6,000 coronavirus-related web domains registered in a week, many are malware loaded

More than 6,000 Covid-19 and coronavirus-related web domains have been registered in the past week, security researchers say, with large numbers of them malign. According to a report released by software company Check Point, in the past three weeks alone, more than 2,200 of these new sites were found to be suspicious and 93 were …

Microsoft, Hewlett Foundation, MasterCard, and other launch CyberPeace Institute

Microsoft, Hewlett Foundation, MasterCard, and several other unnamed major corporations and philanthropic institutions have formed an independent non-profit organisation called the CyberPeace Institute aimed at protecting victims against cyberattacks and helping them recover from one. “For years, non-governmental organisations around the world have provided on-the-ground help and vocal advocacy for victims of wars and natural …

South Africa’s surveillance act RICA unconstitutional, inconsistent finds Court

The South Gauteng High Court has found that parts of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information (RICA) Act are unconstitutional. In April 2017, media group amaBhungane filed an application in the High Court challenging the constitutionality of the act. This, after it emerged that journalist Sam Sole’s communications were intercepted …

Facebook privacy lapse leaks 400m phone numbers in USA, Britain and Vietnam

Phone numbers linked to more than 400 million Facebook accounts were listed online in the latest privacy lapse for the social media giant, US media reported Wednesday. An exposed server stored 419 million records on users across several databases — including 133 million US accounts, more than 50 million in Vietnam, and 18 million in …

Expert warns cyber threats to worsen with tech advances

Technological advances like Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Automatic Cards and others will throw up new challenges for cyber security and all countries must unite to foresee and combat them, a leading Israeli cyber security expert said. “The Internet was not designed for security, hence it is inherently insecure since everything is hackable. It is …

‘Norman’ cryptojacking malware hides and exploits the processing power of infected PCs

A newly-discovered form of cryptocurrency-mining malware is capable of remaining so well-hidden that researchers investigating it found that it had spread to almost every computer at a company that had become infected. Dubbed ‘Norman’ due to references in the backend of the malware, the cryptojacker has been detailed by cybersecurity researchers at Varonis. The Monero-cryptomining …

Amazon’s cloud computing business is slowing down

The company posted its second-quarter earnings today (July 25), and Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud-computing division, generated $8.3 billion in the quarter, a jump of more than 35% over the same quarter last year. Cloud services, a business Amazon originally entered to support its own infrastructure, has become incredibly fruitful for the online retailer. …