Items tagged with security
Talk about an unpleasant conversation -- officials from Montana have begun alerting approximately 1.3 million people that their personal information may have been compromised by a data breach. At present, there's no evidence that any information was stolen, however it has been confirmed that hackers infiltrated a...
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Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen has promised to bring his popular game back to app stores in August complete with a multiplayer component next time around, but if that isn't incentive enough to wait for the real deal, perhaps the risk of malware infection will push you to patience. According to the latest Threats...
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When the OpenSSL vulnerability Heartbleed broke cover in April, it felt like it was the only thing that mattered for an entire week. Like many news outlets, we reported on the bug from a number of different angles, and it was all for good reason: It's a severe bug, and one that the world needs to know about. Given all...
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Following Google’s initial foray into the connected home front with the acquisition of Nest is an acquisition of Dropcam, a startup that makes a cloud-based WiFi video monitoring service. Rumors had emerged a few weeks ago that this was happening, but now the deal is going through for $555 million. According to...
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Even when the government conducts secret activities, those ventures have to be funded, and a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives last night took a swipe at the NSA’s domestic spying practices by cutting some of its funding. According to Ars Technica, Representatives James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Zoe Lofgren...
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Apple introduced a kill switch to its iPhones last autumn, and it appears that the new security measure is actually curtailing theft. Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, and George Gascón, San Francisco’s DA, both believe that kill switch technology has led to fewer robberies involving...
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Security breaches that expose sensitive customer data are becoming uncomfortably common these days. The newest firm to fess up to falling prey to a hacker attack is AT&T, which has begun sending letters out to customers letting them know about a breach that occurred between April 9 and April 21 of this year...
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Privacy has become an incredibly hot topic in the tech world as cloud computing and online services of many kinds proliferate rapidly while concerns of snooping by the U.S. government escalate. To engender some good faith from its throngs of customers, Microsoft has revamped its service agreements to enact more...
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Facebook rolled out a new mobile feature that uses your device’s microphone to “hear” a song you’re listening to or a TV show you’re watching so you can append that item to a status post. Predictably, a lot of people believe that this is a feature designed for snooping and are not happy...
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Our innocence lost, we now know that the National Security Agency (NSA) effectively strong arms technology companies far and wide into dishing out our personal information. It's a bum rap, and it may make you think twice about firing off that email to a friend or family member criticizing one of the government's...
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It's time to say 'goodbye' to TrueCrypt, the popular open-source full disk encryption software, which was abruptly shut down earlier this week by the anonymous developers who built the program. According to a message on TrueCrypt's website, the software is no longer secure and may contain unfixed security issues. "The...
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The takeaway from a new survey is short and alarming: Hackers are winning the war. In a survey co-sponsored by PwC, the U.S. Secret Service, the CERT Division of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, and CSO security news magazine, it was found that cybercriminals are more relentless than ever...
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Australian authorities are advising Apple device owners who have iCloud accounts to change their passwords due to a recent hacking/hijacking outbreak, and now it appears to be spreading to the U.S. as well. The attacks involve a hacker logging into an iCloud account and using the lost device feature to lock users out...
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There are data breaches and then there are data breaches. The Target breach, for example, was (and continues to be) a total disaster for the company with millions affected. Other hacks are made better or worse by a given company’s attitude and response. Spotify has apparently experienced some sort of breach of its own, but if you’re...
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Although Microsoft has stopped supporting Windows XP, many people haven’t bothered to update from the legendary and now terribly aged operating system (you guys, seriously, just do it already). However, in what is the most perfect XP-related real-life joke ever, someone discovered that there’s a hacky...
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One of the most troubling facts that came out of Edward Snowden's disclosures last year was the degree to which the government has relied on National Security Letters to compel companies to reveal information about their clients without producing a warrant. Many NSLs were accompanied by non-disclosure orders that...
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Life just got a little easier for iPhone thieves, though technically that's not the intended purpose of a new tool that helps iDevice owners bypass Apple's iCloud activation lock. Officially -- and we're not sure if that comes with a *wink* *wink* or if the developers are being sincere -- a tool called "doulCi" is...
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Attention all eBay users, go ahead and change your password to the auction site. Like, right now -- we'll wait. Take your time, we'll be here when you get back. Finished? Good! Don't worry, it wasn't an arbitrary exercise -- eBay later today will be sending out emails and posting notices asking you to change your...
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China's Central Government Procurement Center has reportedly issued a ban on installing Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system on government computers. The ban is supposedly in place to ensure computer security after Microsoft decided to end support for Windows XP last April, a legacy OS that was released to the...
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The United States Justice Department has brought forth criminal charges against several members of Unit 61398 of the Chinese military, alleging that these members hacked into computer systems of six American businesses, including Alcoa Inc., United States Steel Crop, Allegheny Technologies Inc, Westinghouse Electric...
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One could make an argument that Microsoft is the king of mixed messages. Just look at how the Redmond software giant has handled Windows XP over the years -- it was given several reprieves before finally being shunned for support, though it still received an out-of-cycle patch for Internet Explorer to address a...
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A pair of healthcare organizations have agreed to pay a combined $4.8 million to settle charges that they potentially violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (otherwise known as HIPPA). The charges were the consequence of a data breach in which protected health information of thousands...
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