About $1billion is estimated to have been stolen from global banks by hackers in the largest-ever cyberbank robbery, according to Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky labs.

About $1billion is estimated to have been stolen from global banks by hackers in the largest-ever cyberbank robbery, according to Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky labs. 

142. Do you think that you will enter Paradise before Allah tests those of you who fought (in His Cause) and (also) tests those who are As-Sabirin (the patient ones, etc.)?

143. You did indeed wish for death (Ash-Shahadah - martyrdom) before you met it. Now you have seen it openly with your own eyes.

144. Muhammad () is no more than a Messenger, and indeed (many) Messengers have passed away before him. If he dies or is killed, will you then turn back on your heels (as disbelievers)? And he who turns back on his heels, not the least harm will he do to Allah, and Allah will give reward to those who are grateful.

145. And no person can ever die except by Allah's Leave and at an appointed term. And whoever desires a reward in (this) world, We shall give him of it; and whoever desires a reward in the Hereafter, We shall give him thereof. And We shall reward the grateful.

146. And many a Prophet (i.e. many from amongst the Prophets) fought (in Allah's Cause) and along with him (fought) large bands of religious learned men. But they never lost heart for that which did befall them in Allah's Way, nor did they weaken nor degrade themselves. And Allah loves As-Sabirin (the patient ones, etc.).

147. And they said nothing but: "Our Lord! Forgive us our sins and our transgressions (in keeping our duties to You), establish our feet firmly, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk."

148. So Allah gave them the reward of this world, and the excellent reward of the Hereafter. And Allah loves Al-Muhsinun (the good-doers - see the footnote of V.3:134).

149. O you who believe! If you obey those who disbelieve, they will send you back on your heels, and you will turn back (from Faith) as losers.

150. Nay, Allah is your Maula (Patron, Lord, Helper and Protector, etc.), and He is the Best of helpers.3. Aal-'Imran

Kaspersky said in a report released on Monday that losses of $300 million had been confirmed, but forecast that up to $1 billion could have been taken.

"These attacks constitute a new level of sophistication in the techniques used against financial establishments," Kapersky Lab expert Sergey Lozhkin,  who has worked with Interpol and Europol on an investigation into the crime, said in a television interview.  

He said the identity of the hacker was not yet known but, according to the report, evidence pointed to a cybercriminal gang with members from Russia, Ukraine and China. 

The report said the gang, referred to by the name of the hacking software it uses - Carbanak - came to the attention of authorities after an A.T.M. in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev started dispensing cash at  random times of day in 2013, even though no customer had touched the machine. 

Cameras showed that the piles of money which came out were taken by whoever was walking by at the moment.

President Barack Obama on Friday sought the help of the private sector to combat threats.

“The cyber world is sort of the wild, wild west and to some degree we are asked to be the sheriff,”Obama said during public remarks at California’s Stanford University.                       

The American President said that threats posed in the cyber theater extend far beyond the virtual world, requiring cooperation between the government and the private sector.

“Just as we are all connected like never before, we have to work together like never before, both to seize opportunities but also meet the challenges of this information age,” he said.

In order to promote information sharing, Obama used the public forum to sign an executive order that facilitates such sharing among the private sector, and with the government. 

Confidence in cybersecurity in the U.S. was shaken by a massive attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment last November, as well as data breaches at retailers, including Target and Home Depot.

“These attacks are hurting American companies and costing American jobs. So this is also a threat to America's economic security,” Obama said.

But notably absent from Obama’s speech in the tech hub of Silicon Valley were Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Larry Page and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer – the heads of three of the tech world’s biggest companies.

Private-government relationships were soured following the disclosures of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that revealed the government had been secretly collecting data from tech companies for its mass surveillance programs.

A billion data records were compromised worldwide in 2014 due to more than 1,500 online security breaches, according to a report Thursday from Dutch security firm Gemalto.

Last year saw a 49 percent increase in breaches and a 78 percent rise in data records stolen, compared to 2013.

Gemalto, a global leader in digital security detection, claimed identity theft was the largest category of attack, with 54 percent of the breaches involving hackers stealing personal data such as email addresses, names, passwords and banking data.

