China's expansive island-building in the South China Sea has attracted hacktivist groups to that country's maritime and security authorities. China complains that this goes to show it's a victim in cyberspace.

Japan continues to recover from its recent pension system breach. Lieberman Software looks at the episode and sees an instance of an Asia-Pacific country's resistance to implementation of modern security measures.

The long-familiar "Microsoft Tech Support" is evolving, says Blue Coat — its approaches have grown marginally more plausible, and now extend to bogus provision of Mac help.

OpenDNS finds signs that clouds "in bad neighborhoods" are proving a potential source of IoT infections.

Users prove more easily fooled by phishing than they would like to think, and there are signs of terrorist groups phishing ways of striking their targets.

Britain's GCHQ warns UK businesses of a heightened tempo of cyber attack.

In industry news, Sophos prepares for an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. ARM considers buying Sansa as an IoT security play. F-Secure consolidates its position in the European market with acquisition of nSense. SpaceX's intellectual property self-defense efforts spawn Spikes Security, a new company in the cyber sector.

In the US, Congress passes (and the President signs) legislation enabling electronic surveillance in a curtailed form. Agencies will henceforth require court orders for bulk collection. Observers differ over how well the compromise will please any side, but some see the fundamental problem as one of trust.

Home Depot asks that breach lawsuits against it be dismissed.