It was a bit less spectacular and a lot less glamorous than most Hollywood disaster movies. But the recent mega-breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment had more than its share of drama and improvisation. Numerous media outlets this week published behind-the-scenes looks at how the crisis, one of the worst cyberattacks on an American company, was handled internally. Among other unusual steps, studio CEO Michael Lynton communicated with […]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is pointing the finger of blame for the Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) cyberattack directly at North Korea. In collaboration with other U.S. government departments and agencies, the FBI said it has enough evidence to conclude that the Communist nation is responsible for the attack. Now, President Barack Obama is responding. The hackers compromised Sony Pictures’ computer systems, stole data and intellectual […]
NEW DELHI: HDFC Bank will not be able to raise much money by way of foreign investment even as the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on Friday regularised its current overseas investment structure. That is because the board turned down the bank’s plea to not treat the promoter stake as foreign investment. Besides, the bank will also have to deposit a penalty as it was in the […]
India on Thursday achieved a major victory with the US agreeing to its proposal on food security issues at WTO, a development that will pave the way for a breakthrough to end the three-month long stalemate. The agreement comes two days ahead of the G-20 Summit in Australia, which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders including the US President Barack Obama. […]
New Delhi: Output of core industries grew at an eight-month low of 1.9 per cent in September, down from 5.8 per cent in August, indicating overall industrial production will be subdued. This could have repercussions on the gross domestic product for the second quarter. Official data showed on Friday infrastructure industries had slowed down the most since January when production grew 1.6 per cent. Output had […]
MUMBAI: If order inflows are a harbinger of an improvement in the investment cycle, India Inc has reason to feel happy. In the quarter ended September this year, companies received about Rs 67,000 crore worth of fresh orders, up 45 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis and the highest in the past four quarters (see chart). The momentum has continued into the quarter ending December, too, […]
SINGAPORE: India’s state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd aims to double its refining margins once it completes the expansion and upgrade of its Kochi refinery in southern India to process high sulphur crudes by 2016, a senior company official said. The refiner’s margins dropped to $3 a barrel this year, from $4.50 to $5 a barrel last year, but levels will increase by a about $3 to […]
Mumbai: Credit in the banking system slipped marginally despite the festive season. Data from the Reserve Bank of India suggests that in the period between October 3 and 17, bank credit slipped 0.7 per cent. However, in the past one year, credit growth was up 11 per cent. In the period ended October 17, it was Rs 62,20,004 crore, up from Rs 55,97,985 crore a year before. […]
With enterprises now averaging more than three dozen infected IT devices daily and attacks by point-of-sale (POS) malware like Backoff rising by double digits, companies today need to “operate under the assumption they are in a state of continuous breach.” That’s one of the findings from enterprisesecurity firm Damballa’s “Q3 State of Infections Report,” released today. During the third quarter of this year, global ISPs and enterprise […]
By Amulya Ganguli As always, the electorate has sent a clear message to every party in the just concluded elections. For the BJP, the memo is that the regional parties cannot be ignored, as the Maharashtra results have shown. It was the same lesson which the BJP learnt in the parliamentary polls when it could not breach the regional fortresses of the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, […]
Hyderabad: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has said the central bank is in talks with the Centre to set up a financial resolution authority (FRA). “We really need a financial resolution authority so that we can close financial institutions in trouble, without necessarily merging those and taking the losses. We need to clean institutions…while resurrecting those functioning well. FRA will be the entity that […]
Hackers are threatening to post online a large collection of photos, including nude images, sent by Snapchat users and apparently intercepted via third-party apps, Business Insider is reporting. The number of photos in question — at least 100,000 — is much larger than number of the nude celebrity photos stolen from Apple’s iCloud earlier this year. Many images are likely to be of users under the age […]
