MARKETS

The leaders of Germany and France have agreed that private creditors should participate in a new rescue programme for Greece by voluntarily agreeing to roll over their holdings of Greek government bonds.

Shares in British banks were down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading as troubles in Greece continued to loom over the market.

There is a growing fear in Paris that France is on the verge of a credit downgrade because of its exposure to Greek debt

Shares in British banks were broadly down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading as concerns about global debt appeared to weigh investor confidence.

Since claiming that only one per cent of its 21 million customers were affected by the recently revealed cyber attack its suffered, Citibank has since revealed that as many as 360,000 of its customers accounts may have been compromised.

Greece has been pushed ever closer to the harsh reality of default after Wednesday's general strike all but shut the country down. The strikes have closed schools, central and local government offices around the country, while hospitals were operating on skeleton staff. Port and public transport services were disrupted, while a walkout by journalists forced most morning news programming off the air.

With E3 out of the way and the sun beginning to set on the current generation of home entertainment consoles, recently released sales figures have revealed that Microsoft's Xbox 360 is currently beating Sony's PS3 in overall sales.

Following LulzSec's ongoing campaign against the games industry, a study by the NDP Group has revealed that game sales in the U.S. have hit their lowest point in five years, but interestingly the recent slew of cyber attacks has not been listed as a key reason for the sales lull.

Shares in British banks were down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading as Greece continued to act as a drag on investor confidence.

With the games industry still licking its wounds after Sony's PlayStation Network nightmare and hacker collective LulzSec hot on it heals, a study by the NDP Group has reported that physical game sales in the U.S. have hit their lowest point in five years.

Shares in British banks were up on the FTSE 100 in morning trading, despite ratings agency Standard & Poor's cutting Greece's credit rating to the lowest in the world.

Greece has become the lowest rated country in the world, falling behind nations such as Jamaica and Grenada after Standard and Poor's cut the country's rating by three notches. Greece now has a credit rating of CCC, down from its rating of B and it is expected to be reduced further. There is now growing frustration in Europe over the efforts being made by the Greek government with a default the most likely outcome.

The hacker group LulzSec, which has claimed responsibility for several high-publicity attacks on Sony, Nintendo and even the NHS, yesterday posted a message on its website claiming responsibility for a new successful cyber attack on the U.S. Senate.

According to a report from Nomura, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will overtake Nokia to become the world's largest smartphone maker this financial quarter.

Shares in British banks were up on the FTSE 100 in morning trading following a report that Lloyds Banking Group is planning to cut 15,000 jobs in a bid to save a billion pounds.

A recent comment from an unnamed security expert to Bloomberg has indicated that like the recent attempt on Google's Gmail service, the recently revealed cyber attack on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) could have been state sponsored.

In the wake of Citibank's admission of a security breach on its network, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has since confirmed that it too has been the target of a sophisticated cyber attack perpetrated by an as yet unknown group of hackers or hacker.

New research has suggested that current surveys and studies have grossly overestimated the levels of cyber attacks and hacking attempts currently sweeping the globe.

Shares in British banks were mixed on the FTSE 100 in morning trading despite some weak data on British factory output.

The level of threat cyber crime poses the world is a growing topic of debate, with hacks on titan companies like Google, Sony and now Citibank adding gas to the flame, the IBTimes takes a look at some of the biggest hacks carried out this year.

Just after U.K. Defence Secretary Liam Fox's warnings about the growing cyber threat facing the country, a new hack on Citibank has been confirmed.

With LulzSec having just issued a statement promising to continue its ongoing cyber-war against tech giant Sony, many analysts have begun to speculate just how damaging the groups continued assault could be on Sony's forthcoming PlayStation Vita console.

Shares in British banks were broadly down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading ahead of interest rate decisions from the Bank of England and the European Central Bank.

Having just triumphantly revealed its new Project Cafe Wii U console at this year's E3 expo Nintendo share prices have unexpectedly fallen in value.

With Nintendo only just having revealed its new Wii U console, despite a lack of firm information regarding the new console's technical spec, analysts and consumers are already questioning whether Nintendo has repeated its past mistakes with the Wii.

Shares in British banks were down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading after rating's agency Moody's suggested that Britain's triple A credit rating could be downgraded.

Shares in British banks were mixed on the FTSE 100 in afternoon trading HSBC was given an expression of confidence from Goldman Sachs.

Shares in British banks were down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading as state-owned banks reportedly began preparing for asset sales.

With Sony only just having gotten its PSN and PlayStation Store fully functioning, the hacker group LulzSec have released a statement claiming to have once again bypassed Sony's online security -- this time on one of its websites -- but, unlike the first PSN breach, it appears that a significant proportion of the general public have reacted with pity or even sympathy rather than anger.