Snowden: United States and Israel created the Stuxnet Virus that attacked Iran

The Stuxnet virus that decimated Iranian nuclear facilities was created by the NSA and co-written by Israel, Edward Snowden has confirmed. The whistleblower added the NSA has a web of foreign partners who pay “marginal attention to human rights.”

In an interview with Jacob Applebaum published in German daily Der Spiegel on Monday, Snowden stated that the US and Israel were behind the computer worm. Stuxnet infiltrated Iranian nuclear facility networks in 2009-2010 and was used to change the speed of thousands of gas-spinning centrifuges, sabotaging nuclear research.  

Washington and Tel Aviv were thought to have been behind the cyber-attack, however, this was never confirmed by either government. “The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together,” Snowden told Applebaum in the interview that was carried out in May.

Snowden stressed that the National Security Agency (NSA) often cooperates with foreign partners through a special body known as the Foreign Affairs Directorate (FAD). Referring to Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, also known as the ‘Five Eye Partners,’ he said their practices often go further than those of the NSA.

In particular he flagged the system used by the UK’s General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), TEMPORA as one of the worst offenders. “TEMPORA is the signals intelligence community's first ‘full-take’ internet buffer that doesn't care about content type and pays only marginal attention to the Human Rights Act,” said Snowden.

The UK buffer is able to hold a vast quantity of internet data for up to three days, said the whistleblower. “You should never send information over British lines or British servers. Even the Queen’s ‘selfies’ with her lifeguards would be recorded, if they existed.”

While Snowden conceded that monitoring abroad had its limits and the NSA has to prioritize the information it collects, he stressed that monitoring on its own territory was “practically limitless.” Private enterprise is also involved in the NSA’s mass collating of internet data, but proving their complicity is very difficult.

“The names of the cooperating telecom companies are the crown jewels of the NSA... Generally you can say that multinationals with headquarters in the USA should not be trusted until they prove otherwise,” Snowden pointed out.

When asked about how one could avoid falling into the traps of NSA surveillance, Snowden said anyone who had been targeted “was just owned.” The analyst charged with following an individual receives a report every day, meaning the “target's machine doesn't belong to them anymore, it belongs to the US government.”

Snowden’s interviewer, 30-year-old Jacob Applebaum, has also fallen foul of US law enforcement in the past. Applebaum co-wrote a book with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange detailing tips on how to evade cyber-surveillance while surfing the web.

The book called ‘Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet’, was also co-written by Jeremie Zimmermann and Andy Muller-Maguhn. Assange invited his co-authors on to the Julian Assange show, which aired on RT last year in March, to discuss cyber resistance.

“Two of them, besides myself, have been targeted by law enforcement agencies as a result of their work to safeguard privacy and to keep governments accountable. Their words, and their stories, need to be heard,” Assange told the New York Times.

The members of the Cypherpunks movement shared their stories with Julian Assange whilst sitting down to discuss the problems of privacy, online communication and freedom on the internet.

US citizen Edward Snowden is believed to be eluding an extradition order to the US on charges of espionage in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. Snowden has sent a number of applications for political asylum. Thus far Venezuela and Nicaragua have confirmed receipt of the applications, but are yet to grant asylum. However, Snowden is still unable to travel as his passport has been voided by the US authorities.

Russia Today

EU demands Clarification on US Espionage Acts on its Diplomats; Warns of Consequences

A new word ought to surface just as the United States got 'Romnesia' (a disease that makes you forget anything that makes you bad) during the Presidential debates and campaigns. Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, always did not usually remember anything he had said that contradicted him. There would probably be another cyber, internet and espionage coinage superior to Wikileaks; maybe termed 'Snowdenvirus' due to the recent leaks by Edward Snowden.

Snowden's new leak showed that the United States had been spying on European diplomats. Reacting to this, the president of the European parliament has demanded an explanation from US authorities over the latest revelation that EU diplomatic missions in Washington, New York and Brussels were under electronic surveillance from the NSA.

“I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices,” said the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. “If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.”

