Hackers have exposed the personal information of 110 million Americans - roughly half of the nation's adults - in the last 12 months alone.
That massive number, tallied for CNNMoney by Ponemon Institute researchers, is made even more mind-boggling by the amount of hacked accounts: up to 432 million.
The exact number of exposed accounts is hard to pin down, because some companies -- such as AOL and eBay - aren't fully transparent about the details of their cyber breaches.
Read moreSeveral users of Apple devices in Australia have reported that their gadgets have been "hijacked" - with a message demanding money. Experts believed the hack had targeted users by exploiting the Find my iPhone feature.
A message appeared on some targeted phones asking for "$100 USD/EUR" to be sent to a PayPal account. Networks advised affected users to contact Apple, which denied its cloud storage service had been breached. "Apple takes security very seriously and iCloud was not compromised during this incident. Impacted users should change their Apple ID password as soon as possible and avoid using the same user name and password for multiple services," the firm said.
Read moreThe indictment of five Chinese military hackers by a grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania illustrates the increasing importance of cyberspace in the great power relationship between the United States and China.
It also shows that four years of talking about cyber-espionage, including at the presidential level, have lead to nowhere. All five of the alleged offenders are purported to be members of the secretive Unit 61398 of the People's Liberation Army in Shanghai. They are accused of computer hacking, economic espionage and other offenses targeting the U.S. private sector. According to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder: “This is a case alleging economic espionage by members of the Chinese military and represents the first ever charges against a state actor for this type of hacking.”
Read moreOnline auction site eBay has advised its clients to change their passwords after a cyber-attack allowed hackers to gain access to one of its databases. Information stolen included personal details of “a large number of accounts.”
The California-based company has been asking its users “to change their passwords because of a cyber-attack that compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data,” according to a statement released on the company website. “For the time being, we cannot comment on the specific number of accounts impacted. However, we believe there may be a large number of accounts involved and we are asking all eBay users to change their passwords,” spokeswoman Kari Ramirez told.
Read moreiOS users in Russia began to face attacks by hackers who steal passwords to block smartphones and tablets and extort money for their unlock. To prevent this, you need to make your passwords long and complex, and not to impose them on suspicious sites, "Kaspersky Lab" recommends.
The exact number of hacked phones is unknown. The representatives of Apple declined to comment.
The attackers use the fact that in the new version of iOS 7 has become possible to block stolen smartphone that cannot be removed with help of a reset or flashing devices. If you want to use this feature, you must know the user‘s name (Apple ID, also known as e-mail address) and password.
Dutch group of hackers named doulCi can activate blocked by means of Activation Lock function iPhones, using false iCloud servers.
Team DoulCi published a workaround that requires users to plug a bricked device into their computer and alter the "hosts" file inside. The iPhone or iPad is then tricked into connecting to the hacked server, which unlocks the gadget. Then the device is enough to be connected to iTunes and to dump Activation Lock regularly. DoulCi system works only partially: in attempt to unblock iPhone by their method, GSM module remains disconnected because hackers have no corresponding activation keys, however they promise to correct a problem shortly. The user gets access only to device operating system and Wi-Fi.
Read moreA critical vulnerability has been uncovered in Google that could allow an attacker to access the internal files of Google’s production servers.
Sounds ridiculous but has been proven by the security researchers from Detectify.
The team of researchers found a loophole after they noticed that Google Toolbar Button Gallery allows users to customize their toolbars with new buttons. So, for the developers, it is easy to create their own buttons by uploading XML files containing metadata for styling and other such properties. This feature of Google search engine is vulnerable to XML External Entity.
Read moreGoogle security experts suggest that hacker attacks on the world largest media companies are most likely “sponsored” by state.
Google security engineers, speaking at the annual Black Hat hackers conference in Singapore, reported that 21 of the top 25 news organisations in the world have been attacked by hackers. Shane Huntley and Morgan Marquis-Boire suggested that those hackers are likely sponsored by foreign governments seeking information.
Researches said that many journalists and media companies are becoming more aware of cyber threats while the tech industry is falling behind managing online secure requirements. Apparently state-sponsored hacker attacks became governments' regular practice.
Read moreSyrian Electronic Army (SEA) hackers have reportedly obtained documents that reveal how much money the FBI pays Microsoft each time agents try to obtain or view an individual customer’s communication information. The SEA, a group that has made headlines in the past for infiltrating Western media outlets that it perceives to be against Syrian President Bashar Assad, provided a trove of emails and invoices to the Daily Dot, which analyzed the documents before publishing them.
“The documents consist of what appear to be invoices and emails between Microsoft’s Global Criminal compliance team and the FBI’s Digital Intercept Technology Unit (DITU), and purport to show exactly how much money Microsoft charges DITU, in terms of compliance costs, when DITU provides warrants and court orders for customers’ data,” wrote the Daily Dot’s Kevin Collier and Fran Berman.
Read moreSecret organizations in the network hackers staged provocation in the interests of the American and British intelligence services.
Hired specialists under the supervision of the alliance Five Eyes distributed network false information to mislead and control the parties to the communication on the Internet. This was reported in the documents from the files of Edward Snowden. Special undercover units to track messages on the Internet, introduced in the discussion forums, social networking corresponded and threw false information to guide the users' opinions in a certain way.
Read moreAxarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland