Cybercrime is costing small businesses an average of £4,000 ($6000) a year, according to the British Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). A report by the group found that 41 per cent of the FSB’s membership have been a victim of cybercrime in the past year. The most common threat is virus infections, with 20% of small businesses falling victim – while 8% have been victims of hacking and 5% have suffered security breaches.

The FBI has offered temporary security clearances to security officers from U.S. banks in order to share information into repeated cyber attacks which have disrupted online banking websites in recent months.

Mainstream media reports offer a mere “snapshot” of the scope of cyber-crime, according to the head of British intelligence agency GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters).

An international gang of cyber thieves stole $45 million using bank ATMs in a heist spread across 27 countries.

Domain name registrar and web hosting company Name.com has been hit by a security breach.

A proposed new law, the Deter Cyber Theft Act, would help defend U.S. companies against data theft and computer espionage by foreign interests, a bipartisan group of senators said this week.

A “watering hole” attack on pages within the U.S. Department of Labor site exploited a “zero-day” vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8 to deliver malware to visitors, according to reports.

Users of popular PC gaming service ESEA have discovered that their PCs have been hijacked to mine Bitcoins by malware served up alongside the company’s client. A hidden Bitcoin-mining process caused users’ graphics cards to overheat as it worked in the background.

Adrian Price, Head of Information Security at Britain’s Ministry of Defence, suggested that governments should devote 20% of their budget to protecting the nation’s data – a sum worth billions more than that currently allocated in countries such as the UK itself.

Twitter is said to be testing new security systems in the wake of a false Tweet from an official Associated Press account which sent stock markets tumbling in America.