Number of #Cybersquatting Cases Rises Almost 60% in India #GigaLaw

While U.S. heads the list of countries with the largest number of cybersquatting cases at 847, India notched a total of 59 domain name complainant cases in 2015, registering a growth of nearly 60%. Domestic companies including Bharti AirtelBSE, Voltas, Tata Sons, Wipro, Aircel and Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation are among those who filed cybersquatting complaints in 2015.

Read the article: India Times

FCC Studying Security Bugs on Mobile Carriers’ Technology

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it is studying mobile carriers’ use of decades-old communications technology with known security bugs after “60 Minutes” reported it could be remotely exploited to spy on callers. The CBS news program “60 Minutes” on Sunday showed German computer scientist Karsten Nohl remotely spy on a mobile phone used by U.S. Representative Ted Lieu.

Read the article: Reuters

U.S. Not Looking to Alter Data Transfer Pact with Europe

The United States does not want to change the substance of a data transfer pact agreed in February with the European Commission, a senior official said, after EU privacy watchdogs voiced concerns over elements of the deal. Stefan Selig, U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade, said the United States would evaluate the EU regulators’ opinion very carefully, but would be wary of reopening the agreement.

Read the article: Reuters

China Removes Videos of Rising Online Beauty Star

A revived push by China to cleanse cyberspace swept up a quickly rising Internet celebrity, highlighting efforts to temper the explosive popularity of online stars. Papi Jiang, a 29-year-old graduate student in drama, surged to Chinese Internet fame with her lightning-fast, squeaky-voiced monologues riffing on relationships, beauty and other concerns of China’s urban young women.

Old #Cybersquatting Tactic is New Again #SocialMedia #Law

: A Case Study from the Banking Industry

In the early days of domain name disputes (that is, the mid-1990s), cybersquatters targeted trademark owners by registering exact trademarks in the .com top-level domain (TLD) — often, because a trademark owner had not yet heard (or appreciated the potential) of the Internet. Now, the arrival of hundreds of new TLDs is making the old form of cybersquatting new again. For example, Comerica Bank, which uses the <comerica.com> domain name (created September 1995) recently filed a UDRP complaint for the domain name <comerica.mortgage>.

Read this blog post

GigaLaw Daily News

WhatsApp Completes Universal End-to-End Encryption

It’s a security project that’s taken around a year and a half to complete, but messaging giant WhatsApp has now fully implemented strong end-to-end encryption on its platform and across all mobile platforms for which it offers apps. This means users of the latest versions of the messaging app will have their comms and media end-to-end encrypted by default.

Read the article: TechCrunch

Chinese Hackers Blamed for Heist from Bangladesh Bank

Chinese hackers were possibly behind one of the world’s biggest cyber heists, the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank, a senator in the Philippines said, while a Manila bank manager involved in the case said she was a pawn of senior bankers and unnamed tycoons. Unidentified hackers stole the money from the Bangladesh Bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in early February and funneled it through a Manila branch of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) to casinos and gambling agents in the Philippines.

Read the article: Reuters

Underground Market for Hackers Growing, Security Firm Says

Intelligence analysts found that business is booming in underground markets for Russian and other hackers, according to a new report released by security firm Dell SecureWorks Inc. Malware, which includes viruses and other software intended to disrupt computer users, is becoming “much cheaper and continues to offer a low barrier to entry for cybercriminals looking to steal information,” wrote the analysts, who scoured dozens of sites on the dark web over the past eight months.

Read the article: The Wall Street Journal

White House Plans to Retaliate Against China for Hacking !

The Obama administration has determined that it must retaliate against China for the theft of the personal information of more than 20 million Americans from the databases of the Office of Personnel Management, but it is still struggling to decide what it can do without prompting an escalating cyberconflict. The decision came after the administration concluded that the hacking attack was so vast in scope and ambition that the usual practices for dealing with traditional espionage cases did not apply.

