Week in Security: More Wikileaks Fallout, Cybersecurity Buzz and Browser Updates

The words “cyber war” were in the headlines this week, as controversy and debate about the leak of confidential diplomatic cables by Wikileaks reached a fever pitch. As speculation turned to the fallout from the ongoing publication of documents, the U.S. government laid the groundwork to prevent...

Dutch Arrest 16 Year Old for Wikileaks Attack

Dutch authorities issued a statement Thursday saying that a 16 year old boy has been taken into custody for involvement in attacks against the Web sites of Mastercard and Visa. The boy, who was not named, was due to be arraigned by a judge in Rotterdam on Friday. The arrest is the first known...

Dutch Police Arrest 16-Year-Old for Pro-WikiLeaks Cyber Attacks

Dutch authorities announced the arrest of a 16-year-old hacker involved in the pro-WikiLeaks attacks on the websites of MasterCard and PayPal. The Dutch National Prosecutors Office reported that the teen, whose name was not disclosed, was arrested by a high-tech crime team last night. The arrest...

Twitter Locks Out Wikileaks DDoS Group As Attacks Spread

Twitter has suspended the account used by Anonymous, an umbrella group of online hacker-activists that have claimed responsibility for denial of service DoS attacks on Visa, MasterCard, Paypal and a host of other public and private entities who have taken action against Wikileaks and its founder,...

Hackers Target MasterCard and Visa in Support of WikiLeaks

Hackers rushed to defend WikiLeaks on Wednesday, launching attacks on MasterCard, Visa, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank, and others who acted against the site and its jailed founder, Julian Assange. Internet "hacktivists" under the banner "Operation Payback" claimed responsibility in a Twitter...

Wikileaks Roundup: Assange Arrested, Visa, MC Cut Ties

OK. It’s been just over a week since information leaking Web site Wikileaks released the first installment of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, with each day bringing new documents from the purported hoard of some 250,000 pages, and new developments from a range of very pissed off Western government...

Heartland Settles with MasterCard

Heartland Payment Systems has made a third settlement deal, this time with MasterCard, related to a massive data breach two years ago at the card payments processor. As part of the deal, Heartland has agreed to pay as much as $41.1 million to MasterCard issuers that lost money. Read the full...

3D Secure Authentication Taken to Task

Researchers at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, say the 3D Secure 3DS authentications system branded as the “Verified by Visa” and “MasterCard SecureCode” schemes are “a text book example of how not to design an authentication protocol.” Read the full article. The H Security...

MasterCard to Require On-Site Audits for Small Shops

From Computerworld Jaikumar Vijayan In a move that is unlikely to sit well with many merchants, MasterCard has quietly changed a key security requirement for all businesses handling between 1 million and 6 million card transactions annually. Starting Dec 31, 2010 companies that fall into this...

Data-sniffing attack costs Heartland $12.6m

From The Register Dan Goodin Electronic payments processor Heartland Payment Systems said Thursday it has allocated $12.6m to cover a security breach that exposed sensitive card holder data crossing its network. More than half that amount involves a fine MasterCard has assessed banks that did...