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The latest developments in IT security: your rights online, securing your systems via timely patching, updates on anti-malware tools, and relevant stories on hacking and system vulnerabilities.


Google announces Pwnium 2, $2m in rewards for Chrome hacks

Google announces Pwnium 2, $2m in rewards for Chrome hacks
  • Posted August 17, 2012, 10:33 AM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Security, Software
  • Google has announced it will host a second Pwnium hacking competition this October after withdrawing support for TippingPoint's annual Pwn2Own back in February. The event will take place at the Hack In The Box security conference in Malaysia.  This time…

WikiLeaks reveals massive surveillance effort, crippled by DDoS attack

WikiLeaks reveals massive surveillance effort, crippled by DDoS attack
  • Posted August 13, 2012, 3:00 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Security, The Web
  • Last week, Wikileaks released internal documents and emails obtained by hackers regarding TrapWire, a privately-owned surveillance technology utilized by various private and public agencies. It appears TrapWire works by collecting surveillance data from participating private and public sources (CCTV cameras,…

Gauss: Stuxnet-like cyber-espionage toolkit targets Middle East banks

Gauss: Stuxnet-like cyber-espionage toolkit targets Middle East banks
  • Posted August 10, 2012, 1:00 PM by Lee Kaelin | Filed in Security, The Web
  • Kaspersky security analysts have identified another cyber-threat (PDF) targeting the Middle East as part of ongoing research into Flame. Named Gauss, it displays all the hallmarks of being part of the same family as Flame (Stuxnet, Duqu) and is compromising financial…

Blizzard internal network compromised, encrypted passwords stolen

Blizzard internal network compromised, encrypted passwords stolen
  • Posted August 9, 2012, 10:52 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Security, Gaming Breaking News
  • Blizzard has confirmed that their security team recently discovered their internal network had been compromised. The team says they quickly took steps to seal off access and opened an investigation with security experts and law enforcement to uncover exactly what…

Amazon, Apple tighten security following devastating Mat Honan attack

Amazon, Apple tighten security following devastating Mat Honan attack
  • Posted August 8, 2012, 12:00 PM by Lee Kaelin | Filed in Security, The Web
  • Mat Honan, a senior writer for Wired had his digital life turned upside-down on Friday after a cybercriminal gained access to his Amazon, Apple ID and Google accounts in a bid to target his three-letter long @mat Twitter account. The…

Steve Wozniak predicts lots of problems for cloud storage

Steve Wozniak predicts lots of problems for cloud storage
  • Posted August 7, 2012, 6:00 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Industry News, Security
  • To say that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak isn’t a fan of cloud storage would be a considerable understatement. Following a showing of Mike Daisey’s one-man monologue known as The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs last week, the Woz voiced…

Pentagon's MDA employees caught surfing porn sites, told to stop

Pentagon
  • Posted August 6, 2012, 7:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Security
  • The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) recently sent out a memo to employees telling them to stop engaging in behavior that was described as inappropriate use of the MDA network. The specific offenses, according to executive director John James, had…

Critical vulnerabilities in Huawei routers laid bare at Defcon

Critical vulnerabilities in Huawei routers laid bare at Defcon
  • Posted July 31, 2012, 4:30 PM by Lee Kaelin | Filed in Hardware, Security
  • A security researcher for German security firm Recurity Labs has disclosed several critical vulnerabilities in router products made by Huawei at the annual Defon hackers conference on Sunday. 

Ubisoft Uplay DRM security hole exposed, promptly fixed

Ubisoft Uplay DRM security hole exposed, promptly fixed
  • Posted July 30, 2012, 1:00 PM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Gaming, Security
  • Ubisoft’s always-on DRM mechanisms have been a point among a majority of gamers who feel they are a hassle to paying customers and ineffective at thwarting pirates. Well, it appears that even more worrisome side-effects are possible too, with the…

Google didn't delete all the data from Wi-Fi sniffing fiasco

Google didn
  • Posted July 27, 2012, 4:54 PM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in The Web, Security
  • Google angered regulators today after admitting that it's still holding data gathered from wireless networks. In May 2010, the search giant revealed that an employee misused the company's Street View cars to collect information from unsecured Wi-Fi signals, including sensitive…

Android phones with NFC can be hijacked via their own browser

Android phones with NFC can be hijacked via their own browser
  • Posted July 27, 2012, 1:11 PM by Lee Kaelin | Filed in Security, Software
  • New research by security specialists Accuvant has revealed at this year's Black Hat conference that the latest smartphones running Android, and equipped with Near Field Communications (NFC) capabilities, can be hijacked using malicious code loaded via the devices' web browser. …

Australian telco AAPT confirms breach at network partner, data stolen

Australian telco AAPT confirms breach at network partner, data stolen
  • Posted July 26, 2012, 9:03 AM by Lee Kaelin | Filed in Security
  • Australian telecommunications firm AAPT last night confirmed that hackers had gained unauthorized access to some business customer data after breaching the database servers at one of its external service providers, Melbourne IT.