Read the article: The New York Times

FCC Considers Regulating Online Video Services

Streaming video services by Apple, Amazon and Google have thrived off the idea that they are alternatives to cable TV. Now, the Federal Communications Commission is considering if it should begin to regulate online video services, like they do cable companies. And that’s causing anxiety in Silicon Valley.

Read the article: The Washington Post

Japanese Police Arrest Head of Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox

Japanese police arrested Mark Karpelès, the head of collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, alleging that he manipulated the company’s computer system to increase the balance in an account. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox was once the world’s largest exchange platform for the virtual currency by trading volume. In February 2014, it filed for bankruptcy, saying it had lost 750,000 of its customers’ bitcoins as well as 100,000 of its own, worth some $500 million at the time.

Read the article: The Wall Street Journal

Advertisers Say ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Violates 1st Amendment

U.S. Regulators would be violating the First Amendment if they were to force Google and other search engines to delist certain irrelevant search results at a user’s request, a major advertising trade group said. The Association of National Advertisers sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission urging it to “forcefully reject” a complaint from Consumer Watchdog, which requested that Google be required to allow Americans to have the “right to be forgotten.”

China-Tied Hackers That Hit U.S. Said to Breach United Airlines @Bloombert

by Michael RileyJordan Robertson

July 29, 2015 — 4:00 AM CDT

United, the world’s second-largest airline, detected an incursion into its computer systems in May or early June, said several people familiar with the probe.

 

Photographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg

The hackers who stole data on tens of millions of U.S. insurance holders and government employees in recent months breached another big target at around the same time -- United Airlines.

United, the world’s second-largest airline, detected an incursion into its computer systems in May or early June, said several people familiar with the probe. According to three of these people, investigators working with the carrier have linked the attack to a group of China-backed hackers they say are behind several other large heists -- including the theft of security-clearance records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and medical data from health insurer Anthem Inc.

The previously unreported United breach raises the possibility that the hackers now have data on the movements of millions of Americans, adding airlines to a growing list of strategic U.S. industries and institutions that have been compromised. Among the cache of data stolen from United are manifests -- which include information on flights’ passengers, origins and destinations -- according to one person familiar with the carrier’s investigation.

http://goo.gl/D3Xm4r

Please RT - THANKS!

#Cybersecurity DISASTER !!!

tory by Craig Timberg 

Video by Jorge Ribas

Published on June 22, 2015

The seven young men sitting before some of Capitol Hill’s most powerful lawmakers weren’t graduate students or junior analysts from some think tank. No, Space Rogue, Kingpin, Mudge and the others were hackers who had come from the mysterious environs of cyberspace to deliver a terrifying warning to the world.

The making of a vulnerable Internet: This story is the third of a multi-part project on the Internet’s inherent vulnerabilities and why they may never be fixed.

Part 1: The story of how the Internet became so vulnerable
Part 2: The long life of a ‘quick fix’

Your computers, they told the panel of senators in May 1998, are not safe — not the software, not the hardware, not the networks that link them together. The companies that build these things don’t care, the hackers continued, and they have no reason to care because failure costs them nothing. And the federal government has neither the skill nor the will to do anything about it.

Above: L0pht hackers Brian Oblivion, Tan, Kingpin, Mudge, Weld Pond, Space Rogue and Stefan von Neumann testify before a Senate panel in 1998. (Douglas Graham/Congressional Quarterly via Getty Images)

“If you’re looking for computer security, then the Internet is not the place to be,” said Mudge, then 27 and looking like a biblical prophet with long brown hair flowing past his shoulders. The Internet itself, he added, could be taken down “by any of the seven individuals seated before you” with 30 minutes of well-choreographed keystrokes.

The senators — a bipartisan group including John Glenn, Joseph I. Lieberman and Fred D. Thompson — nodded gravely, making clear that they understood the gravity of the situation. “We’re going to have to do something about it,” Thompson said.

What happened instead was a tragedy of missed opportunity, and 17 years later the world is still paying the price in rampant insecurity.

