It's hard -- although admittedly not impossible -- to have too much cloud storage space. It's possible that you were hit by the loss of Google Drive bonus storage last year, but now you have a chance to claw back an extra 2GB of space free of charge.

To celebrate, or perhaps promote, Safer Internet Day (what's that? 9 February is devoid of such a reminder in your calendar?!) Google is inviting people to perform a Security Check-up. It takes just a matter of moments, but as a reward for your time, you can bag yourself some extra space.

The latest bank in the UK to fall victim to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was HSBC. It claimed that no customer data was compromised. In July last year, RBS and NatWest were also hit by DDoS attacks, which flooded their websites with traffic, temporarily shutting them down. This resulted in bad publicity and complaints from many customers. Fortunately, customer accounts were not compromised so the bad publicity was all the damage the attack caused.

DDoS attacks, where bad guys flood a website with so much work that they fold under the pressure, aren’t even strictly a security issue on their own. Unless the DDoS is part of a recipe to steal stuff, it’s a nuisance that is more about someone flexing their muscles than doing damage. Luckily in the cases of RBS, NatWest, and HSBC, no data was stolen; however, they do raise the question of whether online banking is secure. So is there a security issue at hand?

The energy industry is mostly unprepared for cyber-threats, a new study by Tripwire suggests.

The global provider of advanced threat, security and compliance solutions announced these results in a study conducted for it by Dimensional Research. The study looked at cyber-security challenges faced by organizations in the energy sectors, and includes answers from more than 150 IT professionals.

Technology website BleepingComputer is being sued by Enigma Software (ESG) over a negative review of its SpyHunter antimalware software. In fact, it's not really a review that has caused Enigma Software to start complaining about "false, disparaging, and defamatory statements", but a thread on its forums.

The lawsuit also suggests that BleepingComputer is "driving traffic and sales to Malwarebytes and driving traffic and sales away from ESG" (Bleeping Computer runs an affiliate program involving Malwarebytes) The timing of this is interesting, as it comes at the same time as the European Court of Human Rights ruled that website owners are not responsible for comments posted by readers.

At a time where cyber security is infiltrating the consciousness of consumers and businesses alike, finding the right balance between security and convenience has never been more important.

To that end, digital identity and credentials firm Intercede has launched RapID, a new security solution that delivers password and token free access to cloud services from mobile applications.

Security problems are not new to Java, though it is, admittedly, not the only platform that suffers from these problems. Now Oracle has acknowledged a new hole and it is bad enough to issue an out of cycle emergency patch.

With the catchy name of CVE-2016-0603, the security flaw requires the user to access a malicious website and accept the download of Java version 6, 7 or 8 in order to become infected. However, for those who fall for it, the attack will allow for a total compromise of the system.

Many IT teams all over the world acknowledge the fact that a secure way to store and share files, both internally (within a company) and externally is extremely important. However, many IT teams also lack the proper tools to do so.

Those are the results of a latest survey by Ipswitch, after asking 555 IT professionals across the globe about their file sharing habits.

The reason Microsoft has given for pushing Windows 10 so aggressively is it wants to get users to a "safe place". Very altruistic. Although there’s no excuse for forcing users to upgrade in the manner that it has.

Still, there’s no questioning that Windows 10 is Microsoft’s safest operating system to date and to help sell the security benefits, the software giant has put together a web page detailing how the OS can protect you from modern security threats.

Last year’s Super Bowl brought in over  114.5 million viewers worldwide, and chances are even more are gearing up to watch the big game this weekend (we’ll let you decide if it’s for the football or the commercials). While much of the focus should be on the big screen broadcasting the plays, it’s inevitable that viewers will pull their phones out of their pockets throughout the game. With 52 percent of smartphone owners reporting that they check their devices several times an hour or more frequently, and the Super Bowl typically lasts about four hours, it’s almost a given that you’ll be looking at your mobile device at some point during the game.

Social networking apps will probably take up the most time on the phone screen, as last year’s Super Bowl saw more than 28.4 million global tweets, making #SB49 the most tweeted Super Bowl ever. Facebook also boasted some impressive stats, with more than 65 million people posting about the game, including 55 million from the U.S. alone. During the final play of the game (which sealed the deal for a win for the Patriots), over 1.3 million unique people per minute were active on Super Bowl-related content.

After months of negotiations, this week saw the European Commission (EC) announce a replacement to Safe Harbor after it was declared invalid in October 2015.

The new framework, dubbed the EU-US Privacy Shield, has been put in place to protect the rights of Europeans when their data is transferred to the United States and ensure legal certainty for businesses.

Widely used by cyber criminals to introduce malware onto systems, the Dridex banking trojan has been subject to a number of high profile investigations, and a takedown by US authorities last year.

These things don't stay dead for long, however, and Dridex is back in business. But in an interesting new twist it seems that the Dridex botnet has been hijacked to deliver the free Avira antivirus program rather than its more usual malicious payload.

There are numerous ways to keep your smartphone safe from prying eyes, and a lock screen protected with a passcode is a popular choice. But a newly discovered vulnerability in iOS 8 and iOS 9 means that iPhones and iPads could be accessed by attackers.

The vulnerability was discovered by security analyst Benjamin Kunz Mejri and it has been assigned a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) count of 6.0, as well as a 'high' severity rating. Apple has been aware of the issue since late last year, but has yet to issue a patch.

The good guys over at Context Information Security have cracked Motorola’s outdoor security camera just to point out how the Internet of Things is still a completely unsecure industry that needs serious work.

The camera that got cracked was the Motorola Focus 73, and not only did the researchers manage to get inside, but they also managed to obtain the home network’s Wi-Fi password, take full control of the camera’s movement and even redirect the video feed.

Choosing between the wallet and the smartphone, the majority of Brits would rather have their wallet stolen, a new research by the Ponemon Institute and Lookout has found.

But that’s not because of the smartphone’s quality, value or price. It’s what’s inside that counts.

With its well-known habit of uncompromising surveillance, the NSA has earned itself something of a poor reputation among internet users. But while the spying side of the agency is what it is most famous for, it is actually made up of two different divisions: offensive and defensive.

Later this week the NSA is expected to announce an internal restructuring that will see the two divisions merging. This presents the agency with an interesting predicament: does it continue to work to fight the efforts of hackers, or does it adopt hacker-like techniques to help gather data? Experts says that the merger is a mistake, largely because the aim and modus operandi of the two departments are diametrically opposed.