#OBAMA Plans New Agency to Fight #Cyberattacks

The Obama administration is establishing a new agency to combat the deepening threat from cyberattacks, and its mission will be to fuse intelligence from around the government when a crisis occurs. The agency is modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center, which was launched in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks amid criticism that the government failed to share intelligence that could have unraveled the al-Qaeda plot.

·         Read the article: The Washington Post

Hackers Attack Newsweek’s Twitter Account

Newsweek magazine’s Twitter account was the victim of hackers who posted a threat to U.S. President Barack Obama and his family and the words “CyberCaliphate” and “Je suis IS,” a reference to Islamic State and the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. It also posted a message intended for the United States in retaliation for its actions in the Muslim world.

·         Read the article: Reuters

Hackers Reprogrammed Widget on Forbes Website

Users of Microsoft’s flagship Internet browser who visited Forbes.com on the four days following Thanksgiving were open to be hacked, two cybersecurity firms said. The companies, iSight Partners and Invincea, said hackers who appear to be linked to China had reprogrammed Forbes’ “Thought of the Day” widget to send malicious computer code to readers’ computers.

·         Read the article: The Wall Street Journal

Twitter Accused of Breaking Law in Russia

A Russian agency that regulates media said the micro-blogging site Twitter had refused 108 requests for account information and was “consistently not satisfying the requirements of the Russian law”, the state-run news agency TASS reported. Alexander Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, was also quoted as saying Twitter had refused its requests to block some accounts.

·         Read the article: Reuters

IBM Files Patent Suit Against Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable

IBM is suing Priceline Group Inc. and its subsidiaries, travel website Kayak and restaurant-reservation tool Opentable, after failing to reach a patent-licensing agreement. International Business Machines Corp. said the Priceline companies aren’t paying royalties to use two patents issued in the late 1990s that were the result of development of the Prodigy online service, one of the earliest means for the public to access the Internet.