Late last week, one Justin Watt discovered something suspicious going on with the wi-fi at his hotel, the Times Square Marriott. Not content to charge him hundreds for the room and $16.95 for internet access, it appeared that the service provider was using JavaScript injection to serve banner ads on every website guests visited.
The story spread like wildfire for obvious reasons, and at last… → Read More
Move over organized cybercriminals, the new gangs in town don’t want our money, but they want to make a point, and they’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure we listen. The annual Data Breach Investigations Report (embedded below this post) from Verizon and major security agencies has found that hacktivism from the likes of Anonymous accounted for 58 percent of all data stolen online in… → Read More
Jailbreaking, a term that has come to encompass several practices but generally refers to a user obtaining root access on their device, is controversial in a strange way. Companies like Apple and Nintendo hate it, and most users don’t care about it. Yet it’s constantly in the news because it is, in fact, a philosophical conflict.
RIM has posted an official response to the habit of jailbreaking… → Read More
Privacy and security issues have been at the forefront of tech news this week, with recently exposed loopholes in Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android indicating that apps can access much more content on our smartphones than most users realize. Superstar security researcherAshkan Soltani came by the TCTV studio to dig a bit deeper into how safe smartphones are today and whether things are getting… → Read More
A vulnerability has been discovered on AT&T’s website which allows anyone to look up the phone numbers of AT&T subscribers, provided they have the subscriber’s email address. The issue involves a form on AT&T’s site where a subscriber can input their email address in order to recover their forgotten AT&T User ID. Except instead of simply emailing the User ID to the email address… → Read More
If you’re a big website, you have a range of good options for staying protected from malicious hacks: hardware from enterprise-oriented companies like Cisco or McAfee, your own in-house support, or hosted professional blog services like WordPress VIP (which is what TechCrunch uses). If you’re a smaller site out on the open web, you have weaker options — at least if you want to get auto-updated… → Read More
Software and SaaS security company Cenzic is today launching a new security product for mobile application developers which will allow for the testing of mobile apps on any platform – iOS, Android, J2ME, and more. The product will be the first that can test products without requiring developers to submit the source code, as all the testing is done through the cloud, while the app is… → Read More
Mobilisafe, the stealthy Seattle-based mobile security startup with $1.2 million in funding from Madrona Venture Group and Trilogy Equity Partnership, is opening up access to its private beta program today (invite link below) for a handful of TechCrunch readers.
In addition, the company is revealing new insights it gained during its private beta period related to the penetration of mobile… → Read More
It’s a tense time for Google: controversial policy and user-experience changes are combining with a growing distrust of tracking and advertising to produce something of a toxic atmosphere. Not the moment, then, you would want a minor scandal to erupt in the form of Google circumventing, intentionally or unintentionally, the privacy settings of millions of Safari users.
The allegations have… → Read More
26 models of Trendnet webcams have been identified as vulnerable to a bug that lets anyone tap into the video stream with just an IP address. The flaw was noted a month ago and the company has been working to alert people and patch the devices. Unfortunately, the company has no way of contacting non-registered webcam owners, and so the devices may remain accessible if the users never suspect… → Read More
My Dad, bless his heart, spends all day on the Internet and, like a reverse Cat’s In The Cradle, my dad is just like me in that he loves to find wild junk that he thinks is interesting. To wit: he just found the Brinno Peephole Viewer, an electronic system for looking through a peephole.
To be fair, this is definitely something people need. My parents are getting up in years so they’re getting… → Read More
In 2011, Sony had several major security breaches: Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Pictures, and Playstation Network all were attacked and private data was successfully stolen. Their handling of the attacks, particularly the larger PSN one, was widely criticized.
Many users are either unaware or acutely aware of how many sites and services have financially or personally sensitive information on… → Read More
Here’s Hongyi Zhou’s advice to Chinese entrepreneurs: “Don’t try to be cool.” Zhou is CEO of Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU), whose company’s core is the definition of uncool: anti-virus software. Yet Qihoo has 370 million monthly active users and a very cool $1.9 billion dollar valuation.
If you want to build a big company in China, don’t build for your iPhone-toting friends, the Chinese tech blogs… → Read More
There’s something weird going on with Chromebooks – the Google-branded laptop computers powered by the company’s web-based operating system Chrome OS. They’re not saving the password changes you make to your Google account. Basically, if you change your password, shut down your machine, then reboot, the Chromebook will ask you for your old password instead of the new one.
The problem has to do… → Read More
On the surface, the announcement sounds boring: Microsoft said this morning that it will begin automatically upgrading Windows customers to the latest version of Internet Explorer starting next year. But in reality, this was one of the most important things Microsoft could have done for the web, web security and the safety of all those who go online.