The testimony from L0pht, as the hacker group called itself, was among the most audacious of a rising chorus of warnings delivered in the 1990s as the Internet was exploding in popularity, well on its way to becoming a potent global force for communication, commerce and criminality.

http://goo.gl/2GECND

Please RT - THANKS!

#FBI Investigating St. Louis Cardinals for Hacking Rivals

FBI Investigating St. Louis Cardinals for Hacking Rivals

The FBI and Justice Department prosecutors are investigating whether front-office officials for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the most successful teams in baseball over the past two decades, hacked into internal networks of a rival team to steal closely guarded information about player personnel. Investigators have uncovered evidence that Cardinals officials broke into a network of the Houston Astros that housed special databases the team had built, according to law enforcement officials.

Read the article: The New York Times

Russia Moves Toward ‘Right-to-be-Forgotten’ Law

Russian parliament gave initial approval to a law that would require Internet search sites to remove outdated or irrelevant personal information from search results on request from users. The bill, passed by the State Duma lower house in its first reading, seeks to emulate European Union rules on the “right to be forgotten”, under which search engines must take down certain results that appear under a search of a person’s name.

Read the article: Reuters

Official Says U.S. Personnel Office Lacked IT Training

An Office of Personnel Management investigative official said the agency entrusted with millions of personnel records has a history of failing to meet basic computer network security requirements. Michael Esser, assistant inspector general for audit, said in testimony prepared for delivery that for years many of the people running the agency’s information technology had no IT background.

Read the article: Silicon Valley

Supreme Court Rejects Motorola Mobility Antitrust Case

The Supreme Court declined to review a pair of antitrust cases involving an international price-fixing cartel, despite the urging of some legal experts, economists and the National Association of Manufacturers. In one of the cases, a judge concluded that Motorola Mobility, a corporate victim of a price-fixing scheme, could not sue because America’s antitrust laws did not apply to Motorola’s overseas subsidiaries, even though 42 percent of the phones they assembled were shipped to the United States.

Healthcare-Related #Cyber Attacks Cost $6 Billion !

A rise in cyber attacks against doctors and hospitals is costing the U.S. health-care system $6 billion a year as organized criminals who once targeted retailers and financial firms increasingly go after medical records, security researchers say. Criminal attacks against health-care providers have more than doubled in the past five years, with the average data breach costing a hospital $2.1 million, according to a study from the Ponemon Institute, a security research and consulting firm. Read the article: Bloomberg   Judge Lets Facebook Sue Law Firms in Forged Document Case Facebook Inc. may pursue a lawsuit against law firms that represented a New York man who recently turned fugitive rather than face federal charges that he tried to defraud founder Mark Zuckerberg out of half of the company, a judge ruled. New York Supreme Court Justice Eileen Rakower said Facebook and Zuckerberg could move forward with a lawsuit alleging law firms, including DLA Piper LLP and Milberg LLP, maliciously prosecuted claims by Paul Ceglia that were based on forged documents. Read the article: Reuters   White House Picks Princeton Professor as Deputy U.S. CTO The White House is adding one of the tech policy world’s most valuable players to it’s roster: Princeton Professor Ed Felten. The White House announced that Felten will join the Office of Science and Technology Policy as deputy U.S. chief technology officer. In his decades long career, Felten has carved out a role as one of the world’s top thinkers on computer security and privacy — tackling technically difficult topics and translating them for Washington insiders. Read the article: The Washington Post

 

#FBI Arrests Two Men for #Hacking Photobucket Accounts !

The FBI arrested two men who allegedly broke into Photobucket user accounts and sold off access to password-protected accounts using software named with a profane twist to the Photobucket moniker. Brandon Bourret, 39, from Colorado Springs, and Athanasios Andrianakis, 26, from Sunnyvale, Calif., are accused of creating a software application that that circumvented security settings to get access to user names, passwords and protected albums.

• Read the article: The Denver Post

 

Support Grows to Make Retaliation Hacking Legal

Legislation under consideration in Congress would give private entities the right to defend themselves in cyberspace using computer-hacking tactics to enter the information systems of cyberattackers or would-be attackers. In light of the growing number of banks, retailers, online businesses and other companies that have reported substantial losses from thefts of data and intellectual property in attacks by cybercriminals, there is support for such a measure.

