This story is part of War in Ukraine, CNET’s coverage of events there and of the wider effects on the world. What’s happening Russia’s conventional war against Ukraine drags on, but the early cyberwar predicted by some experts hasn’t materialized. Why it matters A massive cyberattack could still cripple Ukraine and its allies. Ukraine has …

The SolarWinds cyberattack about two years ago represented a new level of hacking sophistication, highlighting the need for the government and private sector to work together to bolster the country’s online resilience, America’s top cyber defense official said Wednesday. In a panel discussion at the RSA conference, CISA Director Jen Easterly noted the attack, which allowed Russian hackers to insert …

This story is part of War in Ukraine, CNET’s coverage of events there and of the wider effects on the world. What’s happening The FBI is warning that online scammers are trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine by impersonating legitimate charities. Why it matters Clicking on the wrong link or responding to a phishing email could send …

Ransomware continued to dominate cyberattacks in 2021 as attackers focused on making quick money by locking up data, rather than stealing it. Attacks involving ransomware, which involves malicious code scrambling the data on a victim’s computer, increased 13% for the year, equaling the rise of the previous five years combined, according to Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report. As part …

Canada says it will ban the use of China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE 5G equipment, citing national security concerns. With the move, Canada joins the rest of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, which also includes the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand. All of those countries have already banned the telecommunications equipment. While the move was widely expected, it …

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a policy statement calling for a step-up in the enforcement of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act as it relates to the software and devices used by millions of children for school. The statement doesn’t change FTC policies related to the collection of data on kids, but rather calls for prioritizing the …

For Google Docs that are just a little too long to read, Google is rolling out auto-generated summaries. Announced at Google I/O 2022, the company’s yearly developer’s conference, the new feature uses machine learning and language compression technology to automatically pull out the main points of a document. The feature is also set to come to Google Chat in the …

What’s happening Saturday marks the first anniversary of the ransomware attack that shut down Colonial Pipeline’s operations. Why it matters Colonial was forced to pay millions of dollars in ransom to get its billing system unlocked, though some of that was later recovered. Its operations were shut down for five days, and gas prices jumped on the East Coast as …

What’s happening Today is World Password Day. The event was created by Intel in 2013 to encourage people to better secure their online accounts. Why it matters Weak passwords put personal information at risk. Even worse, people use the same bad passwords for multiple accounts, which means if one get compromised others could also fall. What’s next Check out CNET’s …

Ransomware attacks are getting more frequent, more successful and more expensive. Sixty-six percent of the organizations surveyed by Sophos for its annual State of Ransomware report admitted that they were hit with a ransomware attack last year, up from 37% in 2020. And 65 percent of those attacks were successful in encrypting their victims’ data, up from 54 percent the year …