The Sunday Times produced what at first sight looked like a startling news story: Russia and China had gained access to the cache of top-secret documents leaked by former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Not only that, but as a result, Britain’s overseas intelligence agency, the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, had been forced “to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries”. These are serious allegations and, as such, the government has an obligation to respond openly. The story is based on sources including “senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services”.

The Obama administration is scrambling to assess the impact of a massive data breach involving the agency that handles security clearances and US government employee records, with suspicion quickly falling on China, which has been accused of carrying out cyber-espionage against the US in the past.

Government officials familiar with the situation told the hack occurred at the Office of Personnel Management and the Interior Department, and could potentially affect four million people at every federal agency. The OPM is the human resources department for the federal government and does checks for security clearances. 

A popular coding website of the USA is enduring an onslaught of Internet traffic meant for China’s most popular search engine, and security experts say the episode likely represents an attempt by China to shut down anticensorship tools.

The attack on a service world-wide software development used by programmers and major tech firms appears to underscore how China’s Internet censors increasingly reach outside the country to clamp down on content they find objectionable. Security experts said the traffic onslaught directed huge amounts of traffic from overseas users of Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. to GitHub.

A high-level Chinese military organization has for the first time formally acknowledged that the country’s military and its intelligence community have specialized units and hackers for waging war on computer networks.

China’s hacking exploits, particularly those aimed at stealing trade secrets from U.S. companies, have been well known for years, and a source of constant tension between Washington and Beijing. But Chinese officials have routinely dismissed allegations that they spy on American corporations or have the ability to damage critical infrastructure, such as electrical power grids and gas pipelines, via cyber attacks. Now it appears that China has dropped the charade.

Are you tired of punching in numbers or swiping strange patterns to unlock your smartphone? Some of the new phones are sporting fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, but a new device from ZTE uses a very different biometric security measure to lock its screen.

EyeVerify’s technology uses an ordinary front-facing camera — its only requirement is that it takes photos at least one megapixel large. EyeVerify authenticates users by looking at vein patterns formed by blood vessels. One major question is what EyeVerify does better than fingerprint scanners, which have become the de facto biometric security measure for smartphones.

It’s easy for most Internet users to stay anonymous online and the Chinese government wants to change that. China will require all users of social media, websites, online forums, and other Web entities that require login to register with their real name using government-verified ID.

This bold move by the Chinese government represents an expansion of existing Internet restrictions placed on citizens. China is notorious for online censorship with its Great Firewall and has already required ID verification for some social networks. This new measure is designed to limit supposedly “harmful” rumours spread by pseudonymous accounts and provide network security.

Lenovo, the largest PC manufacturer in world, has been accused of fatally compromising user security by installing an adware application on all its Windows computers as they leave the factory.

The software purports to offer users a “visual search” experience. In actual fact, it injects third-party advertisements into Google search results and websites, without asking the user. In order to place adverts on websites served to the user over an encrypted connection, as Google does by default, Lenovo owners report that Superfish software also breaks social security used by every computer to access the internet privately.

Chinese hackers attacked Forbes.com and used the site as part of an attack on the US defense and financial industry, according to cybersecurity researchers at iSIGHT Partners and Invincea.

For three days late last year, the news site's “Thought of the Day” widget, which appears when readers visit the site, was compromised — seamlessly redirecting visitors from certain organizations to another site where their computers could be infected with malware without their knowledge. Researches have linked similar malware controlled by the same server used in the Forbes attack to breaches of Web sites frequented by domestic Chinese dissident groups.

China mounted a cyberattack on users of Microsoft's Outlook email service, with the apparent goal of spying on their communications. People within China using email clients to connect to their Outlook, Hotmail or Live accounts were subjected to a "man-in-the-middle" attack in which the attacker tried to hijack what's normally a secure, encrypted connection.

The activist group believes this is the latest attempt by China to intercept and spy on communications that it can't easily monitor. Some users reported the attack when they saw error messages using email clients connecting to Outlook's servers via IMAP and SMTP, protocols used to send and receive emails.

The police department of the Chinese city of Wenzhou in southeast China has spent thousands of dollars on a software that installs Trojan horse viruses into mobile phones, allowing police officers to spy on other people's activities on their phones.

Investigative reporter first made the report when he posted on his Sina Weibo page a screenshot of a list of devices that were purchased by the Wenzhou police force and posted on the website of the Wenzhou Economic Technology Department Zone in Zheijiang province. The list includes a lot of Trojan horse viruses for mobile phones and a device that injects the virus into illegally unlocked iOS and Android phones.