Brittaney Kiefer

Attack toolkits have been refined to the point where they are producing high success rates for their criminal users.

Cybercriminals have shifted their efforts from targeting individuals' personal information to the intellectual capital of global corporations, according to a report released Monday.

While more than half of K-12 schools have experienced multiple IT security breaches this year, most cite a lack of resources in helping them respond to security challenges, according to a study released Wednesday by cloud security provider Panda Security. The study, which surveyed more than 100 IT security managers for K-12 school districts in the United States, found that 64 percent of schools have had at least two breaches in the past year. Budget constraints and small staffs were the main obstacles to improving IT security systems in schools, respondents said.

Only half of social networking users trust their online friends to keep their data secure, according to a survey released Tuesday by ID Analytics, a consumer risk management provider. The survey of more than 1,000 adults in the United States, of whom 387 have joined social networking sites, also found that some users are willing to accept the friend request of a complete stranger. Five percent of respondents said they would accept all friend requests regardless of who sent them, and men are twice more likely than women to accept invites from anyone of the opposite sex.