US authorities investigate what they take to be Russian intelligence services' information operations. These include selective feeding of hacked material to various websites, some of the legitimately independent, some of them fronts, others not obviously either. Observers note a studied ambiguity in Russia about how such material is obtained. The FBI is also said to have opened an investigation of attempts to compromise political figures' phones.

As evidence surrounding the MH17 shootdown increasingly points to Russian culpability, ThreatConnect finds that Fancy Bear (the widely used handle for Russia's GRU) has been "actively targeting" Bellingcat, a journalistic organization that's contributed to the MH17 investigation.

Very large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks continue. KrebsOnSecurity has recovered thanks to Project Shield, but an even larger IoT-based attack is said to have hit OVH hosting. It's hard to patch things, as the Register observes, even harder when the things in the network are at the end of their lifecycle.

Yahoo's security practices draw sharp criticism from observers who argue that marketing decisions drove the struggling Internet giant to take fatal shortcuts. (One example—not requiring password resets for fear of driving away email customers.)

TheDarkOverlord, whoever that is, is back, and seeking to extort ransom from Los Angeles investment bank WestPark Capital. TheDarkOverlord says he'll release sensitive documents if he's not paid, and has offered a teaser of what he has. Flashpoint believes at least thirteen organizations would be harmed by the doxing.

The RIG exploit kit continues to take marketshare in the malvertising souk.