The cyber war between Israel and Hamas continues to attract volunteer participants, including Israeli civilians, Anonymous members, and Palestinian sympathizers from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The conflict raises (again) questions about how cyberspace conflict among states and non-state actors might be moderated or limited—do the lawyers among our readers see useful analogies in admiralty law? Such conflict appears certain to become more common, especially as companies consider offensive operations against cyber attackers. (Crowdstrike is the most recent prominent advocate of vigilantism.)

Phishing attacks proliferate. Backdoor.Makadocs turns Google Docs into a surrogate command-and-control server (Brazilian Windows 8 users are particularly affected). An attack on an Australian primary school shows how common and effective ransomware exploits have become.

Human resources departments, despite handwringing over vulnerabilities, increasingly allow employees to use social media at work. Security guru Bruce Schneier argues that cyber attackers enjoy enduring advantages over intelligence tools used to predict attacks (in fighter-pilot terms, the hackers are always inside the defenders' OODA loop).

Most CIOs remain skeptical of cloud security even as Britain's National Health Service moves to G-Cloud for better email security. US defense contractors pull in their horns and stockpile cash in anticipation of budget cuts. Intel's CEO Otellini will retire in the spring. (Analysts note Intel's failure to dominate the mobile chip market.)

Researchers at Toshiba and Cambridge University develop a way of securely distributing keys over high-speed fiber. Stanford researchers make progress in forcing quantum entanglement.

US investigators continue to call Chinese telecom manufacturers a security threat.