After LinkedIn, Last.Fm and eHarmony, now it’s TechRadar’s turn to admit that cybercriminals have gained access to its user database. As a result of the attack, usernames, encrypted passwords, email addresses and birth dates have been stolen.

“Our IT team has identified the cause of the problem and has taken action to rectify it,” Nick Merritt, publisher at TechRadar, explained.

In the meantime, the forums have been shut down and will remain that way until the company’s representatives are certain that all the security holes are properly patched up.

Impacted customers will be contacted and advised to change all the passwords that are similar to the ones used to protect their TechRadar accounts

Both Visa and MasterCard, have warned that their cardholders’ account information may have been put at risk when a third-party processor of card transactions reported that its systems had been breached.

Both companies alerted card issuers regarding accounts that may have been affected. Visa said card account information from “all major card brands” may have been affected.

The breach occoured at Globlal Payments (Atlanta) who said on Friday that they determined in early March that the card data had been accessed. The Federal law agencies were informed.

The new chief executive of Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry smartphones, signalled that he would be open to selling the company after it posted another catastrophic set of sales figures and plunged into the red.

Revenues over the past three months, including the Christmas period when rival Apple sold millions of iPhones and iPads, were down 25 per cent, RIM said last night.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/blackberry-maker-rim-open-to-selling-as-revenues-slump-by-25-per-cent-7601293.html

The European Commission proposed on the 28th March to the establishment of a new European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) at Europol in The Hague, which will become the focal point in the EU’s fight against cybercrime. The Centre, which will be operational by 1 January 2013, will pool expertise and information, support criminal investigations and promote EU-wide solutions, while raising awareness of cybercrime issues across the Union.

In addition to the analytical and operational support already provided by Europol, the European Cybercrime Centre will serve as the European information hub on cybercrime, developing cutting edge digital forensic capabilities to support investigations in the EU and building capacity to combat cybercrime through training, awareness raising and delivering best practice on cybercrime investigations.

In addition, the Centre will build a community of experts from all sectors of society to combat and prevent cybercrime and online child sexual abuse.

https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/press/european-cybercrime-centre-be-established-europol-1417

Less than four years ago, Huawei Technologies and Symantec teamed up to develop computer network security products.

The joint venture is being dismantled because Symantec fear that the alliance with the Chinese company would prevent it from obtaining United States government classified information about cyberthreats.

It is just natural that the West is suspicious about Huawei when dealing with national security critical infrastructures.

"Huawei [is] disappointed by a government decision to exclude the Chinese company from the 36 billion Australian dollar (US$37.6 billion) National Broadband Network over reported concerns about cyberattacks from China."

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Computer hackers claiming to be from the loose-knit group known as Anonymous say they have broken into several Alabama law enforcement and government websites and have stolen the personal information for more than 46,000 people.

In an online news release Friday, the group claimed to have taken Social Security numbers, license plate numbers, phone numbers, addresses and criminal records.