The hacker group Anonymous and other so-called hacktivists are the biggest concern for IT security professionals, according to a survey by Bit9. Its 2012 Cyber Security Survey queried nearly 2,000 IT security experts to gauge the current state of enterprise security and otherwise identify what keeps IT executives up at night.

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Visa has dropped Global Payments from the list of companies that it deems compliant with its security policies following news that the third-party vendor experienced a security breach that could have compromised some 1.5 million Visa and MasterCard accounts. The breach first came to light at the end of the last week, and Global Payments has since admitted it was the source.

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Cyberattacks carried out by hacktivists — hackers motivated by political reasons — shot up in 2011, accounting for 58 percent of the data stolen in cyberbreaches, according to Verizon. The company’s 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report also stated that 79 percent of the attacks were opportunistic, meaning they were carried out because an opportunity presented itself, rather than being planned.

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Authorities in the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, have arrested five suspected hackers affiliated with Lulz Security, more commonly known as "LulzSec," a group of so-called hacktivists. Among those arrested is Hector Xavier Monsegur, the suspected leader of the group. Monsegur, who went by the nickname "Sabu," actually cooperated with the FBI to help track and arrest the other LulzSec members.

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Last month’s Open Group Conference in San Francisco focused on how IT and enterprise architecture support enterprise transformation. Speakers in conference events also explored the latest in service oriented architecture, cloud computing and security. One of the main speakers, Joseph Menn, cybersecurity correspondent for The Financial Times, has covered security since 1999.

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