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(Reuters) – Plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit against Google Inc on Friday withdrew their case accusing the search engine company of harming smartphone buyers by forcing handset makers using Android operating system to make Google's own applications the default option. The class action lawsuit, filed by two smartphone customers in May 2014, was dismissed on Feb. 20 by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose, California. The lawsuit argued that Google requires Android handset manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd favor Google's apps such as YouTube and restrict competing apps like Microsoft Corp's Bing search.

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By Bill Rigby SEATTLE (Reuters) – IBM has uncovered a sophisticated fraud scheme run by a well- funded Eastern European gang of cyber criminals that uses a combination of phishing, malware and phone calls that the technology company says has netted more than $1 million from large and medium-sized U.S. companies. The scheme, which IBM security researchers have dubbed “The Dyre Wolf,” is small in comparison with more recent widespread online fraud schemes but represents a new level of sophistication. According to IBM, since last year the attackers have been targeting people working in companies by sending spam email with unsafe attachments to get a variant of the malware known as Dyre into as many computers as possible. If installed, the malware waits until it recognizes that the user is navigating to a bank website and instantly creates a fake screen telling the user that the bank's site is having problems and to call a certain number.

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The Obama administration on Wednesday launched the first-ever sanctions program to financially punish individuals and groups outside the United States that are engaged in malicious cyber attacks. U.S. President Barack, in an executive order, declared such activities a “national emergency” and allowed the U.S. Treasury to freeze the assets and bar other financial transactions of entities engaged in cyber attacks. Under the program, first reported by the Washington Post, cyber attackers or those who conduct commercial espionage in cyberspace can be listed on the official sanctions list of specially designated nationals, a deterrent long-sought by the cyber community. The move, which the paper said has been in development for two years, comes after a string of high-profile cyber attacks ranging from corporate hacks targeting Target, Home Depot and other retailers, to an attack on Sony and other data breaches.

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By Euan Rocha and Alastair Sharp TORONTO (Reuters) – BlackBerry Ltd posted a surprise quarterly profit on Friday and said it is pushing to end a slide in its revenue in this fiscal year, sending the stock up as much as 5.1 percent. We're now turning our attention to revenue stabilization,” BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen said on a conference call. Chen plans to grow BlackBerry's small but high-margin software division by moving more customers onto its products, including a system that allows companies and government agencies to manage multiple employee devices. The stock rose as high as $9.77, before easing to $9.59, up 3.1 percent on the Nasdaq, despite a much bigger-than-expected decline in fiscal fourth quarter revenue.

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(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co CEO Bob Iger learned that Steve Jobs' cancer had returned less than an hour before Disney announced it was buying Jobs' Pixar studio in 2006, and Iger kept the Apple co-founder's condition a secret for three years, according to Bloomberg, citing a new biography of Jobs. Iger told the authors of “Becoming Steve Jobs” he thought about the implications of keeping such a secret at a time when regulators were calling for more disclosure and holding executives more accountable to their fiduciary duties, Bloomberg reported. The $7 billion deal to buy Pixar made Jobs Disney's largest shareholder and put him on the entertainment company's board.

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By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – About 40 percent of adult Apple iPhone owners in the United States are interested in buying the company's new Apple Watch, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. The high-tech smartwatch, which will range in price from $350 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model, is Apple Inc’s first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors. Owners of the iPhone are a particularly important market for Apple as it launches the new watch, which goes on sale April 24. Because the watch needs an iPhone to work fully, analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets.

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By Malathi Nayak NEW YORK (Reuters) – Software developers say it will not be easy to come up with a “killer app” for Apple Inc's Watch – few have seen the product and the software is still in test mode. While app makers are passionate about developing for the Apple Watch, some are skeptical about the prospects of coming up with a big idea for the little computer on a wrist that hits stores on April 24, said Markiyan Matsekh, product manager at software engineering firm Eleks. A killer app that grabs consumers' attention will be key to the success of the Apple Watch and could spawn new companies, as the iPhone did. Apple has blocked some features, such as the gyroscope and accelerometer, on the development kit, and the watch simulator cannot test all functions, developers said.

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By Edwin Chan and Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc will begin selling its new watch on April 24, with the high end model starting at $10,000, the company said, rolling out its first new product in five years in a bid to extend its preeminence in mobile devices. The Apple Watch sport will start at $349 for the smaller, 38-mm model. Apple shares trimmed earlier gains and were nearly flat in mid-afternoon trade on Nasdaq.

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By Lindsay Dunsmuir WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two Vietnamese citizens and a Canadian have been charged over roles in hacking email service providers in the United States in one of the largest reported data breaches in the nation's history, the Department of Justice said on Friday. Viet Quoc Nguyen, 28, is charged with hacking at least eight email service providers between February 2009 and June 2012 and obtaining more than one billion email addresses. According to the allegations, Nguyen and fellow Vietnamese citizen Giang Hoang Vu, 25, used the data to send so-called spam to tens of millions of people. Vu, who was extradited to the United States in March of last year, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit computer fraud.

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(Reuters) – Apple Inc sold the most number of smartphones globally in the fourth quarter, overtaking Samsung Electronics Co Ltd for the first time since 2011, according to research firm Gartner. Apple sold 74,832 smartphones to end users worldwide, ahead of the 73,032 phones sold by Samsung, according to Gartner's report. The success of big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus drove Apple's sales in its first quarter ended Dec. 27.