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British police have arrested two men in the UK conspiring to hack into the computer networks of US tech giant Microsoft with plans to steal customers' data from the software giant. The suspects — 22-year-old from Sleaford and a 25-year-old from Bracknell — were arrested by the detectives from the Britain's South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) Thursday morning (22 June 2017). The UK authorities arrested them from their home in Lincolnshire and Bracknell and seized a number of devices after searching their home. While it is still unclear what systems were targeted, SEROCU believes the suspects are part of a larger international group that involved breaking into the Microsoft's network between January 2017 and March 2017 to scoop up the customer information. "This group is spread around the world and therefore the investigation is being coordinated with our various partners," Rob Bryant, detective sergeant SEROCU's Cyber Crime Unit said while

Prime Minister Theresa May wants tech companies, like Facebook, Apple, and Google, to create controversial 'backdoors' for police, but even somewhere she knows that it's not that easy as it sounds. The Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has released a draft proposal [ PDF ] for new laws on privacy and electronic communications, recommending end-to-end (E2E) encryption on all communications and forbidding backdoors that offer access to law enforcement. "The protection of confidentiality of communications is also an essential condition for the respect of other related fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the protection of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of expression and information," the draft reads. Draft Says, Your Security is Our Top Priority According to the draft, EU citizens need more protection, not less and they need to know that the "confidentiality and safety" of their

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

Do you use OneLogin password manager ? If yes, then immediately change all your account passwords right now. OneLogin, the cloud-based password management and identity management software company, has admitted that the company has suffered a data breach. The company announced on Thursday that it had "detected unauthorised access" in its United States data region. Although the company did not provide many details about the nature of the cyber attack, the statement released by the firm suggest that the data breach is extensive. What Happened? OneLogin, which aims at offering a service that "secures connections across all users, all devices, and every application," has not yet revealed potential weaknesses in its service that may have exposed its users' data in the first place. "Today We detected unauthorised access to OneLogin data in our US data region," OneLogin chief information security officer Alvaro Hoyos said in a brief blog post-Wednes

The alleged Russian hacker, who was arrested by the Czech police in Prague last October on suspicion of massive 2012 data breach at LinkedIn, can be extradited to either the United States or Russia, a Czech court ruled on Tuesday. Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin , a 29-years-old Russian national, is accused of allegedly hacking not just LinkedIn , but also the online cloud storage platform Dropbox , and now-defunct social-networking company Formspring. However, he has repeatedly denied all accusations. Nikulin was arrested in Prague on October 5 by the Czech police after Interpol issued an international arrest warrant against him. Nikulin appeared at a court hearing held inside a high-security prison in Prague on Tuesday and emaciated after eight months in solitary confinement. The court ruling, pending appeals, left the final decision in the hands of Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikan, who can approve extradition to one of the countries and block the other. The United

We came across so many revelations of sensitive government and corporate data on the Internet these days, but what's the accuracy of that information leaked by unknown actors? Security researchers have discovered new evidence of one such sophisticated global espionage and disinformation campaign with suspected ties to the Russian government that's been aimed to discredit enemies of the state. Although there is no definitive proof of Russian government's involvement in the campaign, there is "overlap" with previously reported cyber espionage activities tied to a Russia-backed hacking group well known as APT28 . APT28 — also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm — is the same group which was responsible for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) breach. The group has been operating since at least 2007 and has alleged tied to the Russian government. A new report, titled Tainted Leaks , published this week by the Citizen Lab at the Univers

If you ever ordered food from Zomato, You should be Worried! India's largest online restaurant guide Zomato confirmed today that the company has suffered a data breach and that accounts details of millions of its users have been stolen from its database. In a blog post published today, the company said about 17 Million of its 120 Million user accounts from its database were stolen. What type of information? The stolen account information includes user email addresses as well as hashed passwords. Zomato claims that since the passwords are encrypted, it cannot be decrypted by the attackers, so the "sanctity of your password is intact." It seems Zomato is downplaying the threat or unaware of the fact that these days hackers are using cloud computing, which enables them to decrypt even a 15-18 character passwords within a few hours. So there's no guarantee your passwords will not eventually get cracked. Update: As shown in the above screenshot taken

While we all were busy in the WannaCry ransomware menace, two separate data breaches have been reported, one in DocuSign, a major provider of electronic signature technology, and another in BELL , Canada's largest telecommunications company. In a notice on its website on Tuesday, DocuSign confirmed a breach at one of its email systems when investigating the cause of an increase in DocuSign-impersonating phishing emails. "A malicious third party had gained temporary access to a separate, non-core system that allows us to communicate service-related announcements to users via email," DocuSign said in the announcement. What Happened? An unknown hacker or group of hackers managed to breach one of the electronic signature technology provider's email systems and steal a database containing the email addresses of DocuSign customers. The attackers then used the stolen data to conduct an extensive phishing campaign to target the DocuSign's users over the past w

