Hackers hit Italian cyber-police

25 July 2011 Last updated at 08:28 ET

Hackers have started to release gigabytes of secret documents stolen from an Italian cybercrime unit.

The 8GB of files has allegedly been taken from the network of the Italian CNAIPIC which oversees the country's critical IT infrastructure.

In a message announcing the release, the Anonymous hacker group said it received the files from a "source".

The attack on CNAIPIC is thought to be in retaliation for arrests of Italian members of Anonymous.

Links to the first few confidential files purportedly stolen from CNAIPIC were placed on the Pastebin website. Anonymous claims the files were taken from the evidence servers of CNAIPIC (National Computer Crime Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection).

The documents include information about government offices such as Australia's Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Agriculture as well as data about private firms Gazprom, Exxon Mobil and many others.

Preview images also shared by Anonymous reveal the management structure of CNAIPIC, pictures of staff and a long list of all the documents that have been taken.

CNAIPIC has yet to respond to requests for comment.

Officers from Italy's cybercrime division carried out a series of raids on homes of suspected Anonymous members in early July. Three people were arrested as a result.

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RIM to cut 2,000 jobs in shake-up

25 July 2011 Last updated at 08:03 ET

Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion has said it is to cut 2,000 jobs as part of a shake-up of its operations.

The planned job cuts would account for 11% of the Canadian firm's workforce.

The firm also announced that its chief operating officer (COO) Don Morrison is planning to retire.

He will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, currently COO of products at the firm, who will take on an expanded role including products and sales.

The news comes after RIM announced in June that it had missed its lowered profit forecasts and reduced its predictions for the full year.

The company's share price has fallen by more than 50% since the start of the year.

RIM made a net profit of $695m (�430m) in the three months to 28 May, down from $769m in the same period last year.

It had warned in April that its profits would be low because of reduced shipments of its Blackberry phones.

Blackberry has been overtaken in the smartphone market by sales of phones running Apple and Google Android operating systems.

Focus on growth

In a statement, RIM said it needed to make the changes in order to "focus on areas that offer the highest growth opportunities".

RIM has already announced a cost-cutting programme, which includes job cuts, but had not given full details.

As well as cutting costs the company hopes the changes will increase the speed at which it can bring products to market.

The smartphone manufacturer has not yet announced any one-off expenses as a result of the programme - such as redundancy payments.

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China shuts down fake Apple shops

25 July 2011 Last updated at 03:59 ET

China has moved to shut down several fake Apple stores found in Kunming city.

Three of the elaborate fake stores, which mimicked the look of the real thing, came to the world's attention after being exposed on a blog.

Following the publicity, trade officials investigated and found five stores in Kunming posing as official Apple retail outlets.

Two of the five have now been closed as their owners lacked a business licence.

The BirdAbroad blog, written by an American woman living in Kunming, wrote about a visit to one fake Apple store which superficially resembled the official outlets.

In the article, the blogger wrote about conversations with staff, many of whom were convinced they worked for the US electronics firm.

Chinese officials investigated the shop visited by BirdAbroad but it was not one of those closed down. It has a licence to trade and is selling genuine Apple products.

Apple has said it has no comment to make on the discovery of the counterfeit shops.

On her blog, BirdAbroad described the store as a "beautiful ripoff - a brilliant one - the best ripoff store we had ever seen".

She describes how convincing the shop was at first glance because so much trouble had been taken to copy key elements of a real Apple store.

For instance, it has a winding staircase, upstairs seating area and employees wearing blue T-shirts and chunky ID lanyards.

Shoddy construction

On closer inspection, wrote BirdAbroad, the store did not seem to be constructed to a particularly high standard.

The stairs appeared to be poorly put together, the walls were not painted properly and, most damning, it had the words "Apple store" written on the shop front.

"Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs - it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit," wrote BirdAbroad.

Research by the blogger revealed that the only official Apple stores in China are in Beijing and Shanghai.

A further check revealed that none of the three stores she found are mentioned on Apple's list of official resellers known to be trading in Kunming.

What was also unclear was where the fake store had got the Apple products on sale - whether they had come from an Apple distributor or a grey market source.

The blog entry mentioning the visit to the fake store has proved hugely popular and has gathered more than 500,000 visits in less than 48 hours.

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