The hacktivist group, which has been hammering U.S. banks since late last year, has now expanded attacks to other financial services companies

The latest targeted attack, on Chinese activists, shows how cybercriminals are broadening their tactics in going after individuals

The Federal Trade Commission today said it has filed eight court cases to stop companies who have sent over 180 million illegal or deceptive text messages to all manner of mobile users in the past year.

A press feeding frenzy followed the somewhat vague April Fools Day announcement by Epsilon Data Management that someone had hacked into its systems and stolen a bunch of email addresses. The addresses were of people who had "opted in" for email marketing by a bunch of major vendors such as Target and Red Roof Inns, and many of the vendors sent announcements of the breach to their customers (I got such an announcement from a vendor I had purchased a present from for my wife. The announcement did not say all that much, essentially it told me to "be careful".).

There is a raging war in cyberspace. Hackers launch attacks for various objectives: hacktivism, extortion, fraud, or espionage. Targets may be random or targeted. It's only a matter of when one will fall victim to an attack

'Tis the season to begin ramping up online shopping activity, and for retailers that means doing all they can to ensure their websites are up, highly available and able to handle peak capacity. Looming in many IT managers' minds is the cautionary tale of Target, whose website crashed twice after it was inundated by an unprecedented number of online shoppers when the retailer began selling clothing and accessories from high-end Italian fashion company Missoni.