The Atlantic Wire - Related: Bitcoin Heist May Be Victim of New Moneygrubbing Malware

Reuters - U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning's unit in Iraq was characterized by weak oversight, and a violent outburst by the private accused of the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history went unreported to higher command, witnesses said on Wednesday.

Reuters - Hackers in China broke through the computer defenses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year and were able to access information about its operations and its 3 million members, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

AP - Taking seriously an apparent threat from a notorious collective of computer hackers, the Iowa Republican Party is boosting the security of the electronic systems it will use in two weeks to count the first votes of the 2012 presidential campaign.

Mashable - [brightcove video="1336135146001" /] A recent study surveyed multiple companies and found that 43% of their employees clicked on simulated bad links that led to phishing attacks and malware.

NewsFactor - Drivers want her in their cars. Homeowners want her in their houses. And just about everybody wants her on their phones.

NewsFactor - Microsoft intends to begin delivering automatic updates of its Internet Explorer browser beginning next year to ensure that as many machines as possible running Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 are protected from the latest malware schemes of cyber criminals.

Digital Trends - Apple’s Siri voice assistant stands as one of the primary selling points of the iPhone 4S, which is the only device that includes the feature. Yes, many hackers have tried to put Siri on other Apple gadgets, but they have so far been unstable and otherwise severely flawed. But that is all about to change.

Digital Trends - This is shaping up to the year of high-profile hacker attacks in the gaming world, as game developer Square Enix announced this week that 1.8 million user accounts were compromised as a result of a recent online security breach.

NewsFactor - Never let a competitor's stumble go to waste. That appears to be Microsoft's strategy, as it is giving away Windows Phones to five Android users following a malware scare on Android Market.

Digital Trends - Google’s popular Android operating system appears to still be the mobile operating system of choice for fraudsters and malware authors: Google has just pulled dozens of apps from the Android Market because they trick European users into paying premium SMS charges. According to the mobile security firm Lookout, Google has removed 22 apps from the market for essentially being wrappers around a new RuFraud threat; Lookout says they’ve since found and reported an additional five apps bearing RuFraud to Google.

Digital Trends - Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered a vulnerability with a number of leading Android handsets that could allow hackers to access private data without having to get explicit user permission. According to the study, such a loophole could give malicious hackers the ability to “wipe out the user data, send out SMS messages, or record user conversation on the affected phones – all without asking for any permission.”

Reuters - Indian authorities are investigating a computer server in Mumbai for links to the Duqu malicious software that some security experts warned could be the next big cyber threat.

Reuters - Hackers are bombarding the world's computer controlled energy sector, conducting industrial espionage and threatening potential global havoc through oil supply disruption.

Reuters - Russia and the United States are planning a regular exchange on "technical threats" that appear to come from computers in each other's territories, a White House spokeswoman said on Friday, even as bilateral ties have come under growing strains.

NewsFactor - Adobe is under a zero-day attack yet again. The attack this time targets a vulnerability that leaves room for a hacker to crash Adobe Reader and Acrobat and take control of the victim's machine. Adobe announced plans to issue an out-of-band patch for Windows-based computers by next week.

Appolicious - A new iteration of the DroidKungFu Android Trojan has been uncovered, presented as a legitimate app update in order to sneak its way onto your Android phone. It uses a new exploit to gain access to devices. First brought to light by Lookout Mobile Security last week, this new variant, which Lookout calls LeNa, uses social engineering to trick users into giving the installer super-user access on devices. Once deployed, the malware attaches itself to a native system process.

Digital Trends - According to new information from researchers at Symantec, a group of spammers have created a group of 87 spam-friendly, public URL shortening services and are actively using them to circumvent spam filters on popular sites. Using URL shortening scripts that are free and open source, the spammers are churning spam through the service and the public is also free to create links through the URL shorteners, perhaps an attempt to pass off the links as legitimate. All the URL shorteners are using the .info domain and are being operated through contacts in Moscow as well as a hosting company in the United Kingdom.

Reuters - The U.S. government is making it easier for small businesses to beef up defenses against cyber criminals through a free, online tool, the top U.S. communications regulator said on Monday.

AP - The computer networks that control power plants and financial systems will never be secure enough, so government and corporate leaders should consider developing a new, highly secure alternative Internet, a top FBI official said Thursday.