“On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations," he added. Meanwhile, Germany's justice minister also called for an immediate explanation from the United States saying the news that Washington bugged European Union offices was "reminiscent of the Cold War."

"It must ultimately be immediately and extensively explained by the American side whether media reports about completely disproportionate tapping measures by the US in the EU are accurate or not," Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement.

Other EU diplomats also expressed shock concerning the latest batch of revelations in the NSA leak, reported by Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday. "If these reports are true, it's disgusting,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Der Spiegel. "The United States would be better off monitoring its secret services rather than its allies,” Asselborn continued. “We must get a guarantee from the very highest level now that this stops immediately."

A spokesman for the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence had no comment on the Der Spiegel story, Reuters reported. Der Spiegel, quoting from a September 2010 "top secret" US National Security Agency (NSA) document leaked by former CIA employee Edward Snowden, reported on Saturday the NSA was eavesdropping on the EU’s internal computer networks in Washington, as well as at the 28-member bloc UN office in New York.

The German magazine also reported that five years ago, the NSA also targeted telecommunications at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home to the European Council, where all EU member states have their offices. Snowden, 30, fled the US for Hong Kong in May, just weeks before The Guardian and Washington Post published details he provided about a top-secret US government surveillance programme that accumulated internet and telephone traffic both at home and abroad.

The whistleblower is presently in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, where it is believed he is attempting to gain political asylum in Ecuador. Lode Vanoost, former deputy speaker of the Belgian parliament, believes that the main purpose of the US surveillance programme was “economic spying” on the EU.

“At the moment, the EU is negotiating a new free trade agreement with the United States,” the former deputy speaker noted. “On the economic level, [the US] is losing ground everywhere,” he said. “Look at what the BRIC countries are doing. The EU is having stronger ties with Russia, with Africa, with Latin America. And the US doesn’t seem to get its economic priorities imposed as it used to. So what I see is a big risk for economic spying.”

He added that there is “too much at stake” for there to be a total breakdown in US-EU bilateral relations, however, “behind closed doors there will be some very tough words” exchanged between EU and American officials.

Ecuador has revealed that the choosing and the safe landing of Snowden in any destination is in the hand of Russia. Russia seems to be the love, the land currently romanced by anybody dissatisfied with the condition and system of the obtainable in any Western nation as noticed in the case of the French actor, Gerard Depardieu, who recently received Russian citizenship in protest against high taxes in France. This has also been the case with anybody not comfortable with/in Russia.

China Slams the US; Amnesty International says Snowden Commits no Crime

China has taken a swipe at the US over its allegations that Beijing allowed NSA leaker Edward Snowden to leave Hong Kong. The spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party said  the US has gone from ‘model of human rights’ to manipulator of internet rights.

The damning article in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the party’s official newspaper, came in response to Washington’s accusations of the “deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant.”

Addressing Washington’s allegations, the People’s Daily wrote that China could not accept "this kind of dissatisfaction and opposition.”

"Not only did the US authorities not give us an explanation and apology, it instead expressed dissatisfaction at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for handling things in accordance with the law,” wrote Wang Xinjun, a researcher at the Academy of Military Science in the People's Daily commentary.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying also denounced the US accusations as "groundless and unacceptable.”

"It is unreasonable for the US to question Hong Kong's handling of affairs in accordance with law, and the accusation against the Chinese central government is groundless," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

The Hong Kong government released an official statement on Sunday, saying that US fugitive Edward Snowden had left the Chinese territory for Moscow legally and voluntarily. The statement also mentioned that the extradition documents submitted by the US on charges of espionage were not sufficient to warrant Snowden’s arrest under Chinese law.

The column praises the former CIA contractor for “his fearlessness that tore off Washington's sanctimonious mask."Snowden has been branded by the US as ‘traitor’ by US politicians for the leaking of classified documents to The Guardian newspaper that revealed the existence of the spy programme Prism.  

"In a sense, the United States has gone from a model of human rights to an eavesdropper on personal privacy, the manipulator of the centralised power over the international internet, and the mad invader of other countries' networks," the People's Daily said.

