cyber attack

South Korean police reported Thursday that over 30 North Korean hackers were recruited to work in China by a South Korean criminal ring. The hackers stole personal data of South Korean gamers and transferred $5 million to North Korea.

Seoul blamed North Korea for distributing malicious software to paralyze web sites of government agencies and businesses as well as orchestrating a cyber attack on a South Korean bank this year that brought down its network.

More than $250,000 is offered by Microsoft to programmers who can develop new security defense for Windows OS family to protect users against attacks that exploit the software bugs.

Microsoft's Blue Hat Prize announced on Wednesday at the Black Hat security conference will pay $200,000 for the best “novel runtime mitigation technology designed to prevent the exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.” The two runners up will receive $50,000 and a MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000, respectively.

A new study from Vanity Fair revealed that most Americans believe the US government should initiate cyber attacks if there is a need.

56% of the 1,045 U.S. adults polled in the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair survey think cyber attacks are a necessary warfare tactic, with 27 percent against the idea and 17 percent saying they simply don't know.

In the course of a mass iFrame injection attack, nearly 100,000 web pages for e-commerce sites on the open source OS Commerce platform were compromised with malware, reports security firm Armorize.

As estimated the attacks appear to come from Ukraine and they aim to infect the websites with malware to further attack visitors to these e-commerce websites, says Wayne Huang, chief technology officer at Armorize.

Hackers could damage US power generation plants, water treatment facilities, and other critical infrastructure with clones of the Stuxnet computer worm, warn officials at the US Department of Homeland Security.

When the Stuxnet hurt Iran's nuclear-enrichment operations, it was widely believed that it was Israel and US behind the attack.

14 members of Anonymous hacker group were arrested Tuesday by the US authorities on charges they participated in several major cyber attacks on PayPal as vengeance for declining to process donations for WikiLeaks.

Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested 14 people in 9 states and Washington D.C. for attacking PayPal last December. The attack is widely believed to have been orchestrated by Anonymous.

A top defense official noted this week that a foreign intelligence service stole about 24,000 files from a US defense contractor, which is a dramatic illustration of the threat facing the Pentagon as it makes every effort to tighten computer security.

William Lynn, a Deputy Defense Secretary, said that theft as he unveiled a new Pentagon cybersecurity strategy that designates cyberspace as an "operational domain" like sea, air and land where U.S. forces will practice, train and prepare to defend against attacks.

As a result of a compromise of a FoxNews.com Twitter account on Monday by hackers people were reported that US President Barack Obama died. Six false tweets were sent from the media source account informing that Obama had been shot dead, prompting an investigation by the Secret Service.

"Hackers sent out several malicious and false tweets that President Obama had been assassinated," Foxnews.com said in a statement about the latest in a wave of high-profile cyber security breaches around the world.

Apple suffered a cyber attack on its servers resulting in the data breach. Hackers attacked the Cupertino company in the frame of their “Antisecurity” program. The attack is attributed to the hackers of Anonymous and retired LulzSec groups.

A new unknown group AntiSec alleges it has discovered a number of flaws on the website of Apple exploiting which leads to get access to the database of user names and passwords of the iPhone, iPad and iTunes users.

A senior Chinese official said this week that there is no cyber warfare between the United States and China as the friction has been going on for weeks over accusations that China may have initiated massive cyber attacks.

While both suffering from cyber crime Chinese and American governments in no way direct these actions, Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai told a small group of foreign reporters ahead of a meeting with U.S. officials in Hawaii this weekend.

A 19-year old man was arrested by British police on suspicion that the was linked to the cyber group Lulz Security behind cyber attacks on CIA and Sony Corp. London's Metropolitan Police, working with the U.S. FBI, said they arrested the teenager in the town of Wickford, close to London.

The investigation was launched and the raid was arranged in relation to recent attacks on the websites of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the British police Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which targets organized crime in Britain and overseas, police said.

On Wednesday Australian government announced the legislation to prosecute cybercrime in view of a recent storm of attacks on multinational companies and institutions including governmental websites across the globe.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said that cybercrime was a growing threat to individuals, businesses and governments with the country's giant resource industry having warned recently of near-daily hacking attempts from offshore.

Another attack hit the website of the Spanish police having successfully blocked the access to it for over an hour, as reported by the newspaper El Mundo. The attack is believed to be organized by the hackers’ group Anonymous.

The group warned the police earlier that it planned to disable the website at some time Saturday. The website was down for at least an hour from 2130 GMT.

Three suspected members of the group were arrested by the Spanish police on charges of cyber attacks against targets including the websites of Sony Corp, governments, businesses and banks.

Mary Schapiro, Chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission, said that she will seriously consider to issue additional guidance on how public companies should disclose cyber security problems.

"Although we are not aware that investors have asked for more disclosure in this area, I have asked the commission staff to provide me with a briefing on current disclosure practices," Schapiro said in a letter to Senator John Rockefeller dated June 6 and released publicly on Wednesday.