Nice move, Microsoft. It’s about time. → Read More
I’ve recently fallen into the habit of pulling and tugging at ATM slots before I slide my card through because I fear that someone nefarious has stuck one of these 3D-printed card skimmers over the opening. This skimmer, found in California, was 3D-printed to resemble the real Chase ATM slot almost perfectly.
Wildly enough, there’s a pinhole camera connected to a full PCB hidden under the plate… → Read More
More and more of us are getting comfortable sharing our real-world identities online, but the tools for helping us maintain our online privacy and security are still catching up to our behavior. Witness the porn-and-violence spam links attack that caused many users to accidentally share and see nasty images in their news feeds.
German company Secure.me has a solution, that it has recently… → Read More
DARPA’s Shredder Challenge, a contest to reconstruct documents from a slurry of shredded paper, has been solved, suggesting that my grandmother may be barking up the wrong tree when she shreds the Campmor catalog. Three scientists with experience in computer vision and mobile technology, Otavio Good, Luke Alonso, and Keith Walker, scanned each chunk for unique characteristics that allowed them to… → Read More
A San Francisco-based team has just won the DARPA Shredder Challenge. DARPA, the government agency whose work led to the creation of the Internet, challenged the public to reconstruct five shredded documents. The winning team, called “All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S.” completed the task in 33 days, spending nearly 600 man-hours building algorithms and piecing together more than 10,000… → Read More
You may be aware of the growing controversy surrounding Carrier IQ, a piece of software found pre-installed on Sprint phones that, according to developers who have investigated, is capable of detecting, recording, and transmitting various user actions and inputs. Among the data CIQ potentially has access to are location, SMS, apps, and key presses.
News of the software has been percolating for… → Read More
Valve CEO Gabe Newell has contacted all users of the Steam game distribution platform to let them know that the company has suffered a security breach. The hack was originally thought to be limited to the official Steam forums, but further investigation has revealed that the hackers had access to a database containing “user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses… → Read More
In an experiment that reveals as much about the people on Facebook as it does about Facebook itself, researchers from the Unversity of British Columbia Vancouver infiltrated the social network with bots and made off with information from thousands of users.
Around 250GB of data was stolen during the study, including personal and marketable information, and around three thousand users were… → Read More
New figures from Facebook reveal how often the social networking site’s users are hacked. In the blog post announcing the forthcoming “Trusted Friends” feature, Facebook also an included infographic detailing Facebook’s security measures. One figure in particular jumped out at security researchers: every day, “only .06%” of Facebook’s 1 billion logins are compromised. Or, to put it another way… → Read More
Facebook says it will soon allow you to get help from your friends when you get locked out of your Facebook account. According to a post on Facebook’s official Security page, you’ll be able to designate three to five friends as “Trusted Friends” who will be sent special codes in the event that you’re locked out of your Facebook account and unable to access your email.
It will also be… → Read More
A hacking group calling themselves “Team Swastika” posted what they claimed was over 10,000 comprised Facebook accounts to Pastebin, a service that serves as an online clipboard. However, according to statements from Facebook PR, these email and password combinations don’t actually represent live Facebook accounts. Instead, it appears that the hackers obtained the accounts using common phishing… → Read More
Facebook is announcing a partnership with security firm Websense today, in order to protect its users from dangerous links that lead to malicious websites and malware sites. Going forward, when a Facebook user clicks on a link, the new system will first check the link against Websense’s system to determine whether or not it’s safe. If it’s not, a message is displayed warning the user that the link… → Read More
Oh, Microsoft! You are so cunning. With IE market share plummeting and many users opting for “alternative” web browsers like Firefox and Chrome, your base of power is crumbling. We thought you would succumb to melancholy and accept your fate. But you had a plan all along. Clever girl.
Yes, Microsoft has found a way to stanch the hemorrhaging of its users to other browsers: label them as malware… → Read More
Remember Connectify? The downloadable software that turns PCs into Wi-Fi hotspots in just a few minutes? It looks like the company now has a new investor: In-Q-Tel (IQT), which just so happens to be the strategic investment firm that seeks out new technologies for the U.S. Intelligence Community, including the CIA. → Read More
“Did you see this photo of you?” “Look on your face in this pix is priceless!” “LMAO this video of you is funny!”
If you’re a regular Twitter user, you’ve probably see tweets like those come through as @replies or direct messages at some point. And you probably know not to click on the accompanying link. After all, there is no picture of you behind it, only a malicious web page set up by a… → Read More
They’re out there. Be afraid. They could be anywhere, everywhere, anyone. They are shadowy, deadly, mysterious, guided by intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic. Security consultants and antivirus firms whisper legends of them to their clients to scare them straight. They’re the Voldemort of online security, except that everyone is all too eager to say their name: the Advanced Persistent… → Read More
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