The case of Edward Snowden has captivated world media since he fled from the US in May. Although the fugitive’s whereabouts are unknown, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange confirmed to Russia Today that Snowden was en route to Ecuador via Moscow accompanied by WikiLeaks legal representative Sarah Harrison.

The whistleblower has applied for asylum in Ecuador and the country’s government confirmed that it is processing the application.

The US has called on all countries in the northern hemisphere to surrender Snowden to US jurisdiction and has resolved to seek cooperation from his destination country. However human rights organisation Amnesty International has launched an appeal, urging the US not to prosecute anyone who discloses data on US government human right violations.

"No one should be charged under any law for disclosing information of human rights violations by the US government. Such disclosures are protected under the rights to information and freedom of expression," said Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International.

In addition, the organization also stressed that an individual who has an asylum bid underway cannot legally be extradited.

Obama-Putin agree to settle scores in Geneva. Obama to boost aid to Syria and Neighbours

After the two leaders; Putin and Obama, central from the outside to the conflict in Syria met, they made the pledge after a 2 hour meeting at the G8 summit to push the sides of the conflict to the negotiating table in Geneva.

“We have agreed to push the sides of the Syrian conflict to come to the negotiating table at the international Geneva conference,” Putin said.

“On some points, we still have a different stance, but we are united by an aspiration to prevent violence, to put an end to the growing number of victims, to solve the problem by peaceful means, including through negotiations at the international conference at Geneva,” the Russian President added.

President Obama also conceded that he has a “different perspective” on Syria than his Russian counterpart, but confirmed that both countries have a shared interest in stopping the violence and “securing chemical weapons” in Syria.

“We do have differing perspectives on the problem but we share an interest in reducing the violence, securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they're neither used nor are they subject to proliferation,” Obama said. “We want to try to resolve the issue through political means if possible.”

President Obama is set to announce a further $300 million in new humanitarian aid to Syria, which will bring the total of US aid during the two-year civil war there to over $800 million. A little less than half of the new aid package will go to Syria itself, with the rest being sent to neighbouring countries harbouring Syrian refugees, the White House said on Monday.

The Obama administration had already declared that Assad’s government had crossed a red line when it looked like Assad was winning the war despite all efforts to pull him down. Obama claimed new classified evidence showed chemical weapons use by government forces. As a result, American officials went on the record supporting the idea of military aid to the Syrian insurgency.

US officials had already told Reuters that Washington was also reviewing the possibility of setting up a no-fly zone in Syria that would extend 40km into its territory and would be used as a safe haven for refugees and a platform to train rebels. Moscow spoke out against the US plan to aid the rebels, saying Kremlin officials were “unconvinced” by the US claim of evidence.

Apart from Syria, in the course of their nearly two-hour-long talks the presidents touched on a number of sensitive issues including Iran, nuclear security and the prevention of nuclear arms proliferation, as well as cyber security and cooperation in fighting terrorism.

“We spoke in detail about strategic security between the two countries and the world in general. I think that we have opportunities to move forward in the most sensitive areas,” Putin said.

The New Global War: Obama orders compilation of Global Cyber Targets

A top secret document has revealed President Barack Obama ordered national security leaders to compile a list of potential overseas “adversaries” for US cyber-attacks which could be targeted with “little or no warning”.

The 18-page, classified document, entitled Presidential Policy Directive 20, outlines plans for Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO), cyber-attacks which would target US adversaries around the world.

“OCEO can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging,” the Washington Post cites the document as saying.

“The United States government shall identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer favourable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power,” it continues.

The directive also mulls the potential use of cyber actions within the US, though any such operations must be conducted with prior authorisation of the White House, unless “it qualifies as an Emergency Cyber Action.”

Under the heading "Policy Reviews and Preparation", a section marked "TS/NF" - top secret/no foreign - states: "The secretary of defence, the DNI [Director of National Intelligence], and the director of the CIA … shall prepare for approval by the president through the National Security Adviser a plan that identifies potential systems, processes and infrastructure against which the United States should establish and maintain OCEO capabilities…," the Guardian reports. The deadline for the plan is six months after the approval of the directive.

