Imminent threats
Angry Birds and other Facebook apps score low on privacy
April 22, 2012
A new service that grades how each of Facebook’s top third-party apps respects consumers’ privacy was released late Sunday by research firm PrivacyChoice. The free tool, Privacyscore for Facebook, spells out privacy policies and tracking practices of more than 200 top Facebook apps, including games, work-related programs and sharing apps.
Online tracking is fueling a heated national debate over whether new do-not-track laws are needed to safeguard …More
Workarounds arise as Apple readies cure for Mac infections
April 12, 2012
If you suspect your Mac might be one of the 600,000 or so computers infected with the Flashback virus, Finnish antivirus company F-Secure has issued a free tool that detects and removes the nasty infection.
Another detection tool you can use has been made available by Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky. Meanwhile, Apple has issued a statement indicating that it is continuing to work on an …More
Mobile devices carry intrinsic security flaws
April 9, 2012
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 09Apr2012, P1B
Those cool mobile devices beloved by consumers carry deep-rooted security flaws that are only now being discovered and addressed.
That’s the upshot of two recent deep examinations of popular mobile devices. The findings highlight how designers of the current generation of smartphones and tablet PCs failed to fully account for the security and privacy implications.
“Today’s smartphones and tablet devices perform the …More
Why Apple needs to be more forthcoming with patching
April 6, 2012
Henry
The disclosure of a massive botnet comprised entirely of Macs is serving as a lightning rod for the community of a few hundred top virus hunters who would like to see Apple become more collaborative about defending the Internet against cybercriminals.
“Maybe Apple will feel a little of the pain their users are now feeling and get serious about being more candid and perhaps …More
Milestone botnet comprised of 600,000 infected Macs
April 5, 2012
This was inevitable. A cyber gang has assembled a botnet comprised of Apple Macs, not Windows PCs.
An unpatched portion of Java left Mac users prone to the Flashback Trojan, which causes the machine to quietly report to a command and control server for further instructions.
Mac users can get infected by navigating to a viral web page pre-loaded to deliver a driveby download tuned to exploit this …More
Merchants, consumers on hook due to card processor breach
March 30, 2012
Merchants and consumers could be the big losers in the latest case of hackers cracking the complex systems used to process credit and debit card transactions.
Visa and MasterCard acknowledged Friday that they’ve been alerting banks about a major breach of an unnamed payment card processing firm. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, named Atlanta-based Global Payments as the processor in question.
Global Payments declined interview …More
Caller ID spoofers raid online banking accounts
March 16, 2012
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 16March2012, P1B
Cyberthieves are stepping up phone-calling scams to pilfer from consumers’ online banking accounts.
In the second half of 2011, Pindrop Security detected more than 1 million fraudulent calls, including 189,439 in December, a 52% spike from the 124,258 calls tracked in July, according to a first of its kind reporte released Thursday.
“Mobile is a growth area for online banking fraud,” says Stan …More
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