Islamist attacks on US banks may have subsided, but observers expect the quiescence is temporary: cyber gangs are recruiting botmasters for a man-in-the-middle campaign aimed at fraudulent wire transfers, and online criminals actively cooperated in last week's attacks. This convergence of hacktivism and organized crime is likely to continue. Iran's government (which attributes its nationwide Internet slowdown to US and Israeli attacks) is also actively collaborating with al Qaeda online recruiters.
The University of California San Diego's darknet has observed the Sality botnet quietly scanning IPv4 addresses for vulnerable voice-over-IP servers. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee calls out China for ongoing cyber campaigns against defense think tanks; he also warns of coming Chinese attacks on the financial sector.
A bogus Angry Birds game carries a payload that can hijack Chrome and spam Tumblr. Skype users are subjected to widespread spearphishing. Team GhostShell's objective in exposing university records appears to be notoriety.
Microsoft will close seven vulnerabilities on Patch Tuesday next week (one of them is in MS Word).
Ponemon finds that business logic flaws remain popular targets for cyber attackers. The Cloud Security Alliance reports on the top mobile threats. The black market in software bugs grows (and with it grows cyber crime). US defense circles worry about the penetration of Chinese telecom companies into the US market.
NIST adopts new cryptographic standards, and HTTP Strict Transport Security protocol (HSTS) approaches general adoption. US Cyber Command's leadership and EU policy makers agree: creating "national Internets" would be a "disaster."