Congress, at the 11th hour, passed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the next seven days, averting for now a partial shutdown that would have curtailed some cybersecurity programs.

The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, paints a grim picture of the cyberthreats the nation faces, saying as bad as 2014 was, 2015 and the coming years will be worse.

Lenovo, the world's largest PC manufacturer, promises to stop preinstalling any software on its Windows laptops that doesn't need to be there. The move comes following security alerts relating to the Superfish adware the company had been preinstalling.

SIM card manufacturer Gemalto says its investigation into a reported U.S. and U.K. intelligence agency espionage operation found that its internal networks housing encryption keys weren't breached. But security experts question those findings.

The FCC's new "net neutrality rule," which prevents ISPs from slowing down content streaming along their networks and from charging extra fees to assure faster speed, includes provisions designed to protect the confidential information of customers.