“We're clearly seeing a shift in the tactics of cybercriminals, with long-term identity theft becoming more of a goal than the immediacy of stealing a credit card number," Tsion Gonen, vice president of strategy for identity and data protection at Gemalto. “Identity theft could lead to the opening of new fraudulent credit accounts, creating false identities for criminal enterprises, or a host of other serious crimes.”

The numbers come soon after the United States announced it was creating a new agency to share cybersecurity information amongst different governmental groups, and Facebook launched a new social platform specifically for cybersecurity specialists.

The last few months saw massive breaches at institutions including JPMorgan Chase, Target, eBay and, most recently, health insurer Anthem, where the records of as many as 80 million customers were compromised. 

“As data breaches become more personal, we're starting to see that the universe of risk exposure for the average person is expanding,” Gonen added.

Cyber-attacks are also becoming more severe, such as November’s brutal hacking of film studio Sony Pictures, where hackers absconded with not just personal data, but embarrassing internal emails and unreleased films.

Gemalto believes companies must improve identity control, access management and encryption in order to keep records private. Encryption, especially, turns records useless if hackers are able to steal it.

The White House on Tuesday announced the opening of a new agency focused on cybersecurity.

The Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, or CTIIC, will be focused on compiling data across several agencies to allow information about potential threats to be shared more broadly across official divisions.

The CTIIC launch comes amid news that the Twitter account of Newsweek was hacked by ISIL supporters who used the platform to tweet threats to President Barack Obama and his family before Twitter’s support team was able to regain control of the news outlet’s account.

Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, who announced the agency's creation, said cyberattacks on national and economic interests are rising in sophistication, scale and severity of impact. She called the November attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment “a game changer.”

That attack crippled the film studio for weeks and hackers leaked embarrassing emails and unreleased films on the internet. Federal authorities claim the North Korean government was behind the attack, showcasing many of this era’s large-scale attacks are not the work of individuals typing away in their parents’ basements, but are actually state-funded.

Since the attack on Sony, several high-profile attacks have occurred, including pro-ISIS hackers taking over the Twitter account of the United States Central Command in January and a massive breach at health insurance provider Anthem earlier this month.

Monaco said CTIIC will not actually collect intelligence. Instead, it will analyze threat data collected by other federal agencies.

The CTIIC will be modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center, which launched soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks following criticism of federal agencies for not sharing intelligence amongst different divisions – an action that may have foiled the attack.

Facebook on Wednesday launched ThreatExchange, a social platform focused on sharing cybersecurity information.

The service is essentially a social network – something the company knows very well – but specifically built for online security professionals.

ThreatExchange was first imagined when several social networks noticed their sites were hosting a spreading spam attack by a botnet – a network of private computers infected with malicious software and controlled without the owners’ knowledge.

“We quickly learned that sharing with one another was key to beating the botnet because parts of it were hosted on our respective services and none of us had the complete picture,” said Mark Hammell, the manager of Facebook’s threat infrastructure team, in a blog posted Wednesday about the TheatExchange’s launch. “During our discussions, it became clear that what we needed was a better model for threat sharing.”

Wednesday’s news comes a day after ISIL supporters hijacked Newsweek's Twitter account and tweeted threats to President Barack Obama, and an announcement that the White House is opening a new agency to share cybersecurity intelligence among different government divisions.

It also comes a week after revelations about a massive breach at the U.S.'s second-largest health insurer, Anthem, that might have compromised the personal information of 80 million customers, and a few months after a crippling cyberattack on film studio Sony Entertainment.

ThreatExchange is built upon Facebook’s well-known platform – home to a global population of some 1.4 billion users – and is centered on consistency, reliability and flexibility. Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter and Yahoo all participated in testing the network in the last few months, and more tech companies such as Dropbox and Bitly are climbing on board.

Even though some of these participants are no doubt Facebook’s competitors, sharing and neutralizing cybersecurity threats is an important enough goal to reach out.

“Our goal is that organizations anywhere will be able to use ThreatExchange to share threat information more easily, learn from each other's discoveries, and make their own systems safer,” Hammell concluded. “That's the beauty of working together on security. When one company gets stronger, so do the rest of us.”