• Read the article: The Wall Street Journal

 

Efforts to Fight Online Espionage Called Unsuccessful

The Obama administration’s two-year-old strategy to aggressively fight foreign online espionage has done little to curb the theft of companies’ trade secrets. “There hasn’t been any change,” said James A. Lewis, a digital security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

• Read the article: The New York Times

 

Yahoo Sues Former Employee for Book Leaks

Yahoo is going after a former employee the company claims was spilling its secrets. The lawsuit alleges that Cecile Lal, who was chief of staff to a vice president at Yahoo, leaked information about the company to journalist Nicholas Carlson for his book “Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!”

• Read the article: CNET News

 

Australian Tax Probe Targets U.S. Tech Companies

The Australian government announced a world-leading crackdown on alleged tax avoidance by 30 multinational companies in a move that could force the likes of Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp to restructure their businesses to escape huge penalties. Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. revealed earlier this year they were under review by the Australian Tax Office.

• Read the article: Reuters

 

#FBI Warns Law Enforcement on Hacker Attacks

S

AP

     

BY: Bill Gertz  

April 23, 2015 5:00 am

The FBI sent a warning to law enforcement and other public officials on Tuesday to be on guard for cyber attacks from hackers.

“Law enforcement personnel and public officials may be at an increased risk of cyber attacks,” the FBI notice says. “These attacks can be precipitated by someone scanning networks or opening infected emails containing malicious attachments or links.”

The hacking threat alert comes as police departments in several parts of the country are facing criticism and protests for mistreating or killing crime suspects.

In the most recent incident, a black man, Freddie Gray, died in the custody of the Baltimore police. The case has triggered demonstrations.

According to the notice, unspecified hacker groups have exploited open source and other publicly available information that identifies law enforcement personnel.

“Those targeted include law enforcement officers, their employers and their families,” the notice says.

“With this in mind, officers and public officials should be aware of their online presence and exposure,” the warning said. “For example, posting images wearing uniforms displaying name tags or listing their police department on social media sites can increase an officer’s risk of being targeted or attacked.”

Although not listed in the notice, the hacker group in question appears to be the Anonymous hacker collective, which is said by security analysts to have sophisticated cyber attack capabilities.

A Twitter feed associated with the group stated Wednesday, “Police officers of America we are watching you. Everyone is watching you. We suggest you stop murdering people in your custody.”

Anonymous conducted cyber attacks against police in Oakland, Calif., in December to protest a grand jury decision not to charge white police officers in the deaths of black suspects in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City.

http://goo.gl/43ZCOk

Please RT - THANKS!

Comments?

#FBI Warns Airlines to Watch For In-Flight #Hackers ! @NewsMax

Wednesday, 22 Apr 2015 12:26 PM

By Jason Devaney

A week after a man posted a message on Twitter suggesting he could access a plane's computer systems through its Wi-Fi network, the FBI has warned airlines to watch out for hackers.

Security expert Chris Roberts boarded a United Airlines flight in Denver on April 15 and tweeted that he could gain access to the plane's network and deploy the oxygen masks.
The FBI got word of the tweet and removed Roberts from the plane when it landed hours later in Syracuse, New York. Roberts' electronic equipment, including a laptop, iPad and several flash drives, were seized. He was questioned for four hours before being allowed to leave.

Special: Dr. Ron Paul: Here’s How The U.S. Dollar Will Collapse

Roberts is now banned from all United Airlines flights.

Wired is reporting the FBI has warned airlines to keep their eyes peeled for hackers trying to gain access to planes' in-flight networks via Wi-Fi. In theory, a hacker could potentially access flight controls from his or her seat in the cabin.

