Thursday: March 11, 2010
- New survey shows that 12% of employees knowingly violate IT policies.
With 12 percent of those people actively working outside of stated IT policy (and plenty more who do so out of ignorance), IT admins certainly have their work cut out for them if they want to maintain a tight ship.
Tuesday: March 9, 2010
- Your rechargeable batteries may come with a free Trojan horse virus.
The battery maker said it does not know how the Trojan got into the software. 'Energizer has discontinued sale of this product and has removed the site to download the software,' the statement said.
Tuesday: March 2, 2010
- Hacking popular ticket sites may land you with several unfriendly charges.
What kind of charges you ask? Well there is conspiracy, wire fraud and unauthorized computer access for starters. According to the source article that wire fraud charge carries a twenty year prison sentence.
Wednesday: February 10, 2010
- Microsoft decides to finally fix a security hole that plagued them for seventeen years.
Much as been made of the fact that the hole is 17 years old, but Ormandy said he informed Microsoft about it in June 2009. 'You can criticize them for taking a long time to fix a bug,' but not if they didn't know about it, said Pedram Amini, who runs the Zero Day Initiative.
Tuesday: January 26, 2010
- FAA would like to make sure that next generation 747 is hack-proof.
Essentially, the FAA seemed worried that the 747-8 will be vulnerable to outside access and that the 'applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for these design features,' mandating the issuing of the special conditions.
Wednesday: January 13, 2010
- Facebook to team up with McAfee for beefed up security operations.
Become a fan of McAfee on Facebook and get ten percent off your next anti-virus subscription. To qualify you'll need to purchase McAfee's Internet Security Anti-virus Privacy System Protection Suite. Enjoy.
Wednesday: December 16, 2009
- No one is safe from Facebook's new privacy settings, not even their CEO.
This opening may be a result of Facebook's new default settings; or could be a result of Zuckerberg trying to reverse the PR debacle of the new privacy system by opening up the content himself; or could be a combination of both.
Wednesday: December 9, 2009
- Facebook to start reminding all users about their current privacy settings.
As part of this initiative, all Facebook users will be prompted to review and confirm their privacy settings. The page will list the items with privacy that needs to be confirmed and give users the option to retain their existing setting or change it to a setting Facebook recommends.
Tuesday: December 8, 2009
- Yahoo decides to launch an online privacy tool for all of us consumers
In the past, users were able to rejected targeted ads, but they weren't able to edit and modify their personal preferences — for instance, saying 'no' only to ads for video games or ads with a health focus.
Tuesday: November 24, 2009
- Bug in Internet Explorer allows for public veiwing of your PDF files.
Although the data isn't always exposed when the document is viewed with Adobe Reader, it is easily readable when the file is opened in editors such as Notepad, and the text is also available to Google and other search engines.
Tuesday: November 3, 2009
- A handy tutotial on how to browse the Interwebs without leaving a trace.
A comprehensive guide from the folks at Lifehacker regarding how to surf the web and then make a successful attempt at covering your tracks. Not that you have anything to hide, right?
Friday: October 30, 2009
- FYI, beware of malware lurking in unsuspecting Twitter links.
In a nutshell, you should be cautious when using suspicious-looking URL shorteners. There's also an interesting statistic within the article stating that about 26% of all tweets contain a URL and retweeting just helps these things spread all the more quickly. Who knew?
Monday: October 26, 2009
- Turns out that tweeting jurors pose a problem in the courtroom. Who knew?
One juror in particular went as far to actually tweet the verdict of a trial before the judge announced it. Article cites other bonehead examples of Twitter misuse in the legal process as well.
- The White House website code is now open source.
Having the public write code may seem like a security risk, but it's just the opposite, experts inside and outside the government argued. Because programmers collaborate to find errors or opportunities to exploit Web code, the final product is therefore more secure.
Monday: October 19, 2009
- These days even a parking ticket can masquerade as a computer virus.
Drivers found the following message on the yellow ticket on their windscreen: 'PARKING VIOLATION This vehicle is in violation of standard parking regulations'. The ticket then instructed drivers to visit a website...
Thursday: October 15, 2009
- A list of the top seven technology disasters of the decade.
In what has been called the largest credit card crime of all time, earlier this year, Heartland Payment Systems announced that hackers had broken into the computers it uses to process about 100 million transactions each month for 175,000 merchants.
Tuesday: October 13, 2009
- Five ways that you are secretly being monitored.
Yes, it is quite possible that your printer may be used against you in a court of law. The is technology embedded in newer printers from Xerox, Dell, Canon, Lexmark. So, next time you have a top secret document - write it down.
Wednesday: October 7, 2009
- The first rule of hacking PayPal is you don't talk about hacking PayPal.
The hacker confirms he offered a class to penetration testers that taught them everything they'd need to test and carry out attacks on SSL certificates, and as part of that, he included a proof-of-concept certificate.
Tuesday: October 6, 2009
- It might be time to think about changing your Hotmail password.
A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that the company doesn't store passwords in the clear and said its security team has been investigating the leak since this weekend.
Monday: September 28, 2009
- Want to know which ten states get the most spam?
'Interestingly, the top three most spammed states were among the 10 least spammed states in 2008,' the company said in the report.
Friday: September 25, 2009
- Microsoft would like you to know Google Chrome Frame plugin not all that secure.
Also, please disregard those news articles from yesterday claiming the plugin makes Internet Explorer ten times faster. That's just crazy talk.
Monday: September 14, 2009
- A list of top ten tactics for protecting your stuff.
Note to self: add more cute baby photos to wallet in the near future (see 7th tactic).
- FTC orders Sears and Kmart to stop unathorized spyware activities.
...Sears and its data collection partner would have access to the 'contents of shopping carts, online bank statements, drug prescription records, video rental records, library borrowing histories, and the sender, recipient, subject, and size for web-based e-mails,' said the FTC.
Friday: September 4, 2009
- A list of the top ten computer worms and viruses for your sickly pleasure.
The Da Vinci virus curiously not on this list. Someone must have gotten a hold of that garbage file again.
Friday: August 28, 2009
- FYI, burglars are targeting victims using their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
'I call it 'Internet shopping for burglars.' It is incredibly easy to use social networking sites to target people, and then scope out more information on their actual home ... all from the comfort of the sofa,' said Fraser in a statement.
Thursday: August 27, 2009
- Your wi-fi encryption key can be cracked in under a minute thanks to latest threat.
The encryption systems used by wireless routers have a long history of security problems. The Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) system, introduced in 1997, was cracked just a few years later and is now considered to be completely insecure by security experts.
Wednesday: August 26, 2009
- New wave of SQL injection attacks carrying venemous JavaScript along for the ride.
Once infected, the sites deliver <IFRAME> code to their users that starts the download of executable binary code, and apparently even launches that code.
Tuesday: August 25, 2009
- Wikipedia decides to put some security checks in place for edits on living people.
It's intended to provide some additional 'protection' and to 'prevent vandals' from messing with living-person articles, Walsh said. Until approved by the volunteer editor, any changes to such articles will sit invisible to the public on Wikipedia's servers.
Tuesday: August 18, 2009
- Man charged with largest case of credit card theft ever in the United States.
Federal prosecutors on Monday charged a Miami man with the largest case of credit and debit card data theft ever in the United States, accusing the one-time government informant of swiping 130 million accounts on top of 40 million he stole previously.
Monday: August 17, 2009
- Eight dirty secrets of the IT security industry.
A good read for my fellow not-so-dirty IT folk out there.
