Spanish police arrested 10 people allegedly involved in a massive “ransomware” cyber-crime organization, according to The European Cybercrime Centre at Europol. Police estimated that the ring infected tens of thousands of users worldwide, stealing over $1.34 million euros a year. Through the “police virus”, cyber-crooks required users to pay $134 as a “fine” to escape prosecution for piracy or accessing chi...

FBI software developed with advisory firm Ernst & Young unraveled the top phrases used in email conversations among employees engaged in corporate fraud, according to a press release. The technology can also pinpoint unusual changes in tone that can reveal fraud targeting specific sectors. Some of the most common expressions used by corporate fraudsters include “cover up”, “write off”, “grey area” and “...

Cyber-criminals have prepared some dirty tricks for tourists looking for a room over the holidays. And it’s not the same old reception RATs, banking Trojans, wrong hotel transactions and social media baits. Now, they’ve created their own fake hotels and are awaiting unwary guests. Not only malware, phishing and spam keep the Bitdefender Labs busy. Before and during the holidays, our antivirus specialists ha...

Spanish speakers are lured to buy international romantic songs but instead they have their identities stolen. Bitdefender spotted a spam campaign exploring users’ melancholy and depression, the two least welcome holiday guests.   Here’s a reason to be jolly: relationships are the most common trigger for Christmas depression, according to a study reported in 2007 by the Mayo Clinic. Also, two-thirds of women...

British infrastructure is targeted by hostile states but officials refused to say what had been hit, The Guardian reports. Within range are companies providing “essential services upon which daily life depends” such as electricity, gas and water. A senior government official admitted the British critical infrastructure had been mapped, and the owners of national infrastructure are still being supported by t...

A twist on a technique developed by Google could let cyber-criminals hack cloud-based mobile browsers and crack passwords anonymously, according to security researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Oregon. Researchers used the “MapReduce” technique developed by Google, typically used for distributed computing on clusters of machines, to perform large-scale tasks that had nothin...

When it comes to taking down businesses, advanced persistent threats are the way to go. At least that’s how things ended for Primary Systems Inc., a small business that got ripped off of $180,000 in a malware attack. According to a story by tech journalist Brian Krebs, the company’s network was first compromised in May 2012 when an unsuspicious and overly curious company employee opened up a malicious attac...

The risk of attacks on medical devices such as defibrillators, pacemakers, insulin pumps, and other software-controlled medical equipment is rising, as cyber-criminals improve hacking techniques, according to Bitdefender. In September, the US Government Accountability Office also warned about vulnerabilities in computerized medical devices because of outdated software and firmware. Targeted attacks on medic...

The number of fake bank websites targeting the 26 million Brits who bank online is rising 3 percent a month as criminals targeting UK citizens tighten their focus and improve their scams, according to a 60-day research by Bitdefender.   The UK brands most-used to create fake web pages are HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Natwest, Barclays, Reliance Bank, ING Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, and Standard Chartered. ...

A couple from the Sydney suburb of Ryde was arrested this morning after allegedly manufacturing false documents and credit cards in the biggest identity crime investigation in the country’s history. Officers handcuffed the 48-year-old man and the 40-year-old woman at their house, according to AFP. The arrests are part of a multimillion dollar identity crime investigation, in which detectives have already ar...