It further recognises the potential for collateral damage in the wake of cyber operations, noting: “even subtle and clandestine operations, may generate cyber effects in locations other than the intended target, with potential unintended or collateral consequences that may effect [sic] US national interests in many locations.”

The document states that all cyber operations should conform with US and international law, noting that any operations which are "reasonably likely to result in significant consequences require specific presidential approval." The directive, which was distributed to virtually every high-ranking member of the US Executive, was first signed by President Obama in mid-October though it was never published.

In November, a senior administration official told the Post how the directive was part and parcel of the White House effort to delineate between what constitutes an “offensive” or “defensive” action in the mercurial world of cyber-war and cyber-terrorism. “What it does, really for the first time, is it explicitly talks about how we will use cyber-operations,” the official said. “Network defence is what you’re doing inside your own networks. . . . Cyber-operations is stuff outside that space, and recognising that you could be doing that for what might be called defensive purposes.”

Select statements from the memo were declassified in January, though no mention was made of US efforts to draw up a target list or bolster its offensive capability. When asked about efforts to ratchet up US offensive capabilities as outlined in the directive, a senior administration official told the Guardian: "Once humans develop the capacity to build boats, we build navies. Once you build airplanes, we build air forces."

The official added: "As a citizen, you expect your government to plan for scenarios. We're very interested in having a discussion with our international partners about what the appropriate boundaries are." Reports of the directive came as Chinese President Xi Jinping met with President Obama for an informal two-day summit in the resort city of Rancho Mirage, California on Friday.

In a bid to rebuff media reports that China regularly targeted the US military and corporations with cyber-attacks, President Xi told reporters with Obama at his side: “China is a victim of cyber-attacks and we hope that earnest measures can be taken to resolve this matter.”

Obama opted not to publicly accuse China of being behind a raft of cyber-attacks targeting US facilities and institutions. Rather, he called for “common rules of the road,” adding that China and the US should work together for a mutually beneficial cyber-security regime.

“As China continues in its development process and more of its economy is based on research and innovation and entrepreneurship, they’re going to have similar concerns, which is why I believe we can work together on this rather than at cross-purposes,” Obama said.

 Despite Obama’s reticence to challenge China, Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel recently issued a stern warning to China over its alleged cyber-attacks against the US: “We are also clear-eyed about the challenges in cyber. The United States has expressed our concerns about the growing threat of cyber intrusions, some of which appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military.”

Hagel’s comments came in the wake of a US Defence Science Board report which claimed around 40 Pentagon weapons programmes and almost 30 other defence technologies had been compromised by Chinese hackers, some purportedly tied to the military or government.

In April, Gen. Keith Alexander, who heads both the National Security Agency and the new Cyber Command, signaled that the United States would more aggressively counter cyber-attacks from abroad with offensive operations. Alexander told Congress that of 40 new CYBERCOM teams currently being assembled, 13 were being established to counter foreign cyber-attacks. Regarding the 13 teams of programmers and computer experts, the NSA chief stressed: “this defend-the-nation team, is not a defensive team.”

Anonymous, Syrian Electronic Army hack Turkish govt networks, leak emails including PM's

AFP Photo: Thomas Samson

Turkish government networks were hacked on Wednesday, compromising the private information of staffers in PM Tayyip Erdogan's office, a source in PM's office confirmed to Reuters. The attack was in support of the ongoing anti-government protests.

Staff email accounts were reportedly accessed after a phishing attack, and those affected were cut off from the network, a source said.

Anonymous hacked the Prime Minister’s official website (basbakanlik.gov.tr) and gained access to staff email addresses, passwords and phone numbers, the group said in a press release.

The group also stressed it will not share most of the hacked data because it “respects people's privacy” and “does not believe in the full use of power against the weak.”

At the same time, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) hacked the website of the Turkish Ministry of Interior (http://icisleri.gov.tr) and released more than 60 email addresses and passwords.

