Russian support for the Assad regime in Syria's civil war strikes observers as following patterns developed in Russia's incursions into Ukraine. Specifically, Russian forces are conducting a widespread cyber espionage campaign against the various groups (including, of course, ISIS) aligned against Assad. They're also shaping information on humanitarian disasters and the extent of Russian intervention.

Hezbollah's Qadmon hacking unit claims it's compromised a number of networked Israeli security cameras.

Joomla has become a target for ransomware purveyors, thought to be the group behind the "admedia" campaign that's afflicted WordPress sites.

Federal law enforcement agencies grapple toward an answer to ransomware even as the Android Xbot Trojan that Palo Alto described last week shows a dismaying convergence between ransomware and credential harvesting.

The JSF*** bug Check Point disclosed in eBay two weeks ago is now being exploited in the wild.

In industry news, businesses are advised to read their cyber policies carefully. A New York State court found that coverage of several upstate Five Guys restaurants specifically excluded losses from electronic data.

In the dispute between Apple and the Department of Justice over help unlocking an iPhone used by the San Bernardino jihadists, it's emerged that a San Bernardino County IT staffer reset the iPhone's iCloud credentials within hours of its seizure, apparently at the FBI's request. This has precluded the possibility of getting data the phone might have backed up to the cloud.

Both sides have their partisans; reactions are mixed. Industry generally favors Apple, the general public the FBI.