Security

According to the United States' Homeland Security chief, America's biggest financial institutions are "actively under attack" by hackers. Experts suggest it's a troubling scenario that is only going to get worse. Homeland Security chief Janet ... Napolitano recently discussed this problem at a cybersecurity event hosted by The Washington Post. In her presentation, Napolitano told attendees that cybercriminals are actively stealing data and money from major US banks. However, she stopped short of providing much detail. "I really don't want to go into that per se...I'm not giving you any classified ... (view more)

It appears that during Tuesday night's election the privacy of a number of high-profile Twitter users was invaded when an unknown website or Internet service compromised their accounts. That prompted Twitter to force password resets on many of its ... users. It remains unclear at the moment how the security breach occurred or how many users' accounts were compromised. Whatever that number, Twitter created a huge stir by sending out more password reset emails than necessary. "We unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts, beyond those that we believed to have been compromised ... (view more)

Security firm Vupen says it has found several serious security loopholes in the new Windows 8 operating system (OS). However, another security expert says he's not worried about the issues. Vupen operates in a gray area of the computer security ... market. Like other security firms, it hunts for flaws in popular software. But it doesn't always pass on its findings to the companies that produce the software. Instead, Vupen often sells its data to government agencies and major corporations. (Source: geek.com ) "Multiple Vulnerabilities" Found: Vupen CEO That's why eyebrows were raised ... (view more)

The hacking group Anonymous claims it successfully stole data from security firm Symantec on Monday, November 5, 2012. However, Symantec denies the claim. Anonymous also claims to have gained access to servers belonging to ImageShack, a service that ... hosts pictures online. However, there has been no independent confirmation of that reported security breach, either. November 5th is an important date for Anonymous because it marks the anniversary of Guido 'Guy' Fawkes' attempt to blow up the English Parliament buildings in 1606. In England the event is remembered as 'Guy Fawkes Day.' Over time ... (view more)

According to a new report, nearly one in every eight home networks in North America is infected with malware. Experts consider about half of those threats to be "serious." The study comes from Mountain View, California's Kindsight Security Labs. In ... its third-quarter malware report, the company indicates that 13 per cent of all home networks are infected. Kindsight's report suggests that about 6.5 per cent of these infections are serious enough to have converted the computers on the infected network into a botnet , or are capable of compromising a user's information security. ZeroAccess Botnet ... (view more)

According to a new report, the international political hacking group Anonymous wants to start a new service similar to Julian Assange's Wikileaks. The new service would reportedly expose the secrets of governments and major corporations. The effort ... would be right in line with Anonymous' established penchant for carrying out attacks against the UK government , Church of Scientology, and internationally-recognized firms like Visa, MasterCard, and Sony. Financial, Legal Troubles Sideline Assange Anonymous' new service is important because Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been sidelined by ... (view more)

A security firm has revealed the twenty-five most common passwords used on websites. For the most part, they leave users particularly vulnerable to hacking. One reason? "Password" is still the most common password. The list, from analyst firm ... SplashData, is based on login details published by hackers online. Sadly, the amount of data that becomes publicly available this way seems to be ever increasing. Following "password", the next most popular passwords in decreasing order are "123456", "12345678" and "abc123", all of which appear to have been chosen by users who obviously cared ... (view more)

South Carolina taxpayers are upset after an estimated 3.6 million of their Social Security numbers were exposed to an international hacker who breached the state's Department of Revenue database. Approximately 387,000 credit and debit card numbers ... were also exposed during the attack. Luckily, most of these numbers appear to have been encrypted. The breach occurred in mid-September 2012. However, South Carolina officials didn't learn of the problem until several weeks later. Officials then initiated an investigation that discovered how the data had been accessed. South Carolina officials say ... (view more)

The barcodes on airline boarding passes may look innocent. However, one security researcher says that a smartphone camera allows anyone to figure out whether or not they'll be selected for a security check. Aviation expert John Butler recently ... noted, via his blog, that the information on barcodes isn't encrypted. (Source: wordpress.com ) Although airport staff use special scanners to read the barcodes, it turns out that a camera phone can scan the barcode and the proper app can convert it to a string of codes. You can then use the Internet to find out what these codes mean. Pre-Check ... (view more)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says an Internet firm claiming it collected only shopper opinions about the products they bought was actually collecting personal data. The firm, Compete, is negotiating a court-approved settlement of the charges. ... So far, the punishment the company will face has not been publicly revealed. Compete used online ads to recruit customers into its "Consumer Input Panel", telling them they can give their opinions and win prizes. To participate, however, consumers needed to install special tracking software on their computers to monitor what websites they visited. ... (view more)