French security agencies warn that country's politicians to expect unwelcome attention in cyberspace. Eugene Kaspersky is delivering a similar message in Davos, telling the World Economic Forum to expect a range of cyberattacks during Europe's 2017 elections. The prime animal-of-interest, of course, according to ThreatConnect, CrowdStrike, and FireEye, remains Fancy Bear, of DNC hack fame.

Bleeping Computer has an interesting account of how malware authors are trolling security researchers on VirusTotal. In addition to conventional abusive trolling and defamation, they're also voting malware samples "harmless."

The Carbanak financial fraud gang is back, and according to Dark Reading quietly hiding its command-and-control within Google services.

Oracle releases its first quarterly security update of the year, and it's large—some 270 patches, ensuring continued employment for Oracle admins.

In M&A news, Bitdefender buys Profil, and Kudelski buys M&S Technologies. Microsoft acquires natural language processing shop Maluuba; Hewlett Packard Enterprise buys SimpliVity.

Australia's Prime Minister Turnbull opens an inquiry into the effects of the Yahoo! breaches on his government.

US President Obama, in his last week in office, pardons former Marine general Cartwright for his conviction of lying to investigators looking into Stuxnet leaks. He also commutes the sentence of Private Manning, convicted of giving classified information to WikiLeaks—Manning will leave prison in May after serving seven years of a thirty-year sentence. The pardon and commutation receive decidedly mixed reviews. It's unclear whether WikiLeaks' Julian Assange will honor his pledge to accept extradition to the US in the event of Manning's release.