Mozilla today bumped up Firefox Aurora, the pre-beta release channel of the popular browser, to version 23. With this, it is introducing a number of new tools for developers that will now slowly make their way into the stable release channel over the next few months. Sadly (or maybe not), this is also the first version of Firefox that does away with the good old blink element, a former staple of… → Read More
Apple faces a whole lot of inbound requests to unlock iPhone devices from law enforcement officials, according to a new report from CNET. Seized iPhones with a passcode lock are apparently secure enough to frustrate a lot of police agencies in the U.S., resulting in a wait list that Apple has put in place to help it deal with unlock requests from the authorities. → Read More
San Francisco-based Revel Systems is essentially the industry leader when it comes to iPad-based point-of-sale (POS) for restaurants, grocery and now retail, and today it’s adding additional security features that provide an added level of comfort for users and merchants. Revel 2.0 brings a new identity theft protection system to the POS, which shows an image of the credit card holder on the… → Read More
McAfee, the Intel-owned security specialist, has just announced that it is buying Stonesoft Oyj,a Finland-based specialist in firewall protection products, for $389 million in cash. The move will let McAfee expand its product line specifically in cloud-based networked security products, to complement the antivirus services for which McAfee is best known. Stonesoft, a publicly-traded company in… → Read More
In what was a mind-boggling series of events in real time, one Associated Press hack and a false tweet about the White House sent the stock market into a momentary free fall. Twitter hopes to stop intrusions like that in the future by introducing a two-factor authentication process, Wired has learned. When this offering will be available to users is unknown. The company has been working on this at… → Read More
With the Era of Over-sharing and the Social Fire Hose upon us, the heft and value of privacy is changing — and, for better or worse, many argue that it’s diminishing. Perturbed by the access many companies (inconspicuously) have to our browsing history, former Googler Brian Kennish developed a Chrome Extension to address the browser privacy issue. Facebook Connect, as it was called then, disabled… → Read More
Chrome will soon warn users when they are about to download software that could try to change how the browser handles extensions. Specifically, this extension to the company’s Safe Browsing system looks for binaries that could allow potentially malicious extensions to be installed in the browser without the user’s knowledge. This new feature will roll out within the next few days. Last… → Read More
Microsoft today announced that it has launched two-step authentication for its Microsoft accounts. This optional feature, which will roll out to all Microsoft accounts over the next few days, works pretty much exactly like the two-factor authentication schemes you are probably already familiar with. Besides your usual password, you will also need a second piece of information – a short… → Read More
Mobile service provider NQ Mobile today released a study of malware covering 2012, using data gathered from the company’s Security Labs. It found that malware threats in general on mobile platforms grew 163 percent in 2012, totally more than 65,000 identified distinct forms of app repackaging, malicious URLs and SMS phishing (also known as smishing). The attacks were mostly geared towards Android… → Read More
If you’re running a WordPress site, now would be a good time to ensure you are using very strong passwords and to make sure your username is not “admin.” According to reports from HostGator and CloudFlare, there is currently a significant attack being launched at WordPress blogs across the Internet. For the most part, this is a brute-force dictionary-based attack that aim to find… → Read More
Nir Goldschlager just saved your identity. One of the world’s top white hat security researchers, Goldschlager this week helped Skype and Dropbox fix a critical security flaw that could have let hackers take control of their users’ Facebook accounts. Tomorrow Goldschlager will detail how he found the exploit, but he gave TechCrunch the early heads up. Here’s how hackers exploit the hole. → Read More
There is no single mobile payment company in Europe that has reached the scale and stature that Square has in the U.S., where the Jack Dorsey-led startup processed $1 billion in transactions in 2012. Payleven, one of the many mobile payment startups that want to take that crown on the other side of the pond, is today announcing two more steps in its strategy to convince businesses and consumers to… → Read More
Amazon just announced the launch of CloudHSM, a new service that provides Amazon Web Services users who need to meet corporate, contractual and regulatory compliance requirements for data security a way to do so by using a dedicated Hardware Security Module (the ‘HSM’ in CloudHSM) within the Amazon cloud. Until now, Amazon argues, the only option for many companies that use its cloud… → Read More
Needs some pharmacologicals? Dirty deeds done dirt cheap? There’s an app (or website) for that.
