Category: Cybercrime

As EU privacy regulators maintain their focus on search engines, Internet giant Google pushed for harmonisation of EU and global rules on data protection during the first meeting of a new European Commission expert group designed to review current legislation.The main piece of EU legislation governing data protection at present is a directive adopted in 1995, when the Internet was in its infancy and many of today’s new technologies did not exist.Despite the adoption of a new directive in 2002, aimed exclusively at controlling privacy in electronic media, the EU data protection regulatory landscape looks outdated and requires renewed examination.
http://euractiv.com/en/infosociety/google-aims-set-eu-data-protection-agenda/article-177793

The internet: Attacks launched over the internet on Estonia and Georgia highlight the difficulty of defining and dealing with “cyberwar”

Computer hackers are targeting the 120 million users of the social networking site Facebook with the ‘Koobface’ virus, which takes control of a PC’s internet searches and can steal sensitive personal information.The Koobface worm was first identified in August but it appears to have been altered to hit the social networking site only.Facebook insisted only a “very small percentage of users” had been affected but in the past day, hundreds of media workers in Boston alone have received infected emails.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/3568900/Koobface-virus-targets-Facebook-members.html

Internet security is broken, and nobody seems to know quite how to fix it.Despite the efforts of the computer security industry and a half-decade struggle by Microsoft to protect its Windows operating system, malicious software is spreading faster than ever. The so-called malware surreptitiously takes over a PC and then uses that computer to spread more malware to other machines exponentially. Computer scientists and security researchers acknowledge they cannot get ahead of the onslaught.As more business and social life has moved onto the Web, criminals thriving on an underground economy of credit card thefts, bank fraud and other scams rob computer users of an estimated $100 billion a year, according to a conservative estimate by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. A Russian company that sells fake antivirus software that actually takes over a computer pays its illicit distributors as much as $5 million a year.With vast resources from stolen credit card and other financial information, the cyberattackers are handily winning a technology arms race.
http://nytimes.com/2008/12/06/technology/internet/06security.html
http://iht.com/articles/2008/12/05/technology/wbsecure.php

Microsoft has launched 63 separate lawsuits against people peddling counterfeit software on auction sites.The legal action targets sellers in 12 nations including the US, UK, Germany and France.Most of those Microsoft has targeted have been selling fake “Blue Edition” versions of Windows XP.Microsoft said the operating system was proving popular on auction sites as it is reaching the end of its commercial sales cycle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7766607.stm

Lori Drew was convicted of actions basically unrelated to what most people think she did, but even those convictions may not be what is best for you and me, or for the Internet.According to court testimony, the 49-year-old Drew participated in an online ruse — she pretended to be a 16-year-old boy on MySpace — that ultimately led 13-year-old Megan Meier to hang herself in a bedroom closet. Assuming the testimony is accurate, the girl’s death was a direct result of actions by Drew and a young woman who worked for her. It is hard to put into words the level of revulsion one feels about people who would do this sort of thing to another human, much less to an adolescent. It turns out, however, that acting in this vile way on the Internet is not illegal — just immoral.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154901/.htmlus: Our view on cyberbullying: MySpace case bends the law-Missouri mom deserves reproach, but prosecution raises concerns
When a Los Angeles jury convicted a Missouri woman last week in the online bullying of a 13-year-old girl who then took her own life, it felt like justice.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/12/our-view-on-cyb.html

When a Los Angeles jury convicted a Missouri woman last week in the online bullying of a 13-year-old girl who then took her own life, it felt like justice.The incident shocked the nation when it occurred two years ago, as well it should have. Lori Drew, 49, angry because the girl had quit being friends with her daughter, impersonated a 16-year-old boy to win the girl’s trust. From there, the facts get muddy because Drew was working with her daughter and an 18-year-old employee, and it’s not clear who sent which messages. But the fictitious “boy” flirted with the girl, apparently won her over, and then attacked her as “fat” and a “slut,” ultimately saying that the “world would be a better place without you.” The distraught teen hung herself within minutes.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/12/our-view-on-cyb.html

As President-Elect Barack Obama looks for ways to deal with a shattered economy and an ongoing war on terrorism, security experts are urging him to pay attention to something that has a big impact on both: The nation’s growing — and fragile — cyber infrastructure.Potential adversaries have increasingly turned to cyber espionage as a way to find weaknesses in networks run by the U.S. government and the nation’s critical infrastructure providers.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/120308-5-must-do-cyber-security-steps.html

Apple has urged Mac owners to use anti-virus software. In a note posted on its support site in late November, Apple said it wanted to “encourage” people to use anti-virus to stay safe online.The move is widely seen as a response to the growing trend among cyber criminals of booby-trapping webpages that can catch out Mac users.Before now Mac users have been largely free of the security problems that plague Microsoft’s Windows.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7760344.stmCan the Mac catch a cold? by Rory Cellan-Jones
Oh dear – even as I write this, I can see the smug smile spreading across the faces of Windows users – and I can hear the clatter of keyboards as thousands of Mac fans compose angry messages. But here we go – Macs are not immune from internet infections, and that’s official.The news came on 21 November when Apple put up a little note on its support site, explaining that “Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities.” The company did not highlight this warning, and in fact nobody noticed it for some days. Now it’s become a big story, and reignited the row about the respective strengths and weaknesses of Mac and Windows when it comes to security.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/12/can_the_mac_catch_a_cold.html

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users, is expected to argue in court on Tuesday that it’s unconstitutional to prevent Americans from suing the telecom companies that allegedly helped the federal government unlawfully spy on them.The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) gives telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for opening their networks to the National Security Agency. The telecoms can walk away from lawsuits as long as the government claims the request was “lawful” and authorized by the president. Before the law was passed, EFF had brought a lawsuit against AT&T that is before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.To read this CNET article in full, see http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10110872-93.html.