Advisen reports that half of all fraud in Britain, which currently costs the country £70 billion a year, is conducted online. Many of the victims are wealthy retired people conned into fraudulent schemes, losing £25k on average. In addition, there is a lot of evidence that alQaeda are using the proceeds of online crime to fund their attacks.

As the police force faces more budget cuts, many of the 800 specialist internet crime officer jobs may be lost. Leppard said that he worried that as online crime and fraud increases, Britain’s capacity to tackle the problem will be even more diminished.

See the full story on Advisen Front Page News

Julie Conroy, senior analyst and fraud expert at Boston-based Aite Group said that cyberattacks are quickly becoming one of the greatest risks faced by smaller merchants. Although The Works is said to have had ample security in place and does not store payment data, it thinks hackers may have infected its computers with malicious software that steals card details when the card is swiped through a terminal reader.

The number of cards that were exposed during the breach is yet to be determined. The company has asked anyone who used a card in its shops between mid-January and February 1st to monitor their accounts and report any potential compromise to their banks.

See the full story on Advisen Front Page News

The attacks on the major US newspaper started with the hacking of David Barboza’s account, the paper’s bureau chief in Shanghai who wrote the report, along with the account of one of his predecessors. The hackers went on to retrieve the password of every New York Times employee and gain access to any computer in the paper’s network along with 53 personal computers, most of which were outside the Times offices.

Once discovered, the paper hired internet security firm Mandiant to trace the attack. The firm believes the initial breach may have been through a spear-phishing attack, where an employee clicked on an email or link containing malicious code. It also found that the tactics the hackers used were consistent with other attacks it had traced to China.

Although the accusations have been dismissed as “groundless” by China’s foreign ministry, several governments, companies and organisations have accused the Chinese of systematic cyber espionage for years.

See the full story on BBC.co.uk

The BBC reports that three different types of forces will be created under the growth plan. These include the protection of the defense department’s internal systems, the protection of computer systems that involve electrical grids and other critical infrastructure, and offensive operations overseas.

The decision comes after Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary, warned that a cyber attack on the United States could inflict as much damage as 9/11 did. He also explained that smaller scale cyber-attacks were now commonplace.

See the full story on BBC.co.uk

The Sheaf reports that the drive contains information on students who took out loans between 2000 and 2006. With the exception of Quebec, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, students from all provinces and territories in Canada were affected.

The breach is being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Although there is no reason to believe that the data has been misused, those whose records are missing have been put on high alert.

See the full story on TheSheaf.com

The attack is yet another example of hacking being used for ideological purposes rather than financial ones. Indeed, there is a definite trend towards attacks being undertaken on ideological, political and religious grounds and these will no doubt spell out the next wave in cybercrime, affecting businesses and governments alike.

Companies like the FDJ and any other business that operates a website should also be looking at their security practices and insurance policies. Although in this case the damage was relatively minimal, losing data and denial of service attacks can cost companies millions and many insurance policies do not make it clear whether ideologically motivated hack attacks fall under a policy’s terrorism exclusion or not. Ensuring clarity on this point, especially as these types of attacks become more common, is a must.

See the full story on BBC.co.uk
CFC carves out hack attacks from its terrorism exclusion, making it clear that ideologically motivated hack attacks are covered. Click here to learn more about our cyber policy.

Although the attack was described as the work of an “international hacker,” few details are being released about the attacker’s identity whilst the investigation is under way. Forbes reports that it is scandalous, yet unsurprising, that cyber security was not mentioned more during the presidential debates and says that someday, probably not too long from now, cyber security will be as important as health insurance and Social Security.

South Carolina will provide affected individuals, which is almost anyone who has filed a South Carolina tax return since 1998, with a year of free Experian credit monitoring and identity theft protection. The cost will be enormous but drives home an important point. Not only should individuals and businesses be looking at ways to protect themselves against cyber threats, but both the federal and state governments need to start addressing this growing, and very expensive, issue.

See the full story on Forbes.com

According to the The Financial Times, comprehensive personal data of some users was compromised during the attack, although neither SSP or Google has said how much data was lost. SSP has temporarily suspended its service on all the aggregator sites with which it works as a precaution but has said that the breach in question was limited to its interface with Google.

The UK motor insurance market earned £13.3bn in premiums last year alone and it is estimated that by 2014 over half of UK personal motor insurance policies will be purchased through price comparison websites.

See the full story on FT.com

Barnes & Noble learned of the attack in mid-September but are only now starting to notify affected customers. This is following advice it was given by the US government who wanted to give the FBI time to investigate who was behind the attacks. Part of this investigation effort involved turning off all 7,000 keypads in the company’s several hundred stores and sending them to an examination site. They found that only one terminal in each of the 63 stores had been hacked but have still not reinstalled the devices.

How exactly the network was penetrated is still to be determined. A company insider could have set up the attack or a malware might have been installed by an employee unwittingly clicking on a malicious link. Whatever the case, the breach will cost Barnes & Noble and incredible amount of time and a considerable amount of money. As Tom Kellermann, a vice president at Trend Micro, points out on Advisen, “Attacks on point-of-sale systems are growing exponentially.”

See the full story on Advisen Front Page News

Take this recent case, for example. An Illinois medical practice, The Surgeons of Lake County, suffered a security breach when hackers burrowed into the company’s computer network where it stored its email correspondence and medical records. The hackers stole and encrypted the data and then asked for payment in return for access to the information. Although the practice is successful and situated in an affluent area, it’s a long way off being considered a high profile entity.

This attack is symbolic of a trend of increasingly diverse and numerous hack attacks. Bloomberg warns that companies that deal in any way with sensitive data on their computer systems need to ensure they have adequate cyber insurance, even small businesses that think they could never be attacked. But healthcare providers are at even greater risk due to the breadth and nature of the data they collect and store and the fact that easily accessing this data is crucial for day-to-day operations.

The Surgeons of Lake County refused to pay the ransom. It is not known whether they have found another way to access the data or if they had any backups.

See the full story on Bloomberg.com