The Kaptoxa point-of-sale malware campaign, apparently contained in Target and Neiman Marcus, is thought to remain active in other retailers' networks. Investigation increasingly points to Russian cyber criminals as the culprits, although the briefly famous "Russian teenaged hacker" fingered in early reports was probably misidentified.

Many security firms and mavens have advice for affected consumers. The consensus is that effectively preventing such breaches will require two-factor authentication in payment card transactions, which will be "a tough sell, " as ZDNet puts it.

South Korea has been hit with a major banking data breach, apparently the work of an insider at the Korea Credit Bureau. At least 20M users have had their information compromised.

Researchers discover an Android vulnerability that can be exploited to bypass secure VPN connections and redirect clear-text traffic to an attacker.

The Vietnamese government is found conducting active, extensive cyber operations against activists, most of them expatriates in the US and France. The Syrian Electronic Army resurfaces, now with cyber vandalism against Office.com.

Industry observers look at the cyber start-up universe and conclude that while booming, it's not a bubble. They also note the important role the US Intelligence Community plays in this particular start-up ecosystem.

The full text of US President Obama's remarks on "signals intelligence" (a.k.a. surveillance policy) is out. He proposes what most observers tepidly characterize as modest reforms.

Leading members of the US House Intelligence Committee assert Snowden had Russian government help. Private-sector Russian Eugene Kaspersky wants none of it, calling Snowden a "traitor. "