Security

Toshiba has announced the successful completion of the first set of self-encrypting hard disk drives (HDDs) in the world. The popular Japanese consumer electronics firm has engineered these HDDs to automatically invalidate confidential data when ... connected to an unknown host. The 2.5-type MK6461GSYG family of hard disk drives is featured in five different models, ranging from 160GB to 640GB. All models allow the original manufacturers to configure different data invalidation options. Their main purpose in doing so is to assist IT departments in helping their companies comply with ever-changing ... (view more)

Do you feel safe using Facebook? Given the social networking site's incredible growth in previous years, it would appear most people do. But one prominent security company says the site should do a whole lot more to protect its millions of users, ... and has made three major suggestions for beefing up Facebook's privacy shields. The suggestions include: Introduce major adjustments to the default privacy settings so that user data cannot be shared in any circumstance unless they give express consent. (Right now, people have to seek out and adjust these settings to keep people from snooping ... (view more)

The FBI and Justice Department have shut down a network of infected Windows machines used for stealing money. The 'Coreflood' botnet was one of the largest and most longstanding networks of its type. Despite the network shutdown, the malicious ... software used to infect PCs remains in the wild. Over 2 Million PCs Infected with Malicious Software The botnet at one point held control over two million PCs which were infected by malicious software, often downloaded unknowingly by users online the Internet. The malicious software (also known as "malware") easily penetrated Windows defenses ... (view more)

Windows users are being targeted by a new scam that extorts money through long-distance telephone calls, racking up heavy charges. After a victim mistakenly downloads and installs a Trojan onto their PC, the following message is displayed on a ... Windows PC: "This copy of Windows is locked. You may be a victim of fraud or there may be an internal error". While similar messages have appeared before and related to scareware and ransomware scams, the fact that the Windows operating system will not reboot (either in normal mode or safe mode) adds validity to the alleged crisis situation. Victims ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced that Tuesday's security update will include patches for a record-breaking 64 security problems. They include fixes for a number of particularly high profile problems announced in the past couple of months. The update will be ... made up of 17 bulletins. That ties for the record, though this will be a new highest figure for the number of individual fixes. One of the bugs that's being fixed involved a bug in the Windows Server Message Block ("SMB"), the system that controls networking and file-sharing. The bug was disclosed in February and could theoretically have ... (view more)

Prepare to get your terrorism reports dished out via social networking sites very soon. The United States government says it's considering using Twitter and Facebook to announce changes in the terror-alert system, replacing the old color-coded ... ratings ranging from "Low" to "Guarded" all the way up to "High" and "Severe". Warning System Could Start This Month The report doesn't come to us from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but instead the Associated Press, which says it recently learned DHS is considering April 27 as a start date for the new program. The Facebook and Twitter ... (view more)

A leading security firm says targeting personal data is becoming less of a priority for online criminals. Instead, there's now a greater effort to unlawfully access corporate data, including trade secrets. Word of this new trend comes to us courtesy ... of a McAfee report based on a survey of around 1,000 IT managers in seven countries. Only 1/3 Of Companies Publicly Admit Data Breach Perhaps the most dramatic finding was that previous estimates of data breaches may have been much lower than was reality, as just 30 per cent of companies questioned said they always make breaches public. Around 60 ... (view more)

A controversial new Trojan virus is creeping onto Android smartphones everywhere, but poses no danger of compromising personal data or stealing confidential banking information. The threat is virtually harmless to "victims". Rather, the sole intent ... of the Trojan is to target, and later humiliate, those Android owners who download pirated material rather than pay for an authentic version of the same content. Pirated Android Walk and Text App Devious Referred to as the "Batman of Mobile Malware" the Trojan (also called Android.Walkinwat) poses as a pirated version of the popular "Walk and Text ... (view more)

According to a new report from security firm Symantec, the volume and complexity of web-based hacker attacks continues to grow. Symantec says the total daily number of online attacks actually jumped an incredible 93 per cent from 2009 to 2010. Also ... rising to concerning levels was the number of attacks launched upon mobile platforms. Symantec's findings come to us courtesy of the company's "Internet Security Threat Report," which was released on Tuesday. The findings were certainly eye-catching, including one report which suggests that hacking results in an average of 262,767 exploited ... (view more)

An unspecified number of email users may be indirect victims of a recent data breach at a major marketing company. The breach was at Epsilon, which operates online mailing lists for many major companies, including seven of the ten largest firms in ... America. It's rumored that "millions" of email addresses may have been compromised in the attack. (Source: forbes.com ) The data theft means users should be on high alert for so-called email " phishing " attempts. Massive Data Breach a Gold Harvest for Online Scammers Epsilon says the breach involved the data relating to 2 per cent of its ... (view more)