The Twitter-savvy insurgents of ISIS/ISIL have proclaimed a caliphate in the swath of territory it controls in Iraq and Syria. Rivals and enemies (including its more mainstream cobelligerents in al Qaeda) don't swallow this, but the proclamation has prompted two responses of interest to those concerned with cyberspace. First, Anonymous tries to grab a headline by promising an operation against ISIS supporters (prominently among whom Anonymous numbers Saudi Arabia). Second, Qatar and Iran discuss cooperation against ISIS and in support of the embattled Iraqi government. Any such cooperation would have a strong cyber element.
The Syrian Electronic Army counters ISIS indirectly, with an attack on Israeli Defense Forces sites calculated for locally crowd-pleasing effect.
New banking malware, "Emotet," is sniffing data transmitted via HTTPS. So far most infections are reported in Germany, but users in Asia and North America have also been affected.
Sophos Labs offers more information on "Andr/SlfMite-A," an Android worm spreading by SMS.
ICS-CERT warns that Havex industrial control system malware has appeared in three vendors' update installers (details available from US-CERT's secure portal).
A study of "emotional contagion" (conducted by researchers at Facebook, Cornell, and the University of California San Francisco on Anglophone users of Facebook's News Feed) attracts considerable attention, mostly negative. Was there informed consent? Proper human subject research review?
Microsoft responds to Canada's anti-spam law by stopping email security updates. Some observers think this passive aggressive, but the law is clearly having unintended consequences.
eWeek offers an overview of cyber threat-intelligence sharing communities.