of organizations in the USA and United Kingdom have suffered a DNS attack, according to Cloudmark. Three hundred IT decision makers were polled across the USA and UK and, of those who reported suffering a DNS attack, more than half admitted to losing business critical data or revenue.

An astounding third of respondents also confirmed they had lost confidential customer information. The survey findings suggest that large organisations are not only inadequately protecting company intellectual property against DNS attacks but more needs to be done to help educate businesses on the methods used by DNS attackers. 

Hacking of computers at Belgian telecoms firm Belgacom, alleged to have been carried out by a British spy agency, was more far-reaching than previously thought and went undetected for more than two years.

News of the intrusion into Belgacom's networks first broke late last year when Belgium asked Britain, its NATO and European Union partner, to respond to allegations that its intelligence service was responsible. It said the malicious software found on Belgacom's systems was one of the most advanced spy tools ever identified by security researchers. Belgacom, Belgium's dominant telecoms provider, was seen as a top target by the British spy agency.

Internet-connected households in the United Kingdom are at risk of getting attacked through their wireless router. Unsecured routers create an easy entry point for hackers to attack millions of home networks in the UK.

The vast majority of home routers aren’t secure. If a router is not properly secured, cybercriminals can easily gain access to an individual’s personal information, including financial information, user names and passwords, photos, and browsing history. One of the biggest risks on any Wi-Fi network is DNS hijacking. Malware is used to exploit vulnerabilities in a user’s unprotected router and surreptitiously redirects the user from a known site.

UK cyber security professionals have identified Russia and China as the countries that produce the most skilled hackers, according to a survey carried out by information security consultancy. A lot of people believed that the hackers with the highest skills come from Russia.

Almost a third of respondents surveyed at a recent IT conference linked the success of their overseas counterparts to a combination of more investment, better education and political motivations. Russia has long been recognised for being behind various malware strains and exploits. Recently, it was reported that Russian hackers had exploited a bug in Microsoft Windows dubbed Sandworm to perform cyber espionage on NATO.