For technologists
Why network forensics should become ongoing maintenance
April 12, 2012
Company network attacks — and successful intrusions — continue at a steadily rising pace, for a litany of reasons. The core driver is a complex dynamic. We continue to expand commercial uses of the Internet, pumping more cloud services, social media and mobile devices into the mix.
The end result is an ever expanding canvas of attack surfaces for highly skilled and motivated cybergangs to tap into corporate databases. In this LastWatchdog guest post, …More
Will Congress make Obama’s Privacy Bill of Rights law?
February 23, 2012
Getting a divided Congress to pass any hard-edged privacy legislation is the next big hurdle President Obama faces in getting his Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights made the law of the land.
“We urge the Administration to ensure that it carries out this process in a fair and transparent manner, and that consumer voices are heard and acted on,” Susan Grant, Director of Consumer Protection at Consumer Federation …More
Obama calls for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights
February 23, 2012
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 23FEB2012, P1B
The White House on Wednesday unveiled a strongly worded “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights’’ as the linchpin for a drive to get Congress to pass new laws protecting consumers privacy as they surf the Internet.
The announcement came as Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and attorneys general from 35 other states sent a letter to Google complaining about a new …More
Rockefeller, Bono Mack seek explanations from Facebook
November 16, 2011
Two federal lawmakers want Facebook to come before Congress to explain how the social media company tracks Web users and why Facebook members got swarmed by pornographic and violent images this week.
Reacting to details of Facebook’s tracking practices disclosed in LastWatchdog’s page 1A story in print editions of USA TODAY, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D – W. Virg., said he intends to invite Facebook and …More
How Facebook keeps tracking logs of the webpages you visit
November 15, 2011
In recent weeks, Facebook has been wrangling with the Federal Trade Commission over whether the social media website is violating users’ privacy by making public too much of their personal information.
Far more quietly, another debate is brewing over a different side of online privacy: what Facebook is learning about those who visit its website.
Facebook officials are now acknowledging that the social media giant has been able to …More
Ten-fold rise in malicious ads bedevils publishers, consumers
November 2, 2011
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 03Nov2011, P1A
The online advertising industry is scrambling to quell a long-standing problem that has taken a turn for the worse: the spread of malicious ads on the Internet’s top commercial websites.
Several new twists have made so-called malvertisements a fast-rising threat to consumers — and a big headache for publishers, advertisers and ad networks, say technologists and security researchers.
The spread of infected …More
Symantec’s new tool helps publishers spot ‘malvertisements’
November 2, 2011
Web site publishers finally have a new tool they can use to prevent criminals from sneaking malicious ads onto commercial webpages.
Antivirus giant Symantec has partnered with web app security firm Armorize to offer a cloud-based URL scanning service tuned to spot and thus help to block so-called malvertisements.
Symantec and Armorize unveiled the new service, called AdVantage, at the Online Trust Alliance’s “Realizing the …More
keep looking »