You’re out and about, and your smartphone’s battery is about to die. Maybe you’re at an airport, hotel, or shopping mall. You don’t have the power cable needed to charge the device, but you do have a USB cord that can supply the needed juice. Then you spot an oasis: A free charging kiosk. Do you hesitate before connecting your phone to this unknown device that could be configured to read most of the data on your phone, and perhaps even upload malware?
Cyber thieves stole $217,000 last month from the Metropolitan Entertainment & Convention Authority (MECA), a nonprofit organization responsible for operating the Qwest Center and other gathering places in Omaha, Nebraska.
I recently wrote about an online service that was selling access to stolen credit and debit card data. That post received a lot of attention, but criminal bazaars are a dime a dozen. The real news is that few of these fraud shops are secure enough to keep their stock of stolen data from being pilfered by thieves.
Adobe has shipped patches to fix a slew of critical security flaws in its products, including Flash, Shockwave Player and Adobe AIR.
Microsoft today released 13 software updates to fix at least 22 security flaws in its Windows operating system and other software. Two of the flaws addressed in the August patch batch earned Microsoft’s most dire “critical” rating, meaning that attackers can exploit them to break into systems without any help from users.
A district court judge in Maine last week approved a pending decision that commercial banks which protect accounts with little more than passwords and secret questions are in compliance with federal online banking security guidelines.
Six million Web pages have been booby-trapped with malware, using security vulnerabilities in software that hundreds of thousands of e-commerce Web sites use to process credit and debit card transactions. Web security firm Armorize said it has detected more than… Read More »
On Wednesday I wrote that many of the top fake antivirus distribution programs had ceased operations, citing difficulty in processing credit card transactions from victims. Others are starting to take note of the trend: Security firm McAfee says it has witnessed a dramatic drop in the number of customers reporting scareware detections in recent weeks.
A majority of the largest fake AV affiliate programs that pay hackers to foist junk security software have closed up shop in recent weeks. The wave of closures comes amid heightened scrutiny of the industry from security experts and a host of international law enforcement officials.
Over the past several weeks, many of the Web sites for the top fake AV promotion programs disappeared or complained of difficulty in processing credit card transactions for would-be scwareware victims: Fake AV brands such as Gagarincash, Best AV, Blacksoftware.cc and a Sevantivir.com ceased operating or alerted peddlers who were hired to install these programs that they might not get paid for current and future installations.
A new approach to overcoming state-level Internet censorship relies, ironically enough, on a technique that security experts have frequently associated with government surveillance. Current anti-censorship technologies, including the services Tor and Dynaweb, direct connections to restricted websites through a network… Read More »
