It is now normal for technology companies, media and telecom companies to be victims of either fraud or cyber-attacks, a new Kroll report says.

Almost four-fifths (79 percent) of companies were victims of fraud in the last year, with physical assets or stock being most sought after (35 percent). Cyber-attacks were no less dangerous, with 77 percent claiming to have been victims. These attacks are mostly virus or worm infections.

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According to a new report from security awareness training company Wombat Security, people are starting to get the message on phishing.

When asked, 'What is phishing?', 65 percent of those surveyed in the US answered correctly. Ransomware remains a bit of a mystery for many, however, 52 percent were not even able to hazard a guess in response to 'what is ransomware?'

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Gemalto has just issued a report which clearly shows how lenient we are when it comes to protecting our private data on the Internet. In short, we are very quick to give companies our personal data, we want them to safeguard it, but we’re pretty certain they’re doing a terrible job at it.

Gemalto has polled 9,000 consumers in the following countries: Australia, Benelux, France, Germany, Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States. Almost three quarters (70 percent) claim organizations are responsible for securing customer data. Just 30 percent believe the responsibility lies with them.

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Despite widespread concern about the security of mobile and IoT applications, organizations are ill-prepared for the risks they pose, according to new research.

The study from threat prevention company Arxan Technologies, IBM Security  and the Ponemon Institute reveals that 60 percent of respondents believe it’s either certain or likely their organization has experienced a material data breach or cyber attack over the past 12 months that was caused by an insecure mobile app.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation has set out its plans for the first 100 days under Trump, during which time it says it will continue to fight for the rights of internet and technology users.

The digital rights group has already drawn up a wishlist for covering its privacy and security dreams for 2017, but the 100-day plan sees the EFF setting out its agenda for the first few months under Trump. Having claimed that "our civil liberties need an independent defense force" and that "free speech and the rights to privacy, transparency, and innovation won’t survive on their own", EFF is prepared to go to court -- again -- to hold the new administration to account when necessary.

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The UK's National Health Service is being targeted by ransomware according to a new study which shows that 30 percent of NHS Trusts have suffered an attack, potentially placing patient data and lives at risk.

The findings come from a Freedom of Information Act study conducted by endpoint security company SentinelOne. It submitted FOI requests to 129 NHS Trusts, of which 94 responded.

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An 81 percent drop recorded in Locky ransomware infections in December is thought to be down to the cyber criminals behind the malware taking a Christmas break.

Threat prevention company Check Point recorded the big drop in Locky infections as part of an eight percent overall decrease in the number of recognized malware attacks on organizations in December.

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Security breaches and data leaks are, obviously, a major concern, but they do have something of a silver lining. Leaks of passwords may open up the risk of individual accounts being targeted, but they also serve as a fascinating insight into the level of security people use for online services.

We all know someone who insists on using 'password' as their password, or something equally insecure such as '123456'. Keeper Security has published a list of the most common passwords used in 2016, and these old favorites remain firmly placed in the top 10. But there are a few surprises along the way, such as the weird popularity of '18atcskd2w'.

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Cellebrite -- the Israeli security company famed for helping the FBI crack the iPhone at center of the San Bernardino case -- has been hit by hackers. The attack resulted in the theft of 900GB of data.

While the website Motherboard -- which was handed a copy of the data -- reports that "the cache includes customer information, databases, and a vast amount of technical data regarding Cellebrite's products", the company has downplayed the incident.

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Earlier today we reported about a security problem in WhatsApp that means it is possible for messages to be intercepted and read by others. The so-called 'backdoor' takes advantage of the fact that WhatsApp's implementation of end-to-end encryption makes it possible to resend encrypted messages using different security keys, allowing for third parties to read them.

What is concerning many people is the fact that (by default, at least) WhatsApp does not alert users when a message is resent using a different key -- which would be a warning of something going on. Here's what you need to do to ensure you are told when the key changes.

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Facebook has long-claimed that its WhatsApp messaging service is completely secure and messages cannot be intercepted thanks to its use of end-to-end encryption. But researchers have unearthed what they call a serious security flaw that makes it possible to read encrypted messages.

Based on Open Whisper Systems' Signal Protocol, the unique security keys used to implement end-to-end encryption should keep messages secure. But WhatsApp can force offline users to generate new keys and this could allow Facebook -- and third parties -- to read messages.

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Ransomware was the number one way hackers attacked businesses in 2016, a new report by Radware confirms. Entitled Global Application and Network Security Report 2016-2017, it says 49 percent of European businesses confirmed cyber-ransom as the biggest motivator last year.

That basically represents a 100 percent increase compared to a year before, when it stood at 25 percent.

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The latest reports on the data breach revelations at Yahoo, suggest that the company lost data for more than one billion users as far back as August 2013 and that the data is suspected to contain names, email addresses, hashed passwords, security questions and associated answers. In addition, Yahoo has stated that the attackers have accessed Yahoo proprietary code used to generate cookies for user access without credentials.

This major breach raises a number of questions, including: why did it take so long to identify and notify authorities about it? What are the implications for Yahoo users? What might this mean for Yahoo going forward? And what can other companies learn from these events?

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The European Union is not happy with the explanation Yahoo has given for scanning user emails for US intelligence. There is concern about how such surveillance could impact upon not only privacy, but also business between the EU and US, and trust has to be built from scratch as Donald Trump becomes president.

Yahoo -- which is on the verge of being sold to Verizon -- is not signed up to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement that blocks the US from spying on European data. As such, the company has been acting on a previously-secret court order, gathering data for the NSA and FBI. Speaking with Reuters, the EU Justice Commissioner said she wants more information about what was gathered and why.

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Traditional security solutions rely on detecting an attack based on existing information, which allows zero-day threats to slip through the net.

Israel-based Nyotron is launching a new generation of its PARANOID security platform designed to block attacks before they occur, regardless of threat type or method used to access the network.

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