The SEA declared it also hacked other government websites, including dosya.icisleri.gov.tr.

On Sunday the hacktivist group Anonymous has taken down the Turkish President’s website, along with that of the country’s ruling party, as operation #OpTurkey kicked off in support of the anti-government protests.

As of 22:40 GMT, the website of President Abdullah Gul has been offline, together with the website of the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the websites for the Istanbul Directorate of Security and the Istanbul Governor’s Office.

The hacktivists earlier targeted municipal governments in Mersin and Izmir.

The operation was kicked off in response to the police crackdown of protests which have taken the country by storm. The Gebze Institute of Technology has also come under digital fire.

US and China to join forces on cyber-security

The first stage of US-China talks on hot-button issues in bilateral relations have ended, and no landmark decisions were announced. After over two hours of talks, US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping said the two nations agreed to closer cooperation on issues of cyber-security, and to improve military ties. 

Ahead of the talks, Washington repeatedly blamed Beijing for hacking attacks against US intelligence and industries.

Beijing has consistently denied it is waging cyber wars on Washington. Recently, Washington accused China of hacking into its systems and stealing vital military documents; charges Beijing immediately denied. 

Beijing stated that Washington was limiting the capacity and capability of Chinese to develop their own military industrial complex. It went further to say that Washington was insulting the intelligence of Chinese, that China does not need to spy on Washington for its military power.

New Cold-War?: FBI, Microsoft team up against global cyber-crime ring

Cyber espionage and cyber-attacks are the new form of waging sophisticated wars; hacking and stealing vital official secrets and documents and using it against targets in countries.

Kaspersky Lab recently uncovered a cyber espionage ring linked to China. The United States has been doing all within it capabilities to stem the tide with the latest being the partnership of Microsoft and FBI on cyber-crime.

Microsoft Corp. and the FBI, in cooperation with officials from more than 80 countries, have launched a major operation against one of the world's most powerful cyber-crime rings, believed to have stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months.

Microsoft said its Digital Crimes Unit on Wednesday successfully took down about 1,000 of an estimated 1,400 infected computer networks known as Citadel Botnets, which infected as many as 5 million PCs around the world and, according to Microsoft, were being used to steal from dozens of financial institutions.

The FBI told Reuters it is working closely with Europol and other overseas authorities in an effort to capture the unknown criminals. The FBI has obtained search warrants as part of what it called a "fairly advanced" criminal investigation.

China discovered to be involved in a string of Cyber Espionage Activities -Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab has discovered a years-long cyber-espionage operation that victimized hundreds of high-profile targets in 40 countries. The malware, known as NetTraveler, was used for covert computer surveillance and appears to have originated in China.

The Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Lab best known for exposing Flame and Stuxnet - sophisticated spywares launched by the US government - has uncovered a global cyber-espionage network targeting the world's diplomatic, government and military agencies.

In a report published on June 4 the malware that especially targeted Asian countries was identified as an “advanced persistent threat” similar to the Red October unveiled in January.

“Based on the collected intelligence, we estimate the [controlling] group side to about 50 individuals, most of which speak Chinese natively and have working knowledge of the English language,” the report said.

However, nowhere in the Kaspersky report is the Chinese government accused of any wrongdoing and only speculation links China to the infection software.

According to the report, NetTraveler was designed to "steal sensitive data as well as log keystrokes, and retrieve file system listings and various Office or PDF documents.”

The amount of stolen data discovered on the malware’s command-and-control servers exceeded 22 gigabytes, with that being a small fraction of the total data stolen since the rest of it was previously downloaded by the attackers and deleted from the servers.


The countries most frequently targeted by NetTraveler – Russia, India, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan – all border China. The first evidence of NetTraveler appeared in 2004, but the report said the most attacks came between 2010 and 2013.

Diplomats were targeted most often, followed by government workers, and high-level private officials then international military contractors. Tibetan/Uyghur activists and oil industry companies also ranked among the favourite targets.