For years, the Silk Road has been a source for black market dealings. Hidden on the Tor network, Silk Road is technically unreachable from the “normal” Internet without special secure software. Now, however, a few hackers who are attempting to remain nameless are working on a secure version of the… → Read More
It looks like GitHub Enterprise, the on-premises version of the GitHub code-sharing platform, has today leaked out over 3,000 emails of individuals that use it. Those emails were then posted online on a Pastebin page (which we’re not linking to; please don’t post the link in the comments below). → Read More
Security writer Brian Krebs’ phone was spoofed and a SWAT team called to his home last week by hackers who apparently took offense at his investigations into various online hacking organizations. His website also suffered a denial of service attack for a short period. → Read More
It’s often been said that we, as users, are “the product” of networks like Google or Facebook. But there is now a new wave of privacy centric start-ups seeking to give us back control of our personal data. One of these is Abine which boasts a suite of products that protect our online privacy. Data protection is the “new frontier”, Abine’s CEO Bill Kerrigan, who describes his startup as “the online… → Read More
The rise in cybercrime, malware and other malicious hacking is seeing a subsequent rise in the fortunes of tech startups that are setting out to fight it. Today, cybercrime solution specialist Endgame announced that it has raised $23 million in a Series B round of equity finance. It will partly use the proceeds to take its product — originally developed for and deployed with government customers… → Read More
Is it because Android is the most popular smartphone platform in the world right now, or is it because it’s just fundamentally easier to attack? In any case, Google’s mobile juggernaut Android continues to be the world’s biggest magnet for mobile malware. According to a report out today from security specialists F-Secure, Android accounted for 79% of all malware in 2012, up from 66.7% in 2011 and… → Read More
Evernote is requiring its nearly 50 million users to reset their passwords after the popular personal note-taking app became the latest high-profile victim of wide-scale hacking attempts. The breach follows malicious activity at Twitter, Facebook and others in recent weeks. → Read More
A new Kickstarter project called the Ego! Smartmouse blends together some recent trends in computing, including hardware identity authentication and 3D motion control to come up with a unique input device that wears many hats. The Ego! is a mouse in the traditional sense, allowing you to control your desktop or laptop computer, and it also has on-board file storage, can work as an authentication… → Read More
It’s rare to come across a service that’s directly tackling a problem affecting a large number of people out in the real world, but AppCertain is doing just that. Designed for parents whose children use an iOS device like the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, this new app monitoring service sends out email alerts informing parents of the apps their kids have just installed, what those apps do, and… → Read More
Twitter announced via its blog today that it has begun using DMARC, a security protocol designed to cut down the number of fake emails that users receive from companies pretending to be Twitter itself. The move should help cut down on phishing scams, where third parties try to get users to give up their login details via false requests for password verification or other personal info. → Read More
Jumio, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed mobile payments and ID-scanning startup, is today releasing a new version of its Netverify product designed specifically for mobile devices, both smartphones and tablets. Netverify Mobile, as it’s called, will allow app publishers to authenticate their customers’ identities via their driver’s license, passport or other ID card. → Read More
Apple has revealed that it was attacked by the same group that went after Facebook in a recent attempt to break that network’s security. The company says a “small number” of its Macs were affected, but there is “no evidence that any data left Apple,” according to a report by Reuters. The company will be issuing software to prevent customers from being attacked in the same manner, Apple said. → Read More
According to a somewhat self-congratulatory update that Google posted earlier today, it’s getting significantly harder for hackers to successfully compromise its users’ accounts. Google says it has “dramatically reduced the number of compromised accounts by 99.7 percent since the peak of these hijacking attempts in 2011.” → Read More
Scout is a wireless security system that starts at $120 and is completely removable. The handsomely-designed units can protect windows and doors in your home and you can program reactions to various events including and up to calling the police. I’ve seen a number of home alarm systems come and go over the years and this one, at least, has that Nest quality that we all know and love. The… → Read More
Apple had a new patent application published by the USPTO today, describing an unlocking method for digital devices that uses image identification to properly recognize an authorized user. The system would present a user with photographs from their iPhoto or iCloud collections, and then ask them to identify who or what the subject is in order to unlock the device. The item in question could also… → Read More
With hacking and malware on the rise, Europe is cracking down on cybersecurity: today the European Commission, working with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, is launching a new cybersecurity strategy along with a proposed directive on how to implement it (both embedded below). Among other things, the directive calls for each member state of the EU to set… → Read More
Twitter is sending out emails to 250,000 users it says may have had their accounts compromised in the last week as the site experienced “unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data.” Twitter tells TechCrunch that this is “not related” to the widespread, but intermittent, outage the site saw yesterday. → Read More
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