While we all were busy in the WannaCry ransomware menace, two separate data breaches have been reported, one in DocuSign , a major provider of electronic signature technology, and another in BELL, Canada's largest telecommunications company. Canadian mobile phone, TV, and internet service provider Bell on Monday confirmed that the company had been hit by an unknown hacker who has managed to access its customer information illegally. In a brief statement released by Bell Canada, the company said an unknown hacker managed to have his hands on data of millions of Bell customers. However, the company did not mention the compromised customer details stolen in the hack were pulled from which particular service. The company said email addresses, names and telephone numbers of its customers had been accessed in the breach. How many victims Affected? Bell confirmed the hack and said the unknown hacker has managed to gain access to information on nearly 2 million customers. &qu

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is notifying its customers that credit card numbers and other sensitive information may have been stolen after it found malware on payment card systems at 1,174 franchise hotels in the United States. It's the second data breach that U.K.-based IHG, which owns Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, has disclosed this year. The multinational hotel conglomerate confirmed a credit card breach in February which affected 12 of its hotels and restaurants. What happened? IHG identified malware accessing payment data from cards used at front desk systems between September 29 and December 29, 2016, but the malware was erased after the investigation got completed in March 2017. "Many IHG-branded locations are independently owned and operated franchises and certain of these franchisee operated locations in the Americas were made aware by payment card networks of patterns of unauthorized charges occurring on payment cards after they were legitimately us

In the digital world, it just takes one click to get the keys to the kingdom. Do you know spear-phishing was the only secret weapon behind the biggest data breach in the history? It's true, as one of the Yahoo employees fell victim to a simple phishing attack and clicked one wrong link that let the hackers gain a foothold in the company's internal networks. You may be familiar with phishing attacks — an attempt to steal user credentials or financial data — while, Spear-phishing is a targeted form of phishing in which attackers trick employees or vendors into providing remote-access credentials or opening a malicious attachment containing an exploit or payload. Here's how the Yahoo's massive data breach was traced back to human error and who were the alleged masterminds behind this hack. On Wednesday, the US government charged two Russian spies (Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin) and two criminal hackers (Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov) in connection with the 20

The 2014 Yahoo hack disclosed late last year that compromised over 500 million Yahoo user accounts was believed to be carried out by a state-sponsored hacking group. Now, two Russian intelligence officers and two criminal hackers have been charged by the US government in connection with the 2014 Yahoo hack that compromised about 500 million Yahoo user accounts, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday. According to the prosecutors, at least 30 million accounts were accessed as part of a spam campaign to access the email contents of thousands of people, including journalists, government officials, and technology company employees. The four defendants — Two officers from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and two other hackers — are identified as: Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev, 33 — an officer in the FSB Center for Information Security at the time of the hack, and now Russian national and resident. Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, 43 — an FSB officer, a superior

A database of 1.4 billion email addresses combined with real names, IP addresses, and often physical address has been exposed in what appears to be one the largest data breach of this year. What's worrisome? There are high chances that you, or at least someone you know, is affected by this latest data breach. Security researcher Chris Vickery of MacKeeper and Steve Ragan of CSOOnline discovered an unsecured and publicly exposed repository of network-available backup files linked to a notorious spamming organization called River City Media (RCM), led by notorious spammers Matt Ferrisi and Alvin Slocombe. Spammer's Entire Operation Exposed The database contains sensitive information about the company's operations, including nearly 1.4 Billion user records, which was left completely exposed to anyone – even without any username or password. According to MacKeeper security researcher Vickery, RCM, which claims to be a legitimate marketing firm, is responsible for s

Has Yahoo rebuilt your trust again? If yes, then you need to think once again, as the company is warning its users of another hack. Last year, Yahoo admitted two of the largest data breaches on record. One of which that took place in 2013 disclosed personal details associated with more than 1 Billion Yahoo user accounts . Well, it's happened yet again. Yahoo sent out another round of notifications to its users on Wednesday, warning that their accounts may have been compromised as recently as last year after an ongoing investigation turned up evidence that hackers used forged cookies to log accounts without passwords. The company quietly revealed the data breach in security update in December 2016, but the news was largely overlooked, as the statement from Yahoo provided information on a separate data breach that occurred in August 2013 involving more than 1 billion accounts. The warning message sent Wednesday to some Yahoo users read: "Based on the ongoing i

