Anonymous, having announced counter-jihad action #OpCharlieHebdo last week, appears over the weekend to have succeeded with a denial-of-service attack against the French-based Islamist site Ansar al Haqq. But (as Anonymous itself could well testify in other contexts) it's difficult to shut down online propaganda: witness the widespread dissemination of kosher-market killer Amedy Coulibaly's video avowal of fidelity to the caliphate, made before French police ended Coulibably's life, but distributed post mortem by Coulibably's sympathizers.
As authorities in France and elsewhere respond to the Islamist violence of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, they turn to the low-hanging fruit of cyber-intelligence. The US President and the UK's Prime Minister will soon meet to discuss even closer cooperation, and the US Attorney General calls for more international cyber intelligence and law enforcement collaboration. Defense intellectuals continue to debate what constitutes casus belli in cyberspace; the US NSA Director says cyber attacks should be met with "consequences."
North Korea's alleged involvement in the Sony hack prompts unusual scrutiny of the DPRK's home-grown (largely stolen) OS and browser. Researchers find them both vulnerable, with the additional fragility any monoculture carries.
Researchers find more commonalities among CosmicDuke, Miniduke and OnioDuke.
TorrentLocker ransomware crops up in Australia and New Zealand.
Google squabbles with White Hat over the security of the former's Aviator OS. Microsoft criticizes Google's open publication of vulnerabilities as hasty and irresponsible.
The Sony hack continues to spur cyber insurance growth. Some venture capitalists think the endpoint security market saturated. TechCrunch publishes leaked Palantir business documents.