SECURITY

In the past few months, hackers have enjoyed a swelling of fame while their hits have suffered hurt customer credibility and financial loss. Now it's Citibank's turn.

Citigroup does not know how the computer breach revealed Thursday which affected hundreds of thousands of its credit card customers took place, but such an event fell in line with a risk the company outlined to shareholders in its publicly available annual report in March.

Contrary to State Department policy, economic aid may not prevent Pakistanis from turning to militant radicalism.

Banking giant Citibank has confirmed that credit card data of about 200,000 North American customers have been hacked, the latest in a string of cyber attacks.

Citigroup confirmed a security breach at Citi Account Online, which was discovered by the authorities recently during a routine monitoring. The names, account numbers and contact information, including email addresses of the customers have been compromised. More critical information like date of birth, social security numbers, card expiration date and card security code (CVV) have not been accessed by the hackers, Citi said.

India successfully test-fired surface-to-surface nuclear capable Prithvi II ballistic missile in the eastern state of Orissa on Thursday.

Companies using the Internet to do business should adhere to a code of conduct to reduce hacking and online theft, the Commerce Department said in a report issued on Wednesday.

A recent cyber breach at EMC Corp's RSA security division and a related attack at defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp have damaged RSA's once-stellar reputation, according to industry experts.

Apple's new iOS 5 operating system was not to be released for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch until 2011 fall. But apparently a backdoor was left open, where one eager beaver from Turkey has figured out how to install iOS 5 without a developer account.

Authorities are facing a tough time in containing one of the worst wildfires that is spreading to the eastern part of Arizona.

The newly announced iCloud is puffing up the expectation for mroe popular and user-friendly cloud service. For those of us who may not see the loopholes, here are some questions that remain unanswered. You may want to consider before jumping into iCloud, and answer for me if possible.

Are you sure you want to entrust your digital assets to the cloud? You may want to ask the hackers, who have dominated the news with their successes in hacking Sony, Amazon and Google.

The hackers' world is one of immense intrigue; betrayal looms large ahead of them at every turn and nasty surprises are what they deal with every day. And then, they cohabit with the strangest partners, the law enforcement machinery. For some, the governments offer protection against the pirates, hackers and cyber criminals of all hues, while for others, it's the government machinery that is in the dock - for invasive control over every movement, even the thought processes of all people.

India's Cabinet Committee on Security has cleared a $4.1 billion defense deal to buy 10 C-17 heavy lift aircraft from US-based Boeing.

Syrian state news claimed that at least 40 of the government’s security officers and policemen were killed by “armed gangs” in an ambush and bombing in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour.

U.S. Internet search giant Google has become a political tool denigrating the Chinese government, said an official Beijing newspaper on Monday. The newspaper warned Google that its statements about hacking attacks traced to China could hurt its business.

Many members on Infragard site, including FBI agents, were probably using weak passwords. And more importantly, they were reusing passwords on other web sites, which caused severe flaws in data security and violated official guidelines.

Multinationals and governments have succumbed to cyber attacks this week, spotlighting a growing trend for criminals and vigilantes to take to the net to cause havoc.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, a unit of Sony, confirmed late Friday that one its websites was hacked.

The spot market price of Gold Bullion jumped $10 per ounce to $1539 Friday lunchtime in London - recovering the last of this week's 1.1% drop - before slipping back as the US Dollar fell on surprisingly weak US jobs data.

Sony may be forced to address their security issues at E3 next week.