Cyber attacks strike government sites in Israel, the Philippines, and the US. Among the US sites hit is NIST's National Vulnerability Database. "The Tunisian Cyber Army," a self-proclaimed al Qaida affiliate, boasts it's breached a large number of other US Government sites "with Chinese hacker help," but this big claim awaits confirmation. South Korea goes on high cyber alert as the North escalates peninsular tensions.

FinFisher lawful intercept tools track activists in Vietnam and Ethiopia. Avast finds mobile drive-by malware. Another Facebook authentication vulnerability is discovered. Skycure finds a vulnerability in iOS mobileconfig files. This week's Hotmail outage is traced to a failed firmware update.

Quartz puzzles over life as a Chinese government hacker and concludes that the PLA is more Dunder Mifflin than Her Majesty's Secret Service: the pay and hours are lousy and the boss is clueless. Security firms like Trend Micro and agencies like Britain's Home Office say the Russian mob is scarier than the PLA, and sector reports second the Home Office's warnings.

Kaspersky patches a firewall vulnerability.

In industry news, the American Gas Association mulls protection of natural gas infrastructure from cyber attack. Site Selection calls corporate attention to Maryland's cyber workforce opportunities.

A Japanese researcher offers VPN Gate to users wishing to escape censorship regimes like Iran's "halal Internet."

Congratulations to MIT's Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali, who've won this year's Turing Award.

The US Government moves toward closer cyber cooperation with industry (but NSA's General Alexander suggests securing banks isn't a Government mission).