Top Stories
Want your privacy back? Try disappearing
September 2, 2010
Danger and money. Those are the two reasons people choose to disappear, says professional skip-tracer Frank M. Ahearn. Think witness protection program. Or faking your death as part of a life insurance scam.
Ahearn helps find people for a living. He says he helps them vanish, too. He says he helped identify Monica Lewinsky as the intern dallying with President Bill Clinton. And he says he helped locate — and hide …More
Zscaler researcher finds scanning flaw in HP all-in-one printers
September 1, 2010
A cybersecurity researcher has discovered an easy way for a hacker to swipe copies of documents scanned by Hewlett-Packard all-in-one printers widely used in workplace settings.
Michael Sutton, Vice President of Security Research at Zscaler Labs, outlines in this blog post how a feature, called WebScan, that’s enabled by default on countless HP all-in-one printers, can be activated remotely to transmit copies of a scanned document over the …More
Kindsight perfecting Intrustion Detection System for home PC users
August 27, 2010
Security start-up Kindsight is in the late stages of bringing to market a breakthrough tool that could, if it catches on, establish a new paradigm for protecting consumers’ PCs.
Consider that iTune hijackers and online banking cyberrobbers both rely on a ready supply of illicitly-obtained usernames and passwords to log into your various Internet accounts.
They typically obtain your account credentials from phishers, who direct …More
Apple criticized for minimizing iTunes hijacking
August 25, 2010
Apple is coming under fire for sticking with a consumer online transactions system that is easily hijacked.
At issue is iTunes, the payment hub for Apple’s online sales of music, video and apps for iPods, iPhones and iPads. Turns out that hijacking an iTunes account is very straight forward. For at least the past year, iTunes hijackers have been buying stolen usernames and passwords from phishers and …More
Spanair crash shows deadly result of using tainted USB stick
August 22, 2010
A virus-carrying USB thumb drive has been implicated in the 2008 crash of a Spanish jetliner, the deadliest air disaster in Spanish history.
Packed with vacationers, Spanair Flight JK5022 smashed into the ground shortly after takeoff from Madrid’s Barajas international airport, bound for the Canary Islands. The Aug. 20, 2008 tragedy killed 154 of 172 souls on board the Boeing MD-80 jetliner.
El Pais cites a 12,000-page …More
Try these new software tools to boost your protection
August 18, 2010
Roaming the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas last month, LastWatchdog ran across several powerful new tools recently and/or soon to be made available to consumers to help them better protect themselves online. This is another small step forward. Here is my report published today in 1.8 million copies of USA TODAY circulating in newsstands, newsracks and hotel rooms across the land.
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 18 …More
How DNS, the backbone of the Internet, is being shored up
August 13, 2010
Two recent developments having to do with Domain Name System, or DNS, should help substantively shore up cybersecurity over the long haul.
VeriSign this week launched a new managed DNS service aimed at helping companies and organizations — especially small- and medium-sized firms — run more smoothly and better defend against denial of service attacks.
That follows the big announcement late last month at the Black Hat cybersecurity …More