Do you own an account on one of the two hugely popular PlayStation and Xbox gaming forums? Your details may have been exposed, as it has been revealed that the two popular video gaming forums, "XBOX360 ISO" and "PSP ISO," has been hacked, exposing email addresses, account passwords and IP addresses of 2.5 Million gamers globally. The attackers hacked and breached both "XBOX360 ISO" and "PSP ISO" forums in September 2015, but the details of this massive hack just emerge, reports The Sun . Mostly gamers who look for free versions of popular games are members of these two gaming forums, which provide download links for gaming ISO files – digital copies of online video games lifted from physical game disks – to the owners of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation Portable. Visiting such forum websites and downloading games through the provided links often involve an illegal breach of copyright. So, if you are one of those ga

The biggest mistake companies make with data security is leaving all their secrets unprotected at one place, which if attacked, they are all gone in one shot. An unnamed law enforcement agency has reportedly accessed billions of compromised usernames, email IDs, and their passwords, collected by LeakedSource, a popular breach notification service. LeakedSource, launched in late 2015, that exposed some of the largest data breaches in 2016, including LinkedIn , DailyMotion , Rambler.ru , Last.fm , VK.com , Weebly, and Foursquare , might be facing a permanent shut down after law enforcement officers allegedly raided its operator. The LeakedSource website that allowed visitors to look up for their account details that had been collected from multiple data breaches has suddenly disappeared, and its associated social media accounts have been suspended. The data breach aggregation service had always been criticized for its unethical policy of allowing anyone to look up hacked acco

Recently Yahoo disclosed a three-year-old massive data breach in its company that exposed personal details associated with more than 1 Billion user accounts , which is said to be the largest data breach of any company ever. The new development in Yahoo!'s 2013 data breach is that the hacker sold its over Billion-user database on the Dark Web last August for $300,000, according to Andrew Komarov, Chief Intelligence Officer (CIO) at security firm InfoArmor. Komarov told the New York Times that three different buyers, including two "prominent spammers" and the third, is believed to be involved in espionage tactics paid $300,000 to gain control of the entire database. The hacker group that breached Yahoo and sold the database is believed to based in Eastern Europe, but the company still does not know if this information is accurate or not. Beside full names, passwords, date of births and phone numbers of 1 Million Yahoo users, the database also includes backup em

Ashley Madison, an American most prominent dating website that helps married people cheat on their spouses has been hacked, has agreed to pay a hefty fine of $1.6 Million for failing to protect account information of 36 Million users , after a massive data breach last year. Yes, the parent company of Ashley Madison , Ruby Corp. will pay $1.6 Million to settle charges from both Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 13 states alleging that it misled its consumers about its privacy practices and did not do enough to protect their information. Not only the company failed to protect the account information of its 36 Million users, but also it failed to delete account information after regretful users paid a $20 fee for "Full Delete" of their accounts. Moreover, the Ashley Madison site operators were accused of creating fake accounts of "female" users in an effort to attract new members. Avid Life Media denied the claim at the time, but a year later when the com

In what believe to be the largest data breach in history, Yahoo is reporting a massive data breach that disclosed personal details associated with more than 1 Billion user accounts in August 2013. …And it's separate from the one disclosed by Yahoo! in September, in which hackers compromised as many as 500 Million user accounts in late 2014. What's troubling is that the company has not been able to discovered how "an unauthorized third party" were able to steal the data associated with more than one Billion users. The data breach officially disclosed on Wednesday actually occurred in 2013 and, just like the one in 2014, allowed the cyber crooks to obtain personal information of its users but not credit card details. Here's what Yahoo's chief information security officer Bob Lord says the hackers obtained: "The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using

Another day, another data breach. This time a popular video sharing platform DailyMotion has allegedly been hacked and tens of millions of users information have been stolen. Breach notification service LeakedSource announced the data breach on Monday after the company obtained 85.2 Million records from Dailymotion. According to LeakedSource, the DailyMotion data breach appears to have taken place on October 20, 2016, which means it is possible that hackers have been circulating the data for over a month. The stolen data consists of 85.2 Million unique email addresses and usernames and around 20 percent of the accounts (more than 18 Million users) had hashed passwords tied to them. The passwords were protected using the Bcrypt hashing algorithm with ten rounds of rekeying, making it difficult for hackers to obtain user's actual password. Bcrypt is a cryptographic algorithm that makes the hashing process so slow that it would literally take centuries to actual brute-