Cyber conflict follows physical conflict. The prospect of a punitive strike against Syria's Assad regime escalates cyber war (and cyber rioting) with some significant attempts at the more propagandistic forms of information operations.

The regime's Syrian Electronic Army compromised a US Marine Corps recruiting site with messages like "I didn't join to fight for al Qaeda." Another hacker whose sympathies are apparently with the Syrian regime posts what purport to be emails from a member of the US Joint Staff; the traffic suggests that chemical attacks in Syria were staged as an anti-Assad provocation. Assad-connected sites also undergo cyber attack, some of them apparently from Syrian expatriates.

The media exchange speculation over the likelihood of cyber conflict involving Syria and the West (obviously high, since it's happening) and the severity of such conflict (less obvious).

The usual cyber vandalism sputters in various corners of the world. Details emerge on recent US Energy Department (the Department says it couldn't afford to patch Cold Fusion) and US Army (no mitigation beyond security awareness) hacks.

A cross-device mobile banking Trojan defeats dual authentication. Citadel is back (in Japan). Kelihos, NetTraveler, and ZeroAccess malware suites evolve in sophistication and capability.

Two large acquisitions are in progress: Verizon will buy out Vodaphone's share of Verizon Wireless, and yesterday Microsoft concluded an agreement to buy Nokia's hardware unit.

The Voice of Russia editorializes in favor of security over privacy (ZDNet suggests what this means in practice). PRISM diplomatic fallout sours US relations with Brazil and Mexico.