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A personality trait puts you at risk for cybercrime
Impulse online shopping, downloading music and compulsive email use are all signs of a certain personality trait that make you a target for malware attacks. New research examines the behaviors – both obvious and subtle – that lead someone to fall victim to cybercrime involving Trojans, viruses and malware.
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Publicizing a firm's security levels may strengthen security over time
Cyberattacks grow in prominence each and every day; in fact, 2017 was the worst year to-date for data breaches, the number of cyber incidents targeting businesses nearly doubling from 2016 to 2017. Now, new research has quantified the security levels of more than 1,200 Pan-Asian companies in order to determine whether increased awareness of one’s security levels leads to improved defense levels against cybercrime.
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Cyber insurance market to double by 2020: Munich Re
Cyber risks are one of the biggest threats to the digital and networked economy. The most important thing for companies is to ensure they have the best possible technical prevention. Munich Re says it is developing insurance products and services that offer policyholders the greatest possible protection.
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Bitcoin more vulnerable to attack than expected
Calculations by researchers show that Bitcoin is more vulnerable to attack than people had always assumed. If some Bitcoin users were to form a group that controls 20 percent of the currency’s computing power, they could launch an attack and, within a few days, force all other users to accept a new standard for Bitcoin.
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How cybercriminal spend their illicit gains
A new study, drawing on first hand interviews with convicted cybercriminals, data from international law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, and covert observations conducted across the Dark Web, reveals the socio-economic and spending differences among cybercriminals. Annual earning level of successful cybercriminals push them into some of the higher income brackets.
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“Jackpotting” drains millions from U.S. ATMs
ATM machines across the country are being targeted by a wave of criminals in search of an illegal high-tech payday. The Secret Service calls this phenomenon “jackpotting,” and are warning U.S. bank attacks are imminent. It is a modern-day version of a bank robbery, but no weapons are used — only malware, a small device or two and a special key that can be purchased on the Internet. When cyberattackers take control of the machine, cash spews out of the ATM like a Las Vegas jackpot. ASU professor helps combat cyberattacks though intelligence-gathering.
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Downtime of a top cloud service provider could cost U.S. economy $15 billion
Businesses in the United States could lose $15 billion if a leading cloud service provider would experience a downtime of at least three days. A new study finds that if a top cloud provider went down, manufacturing would see direct economic losses of $8.6 billion; wholesale and retail trade sectors would see economic losses of $3.6 billion; information sectors would see economic losses of $847 million; finance and insurance sectors would see economic losses of $447 million; and transportation and warehousing sectors would see economic losses of $439 million.
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Cybercrime to cost global business more than $8 trillion in the next five years
A new report by Juniper Research has found that criminal data breaches will cost businesses a total of $8 trillion over the next five years, due to higher levels of internet connectivity and inadequate enterprise wide security. The new research forecasts that the number of personal data records stolen by cybercriminals will reach 2.8 billion in 2017, almost doubling to five billion in 2020, despite new and innovative cybersecurity solutions emerging.
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Dissect Cyber notifies small businesses targeted by cybercriminals
Cybercriminals are an insidious lot, constantly launching new schemes to steal money from individuals and companies. In the United States, millions of people and small businesses fall victim to internet crimes each year. Most small businesses do not have ready access to timely cybersecurity notifications of possible threats.
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Protecting web users’ privacy
Most website visits these days entail a database query — to look up airline flights, for example, or to find the fastest driving route between two addresses. But online database queries can reveal a surprising amount of information about the people making them. And some travel sites have been known to jack up the prices on flights whose routes are drawing an unusually high volume of queries. MIT researchers next week will present a new encryption system that disguises users’ database queries so that they reveal no private information.
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Israeli police arrest teen over wave of bomb threats against Jewish targets in U.S.
The Israeli police, acting on a request by the FBI, has arrested a 19-year-old Israeli Jewish man on suspicion of making dozens of threats against Jewish organizations in the United States, and against airlines in the United States and other countries. The unnamed teen, who has a dual Israeli and U.S. citizenship, lives in the southern sea-side city of Ashkelon. The arrest was made after several waves of threats in the past two months against Jewish community centers (JCCs) and other Jewish organizations. The teen used advanced technology in an effort to mask the source of his calls and communications to synagogues, community centers, and public venues.
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U.K. industry warned that cybercriminals are imitating nation state attacks
The annual assessment — the most detailed of its kind to date — of the biggest cyberthreats to U.K. businesses has been published the other day, emphasizing the need for increased collaboration among industry, government, and law enforcement in the face of a growing and fast-changing threat. The report discusses the trend of criminals imitating the way suspected nation state actors attack organizations such as financial institutions, and the risk posed by the ever-increasing number of connected devices, many of which are not always made secure by manufacturers or users.
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Cyber incidents’ cost not large compared with other business losses
The cost of a typical cyber breach to an American company is much less than generally estimated, providing one possible explanation for why companies do not invest more to improve computer security, according to a new study. Researchers found that the typical cost of a breach was about $200,000 and that most cyber events cost companies less than 0.4 percent of their annual revenues. The $200,000 cost was roughly equivalent to a typical company’s annual information security budget. Given that finding, the study’s author says that businesses “lack a strong incentive to increase their investment in data security and privacy protection.”
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The past, present, and future of ransomware
The rise of ransomware over the past year is an ever growing problem. Business often believe that paying the ransom is the most cost effective way of getting their data back — and this may also be the reality. The problem we face is that every single business that pays to recover their files, is directly funding the development of the next generation of ransomware. As a result of this we are seeing ransomware evolve at an alarming rate.
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Cybersecurity company licenses ORNL’s Data Diode
Data Diode, developed by ORNL’s researchers, uses a defense-in-depth computer network strategy to create an environment in which an organization’s approved users can work freely inside an enclave of protected data but restricts file transfers outside the network. Lock Data Solutions has licensed a technology from ORNL. The technology is designed to protect a company’s data from internal and external threats.
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