CYBERSECURITY

In all, officials said, they raked in some 27 million messages on phones which were used "exclusively" by criminals.

FBI director Christopher Wray recently underscored the severity of the problem

To date, reports show that over 15 billion user credentials sourced from more than 100,000 security breaches are now being distributed online.

If left unpatched, hackers will be able to exploit the operating system's permissions to access direct messages.

This was reported by Scam Alert alongside Whale Alert via its new 'crime reporting, tracking and analysis' platform.

A hacking operation likely backed by the Chinese government has targeted global telecommunications companies in order to gain information on high-profile targets.

In the latest in what has been a series of headaches for Facebook, 540 million records have been exposed on Amazon's cloud servers.

If a company or individual is powerful, they are vulnerable to a dangerous cyber attack, and that's where we come in.

Marcus Hutchins was lauded as a hero in 2017 for finding a "kill switch" to the WannaCry virus which crippled computers worldwide.

U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies said the main targets include "government and private-sector organizations," as well as "critical infrastructure" providers.

Stark Riedesel, security consultant at Synopsys, points to a recent scan of Ethereum smart contracts that identified 34,200 vulnerable contracts.

The Internet has transformed the way we live our lives and run our businesses. But with it has come a new, and fast-growing, type of crime.

"We would not be reopening our online stores if we did not feel confident that they are a safe place to shop," the company said.

Security researchers uncovered that the malware infects Android models during manufacturing so users receive already infected phones from the box.

The attack on GitHub, which lasted less than an hour, reportedly exploited memcached servers instead of bots.

First detected in January, GandCrab has been deemed one of the most aggressive forms of ransomware this year.

"Whether they are working on behalf of the government or they're doing it on their own accord with plans to sell the information to a third party, we have no idea," Symantec said.

This isn't the first time US federal government has suffered a major data breach affecting military and defense personnel in recent years.

A 37-year-old Welshman has been jailed for 10 months after a court found him guilty of five offences relating to a cyber attack on a former company.

Researchers have described RedDrop as "one of the most sophisticated pieces of Android malware that we have seen in broad distribution".

"This is the first time we have seen a modified Mirai capable of DDOS attacks as well as setting up proxy servers on vulnerable IoT devices," Fortinet researchers said.