Fake security software was the No. 1 cybersecurity woe afflicting computer users in 2009, and Apple users lost some of their immunity to cybercrime as they stored more data online instead of on hard drives, according to the cybersecurity firm Symantec.

Hackers have flooded the Internet with virus-tainted spam that targets Facebook's estimated 400 million users in an effort to steal banking passwords and gather other sensitive information.

Fraud on debit and credit cards may have fallen by more than a quarter last year, the first decrease since 2006, but online scams are on the up, according to the latest card and banking fraud figures.

The sudden takedown of an Internet provider thought to be helping spread one of the most promiscuous pieces of malicious software out there appears to have cut off criminals from potentially millions of personal computers under their control.

Nasa has turned to Nexus Management, a London-listed technology group, to defend its against internet attacks. The deal, which Nexus is expected to announce t as early as tomorrow, will see a subsidiary, Resilience Technology provide firewalls to the US space agency as it takes on hackers and computer viruses.

Typing "search engines" into Google does not throw up the name of the internet search giant itself, at least not on the first page of results, the company pointed out, as it sought to deflect criticism of its secret and powerful ranking system.

Software giant Microsoft Corp has won a US court approval to deactivate a global network of computers that the company accused of spreading spam and harmful computer codes, the Wall Street Journal said.

The people who brought the world malicious software that steals credit card numbers from your personal computer and empties bank ATMs of their cash are hiring, and they're advertising online.

Google is investigating whether one or more employees may have helped facilitate a cyber-attack from China that the U.S search giant said it was a victim of in mid-December, two sources told Reuters today.

The Persuasionists, a new sitcom set in an advertising agency, had only been running for two minutes before the hoariest of clichés about comedy got an airing. "It's funny... because it's true," said Greg, looking at a witless copy line for a new campaign. And the fact that this line is given to Greg – one of the dimmest characters on screen – and that he utters it as if it is an observation of great sagacity, suggests a certain contempt for this venerable rule. Which makes sense really because The Persuasionists belongs to that school of sitcom in which things are funny because they aren't true. You could easily write a comedy about advertising that took The Office or The Thick of It as a model, given the rich real world absurdities of the profession. But the familial line here runs back to comedies like Father Ted and The IT Crowd, sitcoms in which any reference to plausibility is disqualified from the start. It might briefly occur to you that as an advertising slogan, "Leave it aaatt!!!" has some obvious drawbacks, but then you remember that the product it's attempting to sell is something called cockney cheese and it seems pointless to quibble.

Cyber attacks disclosed by Google and Adobe that may lead Google to quit China highlight a sophisticated type of bespoke cyberspying that could be more widespread than previously thought.