Over 8 million Gamigo user logins leaked months after breach

Over 8 million Gamigo user logins leaked months after breach
  • Posted July 23, 2012, 5:30 PM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in The Web, Security
  • Millions of user logins swiped from a German gaming company earlier this year have appeared online this month. In February, hackers bypassed the security of free-to-play MMORPG outfit Gamigo, taking over 11 million email addresses and encrypted passwords (though only…

Experian: password theft soars 300% to 12 million in the first quarter

Experian: password theft soars 300% to 12 million in the first quarter
  • Posted July 18, 2012, 1:30 PM by Lee Kaelin | Filed in The Web, Security
  • Cybercriminals illegally trading stolen personal information online such as passwords has soared exponentially to 300% during the first four months of 2012, according to the latest research from Experian CreditExpert and market research agency Opinion Matters.

Dropbox users reporting email spam following service outage

Dropbox users reporting email spam following service outage
  • Posted July 18, 2012, 9:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Security, The Web
  • File hosting service Dropbox was hit with a brief 20-minute outage yesterday afternoon but the bigger story is the discovery of what appears to be some type of internal or external email address leak. The downtime and security concern are…

Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 brings faster, smarter detection

Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 brings faster, smarter detection
  • Posted July 17, 2012, 7:30 AM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in Security, Software
  • Panda Security has released an overhauled version of its cloud-based antivirus software today, bringing a slew of new features including an updated interface and Windows 8 compatibility. Available in both free and paid versions, Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 touts 50% faster...

Symantec software update causing BSOD on some Windows XP PCs

Symantec software update causing BSOD on some Windows XP PCs
  • Posted July 16, 2012, 2:30 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Security, Software
  • Symantec has reported that a recent antivirus update caused a number of PCs running Windows XP to crash. The conflict is said to affect Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 software designed for business clients, resulting in the all-too-familiar blue screen of…

Simple three-step hack lets iOS users unlock in-app content for free

Simple three-step hack lets iOS users unlock in-app content for free
  • Posted July 13, 2012, 3:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Mobile Computing, Security With Video
  • A new three-step hack promises iPhone and iPad users a simple way to install premium in-app purchases from the App Store -- for free. Remarkably, the hack doesn't require jailbreaking or the installation of any software. Instead, iOS users are…

Nvidia and Android forums fall victim to hackers

Nvidia and Android forums fall victim to hackers
  • Posted July 13, 2012, 11:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Security
  • Add two more websites to the already long list of sites that have been hacked as of late. Nvidia’s developer forum and Phandroid’s AndroidForums.com have both been breached and it is believed that usernames and hashed passwords were among the…

Hackers post 453,000 plaintext Yahoo Voices logins

Hackers post 453,000 plaintext Yahoo Voices logins
  • Posted July 12, 2012, 12:00 PM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in The Web, Security
  • Hackers collectively known as "D33Ds Company" have posted unencrypted credentials for over 453,000 Yahoo Voices accounts. The group reportedly used an SQL injection to extract the information, which includes email addresses, passwords, over 2,700 database table…

Formspring servers breached, 420,000 encrypted passwords stolen

Formspring servers breached, 420,000 encrypted passwords stolen
  • Posted July 11, 2012, 3:30 PM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in Security, The Web
  • Formspring has joined the likes of LinkedIn, Last.fm, eHarmony and other sites breached recently, revealing yesterday that passwords were swiped from its servers. Following an investigation, the social service determined that an unknown intruder gained access to the company's development…

Microsoft urges Windows Vista, 7 users to disable desktop gadgets

Microsoft urges Windows Vista, 7 users to disable desktop gadgets
  • Posted July 11, 2012, 1:30 PM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in Microsoft, Security
  • In a security advisory Tuesday, Microsoft urged Windows Vista and 7 users to download a tool that disables the operating system's sidebar and gadgets. The company warned that insecure gadgets could be used to run arbitrary code on a computer...

First malware ever found in iOS App Store, malicious app removed

First malware ever found in iOS App Store, malicious app removed
  • Posted July 6, 2012, 3:00 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Mobile Computing, Security
  • For the first time, according to Kaspersky Labs, security researchers have unearthed what appears to be malware on the Apple App Store. "Find and Call", a Russian-language app which touted contact list simplification, was discovered to be a little too…

Hundreds of thousands may lose web access July 9 due to virus

Hundreds of thousands may lose web access July 9 due to virus
  • Posted July 5, 2012, 1:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Security, The Web Breaking News
  • July 9 is the day thousands of PCs (and Macs) infected with DNSChanger will lose their ability to surf the web. Although the virus was introduced in 2007, according to the DCWG's data, as many as 500,000 computers may still…

Kaspersky Lab uncovers new Mac OS X backdoor

Kaspersky Lab uncovers new Mac OS X backdoor
  • Posted July 5, 2012, 8:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Apple, Security
  • Kaspersky Lab has ousted a new backdoor in Mac OS X that is used as part of an Advanced Persistent Threat campaign. Experts say this is a new and previously unknown variant of the MaControl backdoor, affecting both i386 and…

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