According to Wired, the FBI directed flight crews to:

• Report any suspicious activity involving travelers connecting unknown cables or wires to the IFE system or unusual parts of the airplane seat.
• Report any evidence of suspicious behavior following a flight, such as IFE systems that show evidence of tampering or the forced removal of covers to network connection ports.
• Report any evidence of suspicious behavior concerning aviation wireless signals, including social media messages with threatening references to Onboard Network Systems, ADS-B, ACARS, and Air Traffic Control networks.
• Review network logs from aircraft to ensure any suspicious activity, such as network scanning or intrusion attempts, is captured for further analysis.

Roberts said he did not gain access to the United flight's network through the plane's Wi-Fi, but that his tweet was intended to warn airlines of the vulnerability.

http://goo.gl/Fgx7Q5

Please RT - THANKS!

Comments?

#Obama Approves Order for Cyberactivity Sanctions ! @GigaLaw

President Obama signed an executive order establishing the first sanctions program to allow the administration to impose penalties on individuals overseas who engage in destructive attacks or commercial espionage in cyberspace. In the works for two years, the order declares “significant malicious cyber-enabled activities” a “national emergency” and enables the treasury secretary to target foreign individuals and entities that take part in the illicit cyberactivity for sanctions that could include freezing their financial assets and barring commercial transactions with them.

·         Read the article: The Washington Post

Uber Files Complaints Over Bans in Spain, Germany

Uber has filed complaints with Brussels against Spain and Germany over their bans on the mobile phone taxi-hailing service, ramping up the U.S. company’s battle against legal challenges across Europe. The European Commission confirmed it had received a complaint against a German ban on Uber offering its unlicensed services.

·         Read the article: Reuters

Singapore Creates Cyber Security Agency

The latest sign of growing global concerns over cybersecurity: Singapore has established a new ministry to combat bad guys lurking in the Internet’s shadows. The wealthy city-state opened the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, or CSA, a new body that will focus on national cybersecurity strategies.

·         Read the article: The Wall Street Journal

#SCOTUS to Decide Whether Online Threats Are #Illegal ! @JDSupra

#JD Supra Thought Leaders in #Cybersecurity

#Iran behind cyber-attack on Adelson’s Sands Corp.

MARCH 1, 2015 11:43 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Adelson is “a leading U.S. supporter of Israel and of Republican political candidates.”

Since Obama is relentlessly courting Iran and making concession after concession to the mullahs, this is unlikely to be taken in the highest circles in Washington as a belligerent act. After all, they hate Adelson, too.

“Iran Behind Cyber-Attack on Adelson’s Sands Corp., Clapper Says,” by Anthony Capaccio, David Lerman, and Chris Strohm, Bloomberg, February 26, 2015 (thanks to Marc):

(Bloomberg) — The top U.S. intelligence official confirmed for the first time that Iran was behind a cyber attack against the Las Vegas Sands Corp. last year.

Identifying Iran as the perpetrator came more than a year after the Feb. 10, 2014, attack against the world’s largest gambling company, which crippled many of the computer systems that help run the $14 billion operation. Sands’ chairman and chief executive officer and top shareholder is billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a leading U.S. supporter of Israel and of Republican political candidates.

http://jihadwatch.org/

Please RT 

BIGGEST #CYBERTHEFT IN HISTORY HITS BANKS ! @WND

Arsenal of attack tools unleashed, scoring up to $1 billion

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/11/cybersecurity.jpg

In what’s being called the biggest bank heist in history, hackers have  stolen $300 million – and possibly as much as $1 billion – from banks around the world since 2013.

The majority of the targets were in Russia, but many were in Japan, the U.S. and Europe.

More than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations have been affected, making it one of the largest bank thefts ever and one conducted without the usual signs of robbery.

Kaspersky Lab, Interpol, Europol and authorities from different countries joined forces to uncover the plot, which is being called an “unprecedented cyber robbery.” The cybercriminals come from Russia, Ukraine, China and Europe.

Kaspersky researchers described a Hollywood-style scheme in which attackers used an arsenal of attack tools and techniques to siphon massive amounts of money directly from banks rather than targeting end-user banking customers.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/biggest-cyber-theft-in-history-hits-banks/#vrpYezxwLoUAYb6D.99