Affluent individuals who live ‘the good life’ are 43 percent more likely to be victims of cybercrime, a study reports.

Password cracking of iPhone backups has become a point-and-click exercise thanks to software unveiled Thursday by a computer forensics tools provider.

“As soon as the application is loaded, this malicious software starts to send premium text messages,” CA warned on Tuesday. “The messages sent out are in the typical format to invoke premium services and land the mobile user with heavy mobile bills without the user’s knowledge and consent.”

The US flaw-hunting specialist said that the attack was an attempt to steal source code on an industrial scale and was, in many cases, probably successful. If correct, this might explain why Google has by its own normally quite restrained standards gone ballistic to the extent of threatening to quit China.

Hackers have stolen the login credentials for more than 8,300 customers of small New York bank after breaching its security and accessing a server that hosted its online banking system.

Many internet users are at risk of having their personal details stolen and thousands of pounds plundered from their online bank accounts as internet fraudsters increasingly target unsecured wireless networks, security experts warn.

A judge has chastised a lawyer for including the social security numbers and birthdays of 179 individuals in an electronic court brief, ordering him to pay a $5,000 sanction and provide credit monitoring.

Journalists and private investigators who illegally obtain and trade in personal information will face jail sentences under planned changes to the Data Protection Act.
Ministers want to replace the current maximum sentence of an unlimited fine next April with a spell of up to two years inside.

Peruvian hackers have reacted to the country’s dramatic defeat to Argentina on Saturday by defacing the site of Argentinian manager Diego Maradona and dubbing him a cry-baby.

Thousands of Hotmail passwords have been hacked and posted online.

Microsoft, which owns the popular web-based e-mail system, said that it was aware of the claims and that it was “investigating the situation”

“The basic premise of our business is to replicate the kind of IT protection you get in the military or big corporations, and provide a service to the high-profile, high-network individuals who are more at target from attacks but don’t have an IT department to protect them,” explains Vigilante co-founder Oliver Crofton. “So, if I’m a celebrity, I’m an entity in my own right, I may be worth millions of pounds.”

The US Federal Reserve Board chairman has become the latest high-profile public figure to fall victim to identity theft.

Ben Bernanke, whose day job leaves him in charge of the US money supply, became the victim of fraud after a pick pocket stole his wife’s handbag from a Starbucks shop in Washington’s Eastern Market. Credit cards, cheque books, cash and a driver’s license were taken as a result.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Actress Jessica Biel has overtaken Brad Pitt as the most dangerous celebrity to search in cyberspace, according to internet security company McAfee Inc.

For the third consecutive year, McAfee surveyed which A-list celebrity was the riskiest to track on the internet after Pitt topped the list last year and Paris Hilton in 2007.

A mass compromise that has hit tens of thousands of English-language webpages is probably part of a much larger wave of attacks that’s been under way since June by a sophisticated band of criminals, a security researcher said Wednesday.

High-profile websites including Google, Facebook and Twitter have been targeted by hackers in what is described as a “massively co-ordinated attack”. Reports suggest the strike may have been aimed at a single user, pro-Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu.

A series of attempted fraudulent claims through the self-assessment repayments system has been discovered.

No figures have been released outlining the extent of the fraud, but a HMRC spokesman said this was a new method of trying to extract money.

He urged people to ensure passwords sent to them by HMRC were kept secure.

The watchdog’s annual report says spending on mobiles, the internet and TV is regarded as a higher priority than almost anything except food.

In a poll of 862 people, over 40% said they would save on holidays and eating out and 19% chose spending on mobiles.

Ofcom’s Peter Phillips said people were “more canny” about paying for services.

Attackers on the official Kadima website posted images of wounded Palestinians and the aftermath of suicide bombings in Israel.

Slogans in both Hebrew and Arabic were also placed on the site, including threats to party leader Tzipi Livni.

The website was back online early Thursday morning.

Melissa Hathaway told the paper she was leaving for “personal reasons” and would return to the private sector.

The former strategist was appointed as acting national cyber-adviser in February and was expected to be offered the post of full time.

President Barack Obama has said that cyber-security is a high priority for his administration.

David Cameron was forced to defend his director of communications, Andy Coulson, this morning following calls for his resignation in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking affair.

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Al Qaida is intent on using the internet to launch a cyber-warfare campaign against the UK, ministers revealed today.

Kate Moss is alleged to have destroyed several new Kills songs after a blazing row with her rocker boyfriend Jamie Hince.

The supermodel threw an all mighty strop while on holiday with the Kills guitarist at her countryside mansion and ended up hurling Hince’s bag into a swimming pool.

Britons face a growing online threat from criminals, terrorists and hostile states, according to the UK’s first cyber security strategy.

The Pentagon has commissioned military contractors to develop a highly classified replica of the Internet of the future.

Have you ever wondered whether that unfamiliar face in the office is actually an intruder about to steal your data? Probably not, but maybe it is time to think again.

The Olympic Games in London could suffer a severe “cyber attack” unless urgent action is taken, according to former home secretary David Blunkett

A BRITISH agent has thrown the war against drug traffickers into chaos by leaving top secret information about covert operations on a bus in South America.

The worm hacks into Twitter profiles and automatically sends unauthorized Twitter status updates to contacts from the hacked accounts. Users who look at infected profiles are then automatically infected, and unauthorized posts are automatically sent to their contacts.

The website of junior transport minister Paul Clarke was hacked over the weekend by apparently motiveless mischief-makers.

Defacers scrawled digital graffiti on labourisworking.com, which is run by the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Transport.

The FBI are investigating the online leak of an almost finished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a month before the film’s cinema release.

Actor is latest celebrity victim of online impostors, with nearly 20,000 subscribers signing up to phoney feed of his every move.

Internet browser security took a beating during Day 1 of an annual hacking competition, with Apple’s Safari, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox all being felled in a matter of hours.

Software allowing fraudsters to track what you type led to the level of online banking fraud more than doubling in 2008, according to a banking body.

An unpatched flaw in Adobe Acrobat and Reader might be exploited without even needing to trick a surfer into opening a maliciously constructed file.

Software used to control thousands of home computers has been acquired online by the BBC as part of an investigation into global cyber crime.

Taking a look at the top hacking stories from the last few months.

An annual hacker competition planned for next month has setting its sights on Apple’s iPhone and four other smart phones in a contest that will pay cash prizes of $10,000 to anyone who can break in to the mobile devices.

Griff Rhys Jones, narrowly escaped death by leaping from their blazing motor cruiser into shark-infested seas. The comedian lost his laptop containing his nearly-completed new book on rivers, linked to his new television series.

Mr Straw, who as Home Secretary once launched a National Hi-Tech Crime Unit to crack down on computer hackers, has himself become the victim of Nigerian internet fraudsters.

What are the security implications of the next generation of mobile devices?

Kanye West says someone has taken control of his Twitter. Not to mention his Gmail and MySpace accounts.

The alleged photos are of William and Kate swimming intimately, cuddling, and making out. According to a London newspaper The Sun, two men, John and George contacted them in an attempt to sell the photos.

Following the hack, screenshots of Mrs Palin’s messages, inbox, pictures and address book were posted to the Wikileaks whistle-blowing site. It is thought the attackers exploited the password resetting system of Yahoo’s e-mail service.