Imminent threats
Cyber attacks on mobile devices gain meaningful traction
March 7, 2012
Something the security community has been fretting about for a few years, seems to have finally arrived in earnest: cybercriminals are going mobile.
Nearly one in five mobile phone users have experienced some type of security threat with their device. That’s the finding of a Cloudmark survey of 1,000 cellphone users, scheduled to be released Tuesday.
Poisoned text messages, nearly non-existent in the U.S. a few years ago, …More
Microsoft-Google privacy tussle widens spotlight on invasive practices
February 22, 2012
By Byron Acohido
USA TODAY, 22Feb2012, P1B
Mud-slinging between tech rivals is nothing new. But the red hot issue of online privacy has pushed it to another level.
Last week Google scrambled to deflect criticism that it tracked the online activities of users’ of Apple’s Safari web browser against their wishes, by circumventing an anti-tracking mechanism.
On Tuesday the search giant lashed out at Microsoft in response to …More
Google takes heat for tracking Safari users against their wishes
February 17, 2012
Yet more evidence of the gold rush to harvest and store profiling data on Internet users:
Google came under fire today by several members of Congress after a Stanford University grad student disclosed how the search giant has been tracking the online activities of users of Apple’s Safari web browser, despite the default use of a browser mechanism to block such tracking.
Jonathan Mayer, a grad student and …More
Path privacy gaffe highlights gold rush for mobile users’ data
February 16, 2012
Apple on Wednesday moved to quell the rising furor over disclosures that social network Path and several other makers of iOS apps collect and store users address books without asking their permission.
The tech giant said it would require third-party suppliers of applications in its App Store to secure user approval to use address book data, including full …More
Data thieves crack Microsoft’s India store
February 13, 2012
Another big corporation’s customer database has been breached. This time it’s Microsoft, specifically the software giant’s online retail store serving India.
“As we saw with Sony, Stratfor, Zappos and others, hackers value this information and are selling it on a thriving black market to others focused on identity theft,” says Todd Thiemann, product specialist at encryption company Vormetric. “Companies need to rethink how to value and protect customer …More
Spammers exploit notoriety of Romney, Gingrich
February 10, 2012
Spamming continues as a lucrative global enterprise, with ebbs and flows pegged to high-profile events and celebrity news.
The latest example of that: e-mail messages playing off the notoriety of Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are helping fuel an uptick in spam.
Unsolicited messages pitching products ranging from car loans and credit scoring to uncertified drugs and fad diets have actually tailed off in the past …More
Google execs lack clarity in closed-door briefing of Congress
February 3, 2012
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 3Feb2012, P1B
Google executives faced tough questions Thursday, in a meeting with members of Congress, about changes to the company’s privacy policy scheduled to go into effect March 1.
However, the search giant failed to assuage lawmakers’ privacy concerns stemming from the company’s controversial plans to step up the cross-referencing of data generated by consumers who use its popular online services, says Rep. …More
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