Iranian cyber operators continue to probe US networks with social-media enabled espionage attempts against the State Department.

In Southwest Asia, Turkish hacktivists express their support for Turkey's downing of a Russian combat aircraft along the Syrian border with a takedown of the Russian Central Bank website. (Russia's President Putin has called Turkey a de facto ally of ISIS.)

And north, in the Caucasus, cyber-rioting flares up as Armenian hackers steal bank info from Azerbaijan.

Investigations into the Paris attacks continue, as do inquiries into ISIS recruitment, which seems very much a friends-and-family affair, despite widespread legitimate concern over ISIS's mass appeal.

The Anonymous war on ISIS appears to be fizzling out, despite ongoing media speculation about how the hacktivist collective could degrade jihadist command-and-control. Observers express skepticism that taking down ISIS sites will help, much: one might look to China's Great Firewall (recently bulked up to block VPN use in the hinterlands) as a cautionary example of how effective that approach can be.

The crypto debates continue, post-Paris.

Pearson VUE's Credential Management System has been compromised through a third-party, and malware injected into the system. It's been taken offline pending remediation.

The eDellroot self-signed certificate issue attracts more scrutiny. Criminals are expected to seek to exploit corporate users first, and the vulnerability raises the general risk of man-in-the-middle attacks for everyone, whether they're working on a Dell or not. There are also other problematic certificates in the machines: Duo Security has found two.

Crimeware infestations surge as the holidays arrive.