 Cyberattacks exploded in number during 2012, and it’s unlikely that the trend will stop at the end of the year. Numerous new reports predict that 2013 will be worse then 2012, although the degree of the problem varies by the predictor. Two new reports out this week focus on the problems coming to the mobile scene.
The 2013 Malware Forecast
Mobile malware may not seem like much of a problem right now, but security experts are predicting that to change significantly over the coming year.
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 Chinese President Xi Jinping and American counterpart Barack Obama will talk cyber-security this week in California, but experts say the state’s Silicon Valley and its signature high-tech firms should provide the front lines in the increasingly aggressive fight against overseas hackers.
With China seeking to grow its economy and expand its technology base, companies such as Facebook, Apple, Google and Twitter are inviting targets. In fact, all have been attacked and all point the finger at China, which has denied any role.
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 He’s helped protect enemies of the United States, yet counts the FBI as a client. Monica Attard meets Eugene Kaspersky, the former communist youth-wing member turned computer-security giant.
He’s a virus killer whose name can be found inside tens of millions of computers worldwide – and he sees vistas of cyber-warfare everywhere he looks. The FBI trusts him, even though he also counts Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, as a client. Given that Eugene Kaspersky’s company, Kaspersky Lab, is well on its way to becoming the dominant player in the world of computer security, it’s perhaps not surprising that the 47-year-old Muscovite believes that cyber-crime, in all its hues, is currently the biggest threat facing the global economy. It’s big business.
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Philippines’ Department of Justice (DOJ) is planning to propose changes to the country’s cybercrime law which will exclude controversial provisions such as online libel. However, an Internet freedom group has described the proposal as “half-baked”.
The DOJ will recommend the act excludes online libel as well as the empowerment of governments to shut down Web sites suspected of violating the law, Geronimo Sy, head of the DOJ’s cybercrime office said, at the 3rd regional cybercrime conference in Manila, GMA News Online reported on Friday.
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 In a statement issued last Friday, India’s Planning Commission introduced the authentication services using a person’s iris and mobile one-time pin (OTP).
UIDAI Chairman Shri Nandan Nilekani added in the statement: “This is a major step in the direction of enabling Aadhaar holders to [access] various services by using the Aadhaar identity platform. It also makes sense for various user agencies, both public or private, as they can identify a beneficiary or customer using a fast, secure, economical and paperless format.”
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Internal document from the Drug Enforcement Administration complains that messages sent with Apple’s encrypted chat service are “impossible to intercept,” even with a warrant.
Encryption used in Apple’s iMessage chat service has stymied attempts by federal drug enforcement agents to eavesdrop on suspects’ conversations, an internal government document reveals.
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Hacking collective Anonymous has apparently selected its next high-profile target, in the shape of any sites or social network accounts related to North Korea, seizing control of Flickr and Twitter pages in the process. The activists cracked the Uriminzokkiri accounts and uploaded images of their own, which still remain online at time of writing, in addition to claiming to have extracted 15,000 usernames and passwords from the site, the BBC reports. Anonymous’ goal appears to be loosening the restrictions on internet access North Koreans face from their government.
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 More than 75,000 requests were made by police forces around the world for data on Microsoft users in 2012.
The figures were revealed in Microsoft’s first transparency report which detailed how often police forces sought data to aid investigations.
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 Memorizing numerous passwords is inconvenient. This is known. To counteract said inconvenience, many people use memorable (read: hackable) passwords on multiple sites. Which is a shame because security experts advise that, at a minimum, we use different, random, alpha-numeric strings for every website and switch them out every few months. Kind of the opposite of convenient. And even this method provides but a fig leaf of security.
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A sophisticated scheme to use a casino’s own security systems against it has netted scammers $33m in a high-stakes poker game after they were able to gain a crucial advantage by seeing the opposition’s cards.
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