The founder of the Silk Road underground website has forfeited the site and thousands of bitcoins, worth around $28 million at current rates, to the U.S. government. The approximately 29,655 bitcoins were seized from the Silk Road website when the FBI moved to in late September. The site served as an underground marketplace for drugs and other illegal items, relying on bitcoins for transactions because such payments are much more difficult to trace, the government says. Ross Ulbricht, also known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” operator of the site, was arrested on October 1 in a San Francisco public library while allegedly logged into the site, according to court papers. He was with one count of narcotics conspiracy, one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and one count of money-laundering conspiracy. The government had argued that the bitcoins were used to facilitate money laundering and thus should be forfeited launched late in the year by other parties, although did not claim to be fully operational.
Kaspersky Lab has recorded thousands of attempts to infect computers used for online banking with a malicious program that its creators claim can attack “any bank in any country.” The banker supports almost every possible trick used to bypass online banking security systems: web injection, remote system access, and social engineering among others. In light of the Trojan’s self-replication capabilities, a sharp rise in the number of attacks involving Neverquest can be expected, resulting in financial losses for users all over the world. Kaspersky Lab noted that the is a period of high malicious user activity with experts reporting instances as early as November.
Intel expects that its workforce will decline by 5 percent as it heads into a year in which revenue is likely to be flat. Intel announced its expectations for a decline in its workforce in the wake of its fourth quarter earnings report. The world’s largest chip maker , and announced that fourth quarter profit was up 6 percent year over year, to $2.6 billion, while revenue increased 3 percent to $13.8 billion. The company said it had higher PC Client Group revenue, but that sales were hurt by in the Data Center Group. The slump in the PC market was a drag on the company last year. Annual revenue declined 1 percent to $52.7 billion, while net income dropped 13 percent to $9.6 billion.
As online shopping continues to proliferate, an engineering organization is warning that delivery logistics ought to smarten up. An Ipsos Mori survey conducted for the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) found that of the 2011 adults surveyed, 1518 were online shoppers. Furthermore, of these, 968 (63 percent) had bought a minimum of three this Christmas. While on the surface, the findings more or less echo empirical and anecdotal evidence from across the retail spectrum, IET’s Professor Phil Blythe said the changing shopping habits need to be considered—both as part of an integrated transport policy and as well as an opportunity for technology chiefs at retailers to improve their logistics platform. ”Traditionally, consumers would travel to the local high street or retail park to buy gifts. We are now seeing an explosion of online shopping, often where gifts are bought and delivered in many batches," Blythe said. "This then results in more deliveries being made and a huge increase in emissions and congestion on our roads. We’ve heard a lot about delivery by drones, but this is at least a decade away.”
A Florida couple have been arrested for allegedly running a small-scale but highly sophisticated that managed to steal at least $550,000 from hundreds of victims. According to asking for their account and personal details in order to supposedly resolve an account breach. Rather than access the online bank accounts of victims, the pair used the data to order replacement cards to be sent to their own address, which were then used to buy money orders later paid into Stephen Barone’s business account. This low-key approach made it possible for them to commit the crime over a period of years. Around 400 people lost funds totaling at least $550,000, although more victims might be discovered in time, police have indicated.
IBM retained its in 2013, snaring more U.S. patents than any other company for the 21st year in a row. But the big news is Google, which quickened its patent pace and climbed to No. 11 in the rankings. IBM was awarded 6809 utility patents last year, according to . That record-setting haul is up 5 percent compared to 2012, when Big Blue earned 6478 patents. After IBM, Samsung Electronics was the second most with 4675 patents received in 2013. Canon placed third with 3825 patents, followed by Sony (3098), Microsoft (2660), Panasonic (2601), Toshiba (2416), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (2279), Qualcomm (2103), and LG Electronics (1947). Last year, Google by 60 percent and took home 1851 patents. That was enough to land Google at No. 11 in IFI’s rankings, up from No. 21 in 2012. Google first appeared among IFI’s top 50 in 2012, when it earned 1151 patents.
A security company that worked with the U.S. Secret Service to investigate at Target identified the malware used in the attack as a sophisticated derivative of a previously known Trojan program designed to steal data from Point-of-Sale (POS) systems. In a report released late last week, iSight Partners identified the tool as Trojan.POSRAM, which it described as software that can find, store, and transmit credit card and PIN numbers from POS systems. The Trojan is being used in a “persistent, wide ranging, and sophisticated” cyber campaign dubbed KAPTOXA targeting “many operators” of POS systems, the company warned. may not yet know they’ve been compromised or have already lost data, the iSight report noted. It did not mention Target as the company that was investigated. Tiffany Jones, the author of the report, described as a customized version of BlackPOS, a piece of malware that has been available in the cyber underground since at least last February.
One day a 3D printer, using a mix of materials, will be able to create body armor for U.S. soldiers that is more lightweight and stronger than anything could be made with traditional manufacturing and materials today. That’s the word from researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who are working to revolutionize as well as the way that companies build products ranging from jet engines and satellites to football helmets. Scientists at the laboratory, a federally funded center in Livermore, California, that focuses on national security research, are working on architecting new materials to be used in a process called , more commonly known as 3D printing, and developing a technique for building multiple materials into the same product. They’re also studying the physics and chemistry at the base of the process in order to better understand how manufactured parts will stand up to conditions such as heat and stress, so they can predict a product’s behaviors and performance.