The hackers did not use any advanced vulnerabilities and relied on phishing attacks, which often distribute infected links via email or social media.

“NetTraveler victims get infected through spear-phishing attacks using Office documents which exploit two publicly known vulnerabilities,” the report states with analysts surprised that such unsophisticated attacks can still be successful with high profile targets. “Although these vulnerabilities have been patched by Microsoft, they remain effective and are among the most exploited in targeted attacks.”

The researchers discovered that at least six NetTraveler targets – a Russian military contractor, a government organization in Tajikistan, and embassies in Belgium, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Belarus – were previously hacked by the Red October campaign that was likely launched from Eastern Europe. Kurt Baumgartner, a senior security researcher for the Americas on the Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky, told DarkReading.com the attempts from separate phishing schemes indicates those locations are highly valued.

“Threat actors infiltrate victims simultaneously and may or may not be concerned about victim overlap,” he said. “Most likely, with these two groups in particular, the operators have a specific set of tasks at the victim organizations. If they happen to see another piece of malware on the target network, and it doesn’t interrupt their operation, they just go back to completing their assignments.”

Courtesy: Russian Times

Will the United States attack China?

'On the outskirts of Shanghai, in a run-down neighborhood dominated by a 12-story white office tower, sits a People’s Liberation Army base for China’s growing corps of cyberwarriors,' according to the New York Times.

'The building off Datong Road, surrounded by restaurants, massage parlours and a wine importer, is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398. A growing body of digital forensic evidence — confirmed by American intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of the army unit for years — leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around the white tower.'

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood,” according to the New York Times.

The real issue to the attack is the US' Rules of Engagement in Cyberwarfare. In the days of David Patraeus, Pentagon and Washington drafted counter-responses to cyberattacks and foremost among the responses is a high chance and possibility of military strikes.

The Rules of Engagement as propounded by Pentagon targeted Iran majorly. Washington as at then believed the series of cyberattacks on the US was coming from Iran till experts proved the fictitious fact wrong.

Washington and Pentagon in the formulation of the Rules of Engagement were so abrasive. It was at the time when Israel was making heinous and calculative moves to launch an attack on Iran and bring Washington in.

Now that China is 'behind' the attacks though the allegation has been denied by the Chinese embassy in Washington, will the United States in the long run go ahead and fulfil the mission of her Rules of Engagement by attacking China?

Cyber Rules on the Rise in Europe and the US

Cyber warfare, crime and security is assuming a muscular dimension in the world. Different rules flow from the United States down to Europe. The war seems to have been taken to the media and financial institutions fully.

 

New York Times, Bloomberg News and Associated Press have all complained of cyber attacks especially from China. The US rules of engagement on cyberattack tilts towards military response.

 

On the part of the EU, over 40,000 firms, including energy providers, banks and hospitals could be required to report cyber-break-ins under new rules proposed by the EU.

It is part of a move to intensify global efforts to fight cybercrime.

Digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes said that Europe needed to improve how it dealt with cybersecurity.

But firms are concerned that reporting online attacks and security breaches might damage their reputations.

The EU is keen that member states share information about attacks and shore up their cyber-defences.

Under the proposals, each country would have to appoint a Computer Emergency Response Team and create an authority to whom companies would report breaches.

These new bodies would decide whether to make the breaches public and whether to fine companies.

Announcing the changes, Ms Kroes said: "Europe needs resilient networks and systems and failing to act would would impose significant costs on consumers, businesses and society."

According to the EU, only one in four European companies has a regularly-reviewed, formal ICT security policy. Even among ICT companies, the figure is only one in two, it said.

A recent study by accountants PwC suggested that three quarters of UK small businesses, and 93% of large ones, had recently suffered a cybersecurity breach.

Cyberattacks: Iran and the US

Experts in the United States have confirmed that Iran may not really be behind the wave of cyberattacks on US' banks. Much of the evidences available do not point to Tehran as a culprit. Iran for long has continued to deny any allegation she is involved in any cyberattack on the United States. The defence seems to be genuine.   Read More