Colombian authorities continue to round up hackers suspected of gaining illicit access to data concerning government negotiations with FARC.

The Syrian Electronic Army wakes from troubled dreams to hijack Wall Street Journal Twitter accounts and slang security maven Ira Winkler as the real cockroach. (Winkler had called the SEA "cockroaches;" SEA was affronted).

In the UK, MI5 warns systems administrators to expect cultivation, compromise, and recruitment by sparrows and ravens—attractive foreign intelligence agents of appropriate gender. The sheer novelty of the experience is thought to render it particularly effective. The warning is also a useful reminder of how traditional intelligence tradecraft and criminal grifting converge in social engineering. (Compare a LinkedIn catphish's confessions for further insight into the social engineering threat.)

US Federal employees are warned their Thrift Savings Plan accounts may be vulnerable to compromise.

Fresh ransomware (announcing itself with spoofed official warnings as lurid as they are implausible) infests Android.

European telco Orange warns that 1.3 million customers' personal data have been compromised in a breach (the second in three months).

Distributed denial-of-service attacks evolve into misdirection for quieter, more damaging attacks.

US companies retreat from doing security business in Russia as sanctions over Ukraine incursions begin to bite.

Retired US NSA director Alexander follows in his predecessor's media-friendly path. He approves Australia's blocking of Huawei, defends stockpiling of zero-days, and says Snowden may be under Russian control.

Tim Berners-Lee advocates an Internet Magna Carta. Curbs on bulk data collection move closer to a US House vote.