Kaspersky rules out IPO – should the others?
Kaspersky Labs is one of a group of European IT security companies that has been talking about floating since at least 2007. But Eugene Kaspersky, the company’s founder and majority shareholder, has now announced the company is planning to stay private after all.
He is buying back the 20 per cent stake General Atlantic bought in the company a year ago, and preserving all the freedom and flexibility that unlisted status affords. Read more
Resellers rethinking RSA
So it begins. Infosec, a UK-based IT security company has said it will no longer be selling RSA’s SecurID tokens, following news that the authentication devices had been hacked and used in an attack against defence contractor Lockheed Martin. Read more
Little US action as industrial spying surges
In the year since Google revealed that some of its prize intellectual property had been stolen by hackers it associated with the Chinese government, the private sector and the FBI have increased their efforts on cybersecurity. But it isn’t nearly enough, according to outside experts including an influential panel of advisors. Read more
Facebook beefs up security after Zuck hack
Facebook is to offer its users greater security when they log in, after the social network’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy suffered hacking attacks. Read more
Gawker Media hack exposes emails and passwords
Normally in the business of making others embarrassed, Nick Denton’s Gawker Media empire had some awkward explaining to do itself on Monday after hackers breached the database containing hundreds of thousands of usernames and passwords that people used to comment on the sites in the network.
Gawker executives, who had initially denied the breach, were forced to reverse course and apologise after the hackers posted a large batch of the passwords online. The intruders also took Gawker’s own source code and perused internal chats and employee e-mails, which in turn provided log-in credentials for Google Apps, taking a similar trajectory to the 2009 electronic break-in at Twitter that unearthed sensitive financial information. Read more
“Koobface” botnet earns operators $2m a year
One of the best-known networks of compromised personal computers, assembled largely through deceptive web links sent from Facebook accounts, earns its proprietors about $2m a year.
That’s one of the conclusions in a study released Friday by Information Warfare Monitor researcher Nart Villeneuve, who won access to archives of the software that the Russian criminals used to control the program known as Koobface, which is an anagram of Facebook. Read more
Russian hacking ring specialises in counterfeit checks
Most of the organised hacking rings aiming at bank fraud these days are stealing login credentials and then taking advantage of the relatively recent opportunities provided by online account access, wire transfers and other means for mis-shipping electronic funds.
But a newly discovered Russian group was using networks of compromised personal computers and techniques for hacking into databases to write $9m in counterfeit checks, thought until now to be the purview mainly of old-time loners. Read more
Free and easy computer security
Personal Tech in the FT’s Business Life section this week takes a look at anti-virus software:
Add one certainty to death and taxes. If you connect a PC to the internet, sooner rather than later it will become the target of a virus or other internet malware. In defence, most PC users install anti-virus software and a firewall or a combination of the two in the form of an integrated – or comprehensive – internet security suite. Read more
Thousands of hacked Hotmail passwords posted
More than 10,000 user names and passwords for Hotmail and other Microsoft services were anonymously posted over the weekend at a free site for programmers, it was reported Monday, prompting security experts to recommend that users change their passwords.
Microsoft said it was investigating the posting to a coding site called pastebin.com, which hinted at a much bigger password collection: according to tech news site Neowin.net, the account names all started with A or B. Read more
Cyber-attack investigation has leads but no suspects
The probe of the cyber-attacks on US and South Korean websites last week has turned up a number of suspected command computers, including a possible “master” server in the UK.
But researchers assisting the US government in the unusually intense inquiry still put the odds of an arrest at well under 20 per cent. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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