Many countries are still grappling with the issues of crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin, of which there are . China’s central bank, for example, has ordered financial institutions to halt Bitcoin-related services and products. With the value of Bitcoin increasing to more than $1000 this month after social gaming firm the virtual currency as payment, the question is: can crypto-currencies can become real currency? From the perspective of the Reserve Bank in New Zealand, or more specifically not legal tender. They are payment systems. A bank representative says the consistent message emerging from central banks and governments around the world is:
Intel has an ambitious goal for 2014: get its Atom chips into 40 million tablets, or four times the number of tablets that had Intel inside in 2013. But rather than do it by tailoring its products to what tablets now demand, the cash-rich company has another plan: pay tablet makers to use its chips. That’s essentially what Intel is doing through a program first disclosed at its financial analyst meeting in November. Intel will pay tablet makers to cover the additional component costs of using its Bay Trail chips instead of ARM-based processors, and it will also help cover the engineering costs of designing an Intel tablet. The Intel division that makes Bay Trail will incur a “significant increase” in its operating loss to pay for the plan, CFO Stacy Smith said at the November meeting, but the upshot is likely to be a lot more tablets based on Intel chips, potentially even from big players like Samsung. ”Basically, they’re making an investment to make up for them being slow to get into the market,” said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.
An increasing number of attacks against businesses are coming from mobile devices, according to Prolexic Technologies. The American-based released data from its fourth quarter 2013 report that suggests mobile applications have and will continue to play a more expansive role in such attacks. The report gathered data from attacks against Prolexic’s clients and showed that one international financial services firm fell victim to such an attack. Subsequent digital forensics and attack signature analysis by the company detected the use of AnDOSid, an Android app that can mount an HTTP POST flood attack. The company has described the increase in such attacks as a game changer and accredits the increase to the availability of downloadable apps and the ease which users can join DDoS campaigns. The company also said it expected to see an increasing number of in the coming year. Prolexic president Stuart Scholly said he believes that applications commonly used in DDoS attacks like Low Orbit Ion Canon (LOIC) will to mobile platforms in 2014.
The weak protections for customer data in Starbucks’ mobile-payment app is a “wakeup call” for consumers who should never assume the apps they use in their smartphones are secure. Starbucks that its app stores usernames, email addresses, and passwords in clear text. As a result, anyone could see the information by connecting the phone to a PC. Choose ease over security Starbucks chose not to encrypt the data and store it on its servers in order to make the app easier to use. Taking the additional security measures would have meant having the user logon each time they used the app. By storing the data in clear text on the phone, users only had to login once, until they added more money to their account. ”The recent news that the Starbucks mobile app is not adequately protecting usernames and passwords should be a wakeup call for us—both as mobile consumers and employees,” said Jack Walsh, mobility program manager at software testing and certification firm ICSA Labs. “No one should assume that their company’s mobile apps are safe and properly secure sensitive employee or customer data.”
Some of the most futuristic features envisioned in will depend on 5G mobile technology that probably won’t be available in full until 2020, according to Ericsson’s chief technology officer. There’s a bright future for cellular in cars, according to Ulf Ewaldsson, who is the mobile gear vendor’s senior vice president and chief technology officer and head of Group Function Technology. He spoke with IDG News Service following a big automotive push by Ericsson at earlier this month. Among other things, the company showed off its CVC (Connected Vehicle Cloud), designed to deliver applications in a car for information, entertainment, making service appointments and other needs. Ericsson announced partnerships with both a carrier (AT&T) and a carmaker (Volvo). But more advanced networked-car visions, up to and including self-driving cars, will rely on capabilities that Ericsson sees coming in the as-yet-undefined it expects commercial deployments of the future specification starting in 2020.
Cybercriminals have stolen payment card data from six more U.S. retailers using similar point-of-sale malware that a computer crime intelligence company said Friday. The conclusion comes from a study of members-only forums where cybercriminals and malicious software tools, said Dan Clements, president of IntelCrawler, which conducted the analysis. The retailers have not been publicly named, but IntelCrawler is providing technical information related to the breaches to law enforcement, Clements said in a telephone interview Friday. Hackers' tools determined IntelCrawler has also identified a 17-year-old Russian who it says created the which intercepts unencrypted payment card data after a card is swiped. Security experts believe malware based on BlackPOS was used against Target.
Hydrogen-powered. Three-wheeled. Gesture-controlled. The concept cars we saw at NAIAS in Detroit were all some kind of crazy, but don't be surprised if you see something like them in the near future.
From works by legendary directors to films featuring Oscar-nominated acting performances, these ten streaming movies are worth your time and more than worth their low cost of zero dollars.
CIOs are waiting anxiously for Microsoft to pick a new CEO, but they don’t mind that it’s taking its time; the way they see it, Microsoft can’t afford to make a mistake in the selection process. For CIOs, it’s clear that the chosen candidate will have to steer the company through a variety of challenges both internal and external, and to do so successfully, the person chosen to replace Steve Ballmer will need a rare combination of skills and experience. What awaits the new boss Among the top priorities, Microsoft needs to improve its position in the tablet and smartphone markets, fix the problems dogging Windows 8 and 8.1, battle Google Apps for the cloud email and collaboration markets, and complete a broad corporate reorganization that Ballmer announced last July. “The CEO search is incredibly important,” said Mike Blake, CIO at Commune Hotels & Resorts in San Francisco, and previously CIO at Hyatt. “I’m sure the search committee is doing the best job it can to find the correct customer-focused executive who can unlock the value within the Microsoft portfolio.”
Microsoft's Xbox One outsold all others during the month of December, continuing its trend of outselling all other game consoles within the U.S.
LG’s says display's wrinkles won't affect performance and can be gently rubbed out.