Fast food chain Dairy Queen is pushing out a security story and it’s anything but sweet. The international firm on Thursday confirmed cyber criminals hit systems at some of its DQ locations and one Orange Julius location in the United States. Dairy Queen blamed the Backoff point-of-sale malware that has been infiltrating retail systems around the country. This is the same malware that invaded Target’s systems last […]
For the second time since June, AT&T has acknowledged that it has been hit by an insider data breach. The telecom giant is warning consumers that an employee, who has since been fired, illegally accessed the personal information of some of its users, making off with Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers. In a letter sent to the Vermont attorney general earlier this month, AT&T officials […]
People frequently use Facebook to update friends and loved ones about health issues. Now Facebook is looking for a way to make health care an integral part of the social media site. Following on the heels of Samsung and Apple, Facebook is planning to create a group of online support communities that would connect Facebook users that suffer with various afflictions. However, the online support communities are […]
Security experts are keeping an eye on the Shellshock vulnerability, also known as the Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) bug, as a focus for malicious scanning and at least one botnet. They warn, though, that hackers haven’t even begun to test the limits of the vulnerability. The Shellshock vulnerability, also called the Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) bug, could be even an even greater threat than the Heartbleed bug. Disclosed in […]
While security researchers are still talking about the Home Depot breach — Jimmy John’s is reporting a possible security breach at the popular submarine sandwich chain. Recently, Home Depot confirmed that a data breach put about 56 million customer credit and debit cards at risk. In its official statement, Jimmy John’s revealed its breach involved both credit and debit card data captured at some of its corporate-owned […]
Hackers have already launched attacks aimed at exploiting the Shellshock Bash bug, according to Security researchers at AusCERT and MalwareMustDie. That means administrators should patch vulnerable systems as soon as possible. Shellshock is the name given to a vulnerability that exists in GNU Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) versions 1.14 through 4.3. Unix and Linux systems — as well as the Mac OS X (which also uses bash) — […]
David Cameron has said he will keep the Barnett Formula but Scotland must expect extra responsibility and any deal must be fair to all parts of the UK Photo: FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA The Scottish inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, coined the phrase “When one door closes, another opens”. His fellow Scots’ nail-biting rejection of independence shelves the debate on secession. But it prises open the possibility of […]
The e-borders system, which is supposed to stop a person coming to the UK if they have previously been deported or excluded from the country, has failed to intercept a single individual despite a £500 million IT project Photo: Reuters The disclosure that the chief suspect in the case of the missing schoolgirl Alice Gross is a convicted Latvian killer who should not have been in the country […]
Chinese-backed hackers infiltrated the computer networks of airline, shipping and information technology companies responsible for transporting personnel and weapons for the U.S. military, a Senate investigation found. There were 20 such breaches from June 2012 to May 2013, giving the hackers insight into military logistics and a foothold that could be used to disrupt operations, according to a report today by the Senate Armed Services Committee. While […]
As PayPal girds up to go after a big new rival in the online payment arena, it’s doing so by taking shots at that competitor’s security track record. Not long after Apple unveiled Apple Pay, its new contactless payment system, PayPal took out a newspaper advertisement slamming the new service. Apple Pay, suggests the ad, is no more safe than a selfie in the iCloud, making reference […]
By Edwin Chan SAN FRANCISCO Wed Sep 3, 2014 12:21pm IST The Apple logo is pictured inside the newly opened Omotesando Apple store at a shopping district in Tokyo June 26, 2014. Picture taken June 26. Credit: Reuters/Yuya Shino/Files SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The week before a crucial launch of its new iPhone, Apple Inc said intimate photos of celebrities including Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence were leaked online […]
By Christina Farr and Edwin Chan SAN FRANCISCO Wed Sep 3, 2014 7:44am IST The Apple logo is pictured at a retail store in the Marina neighborhood in San Francisco, California April 23, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith/Files SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has often displayed uncanny timing, with its well-orchestrated end-of-year iPhone releases. But the leak of racy celebrity photos in the past few days […]
