Items tagged with security
After confirming the existence of a zero-day vulnerability affecting its Reader and Acrobat software, Adobe said it plans to make available an update that will resolve the issue. The patch will come out sometime this week, though Adobe wasn't able to nail down a specific day. "Adobe is in the process of working on fixes for these issues and...
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There sure has been a lot of hacking going on in recent weeks. Even major news outlets like The New York Times have joined the U.S. government in suspecting the Chinese military of attempting to solicit digital information, and this week, Facebook announced that it too has been the target of an attack. In a post erected to the company's Security...
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Another day, another Adobe Reader vulnerability -- what else is new, right? It just so happens that this latest security hole affects several versions of Adobe Reader, including 10 and 11, both of which are supposed to keep the operating system isolated from attacks through sandbox technology. No dice. "Adobe has identified critical vulnerabilities...
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Privacy advocates aren't going to like this revelation one bit, but it's come to light that Google Play isn't keeping your personally identifiable information as sacred as you might think. Every time you download an app, your private information is sent to the app's developer, including your full name, email address...
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Amid increasing threats of cyber attacks by foreign forces, the White House is reportedly going to release an executive order intended to improve the nation's cyber defenses. Details of the directive are expected to be released during a briefing tomorrow morning at the U.S. Department of Commerce. According to The...
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In the immortal words of radiohead: “You do it to yourself...and that’s why it really hurts.” Security company Bit9 is surely feeling those words after being hacked late last week when attackers targeted computers within Bit9’s own network that weren’t protected by Bit9’s own...
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Stretch those network pipes, because on Tuesday, a big workout is coming. That's when Microsoft's monthly "Patch Tuesday" hits, and this is one particular roll-out where the word "mammoth" definitely fits. In total, there are 57 flaws to be patched, 12 of which are either considered to be "Critical" or "Important". On...
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In tandem with a release of new security updates for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android operating systems (which patch a vulnerability “that could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system”), Adobe’s ASSET Platform Security Strategist...
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According to several reports, for a brief time period on Thursday late afternoon (or early evening, depending on your time zone), multiple major Internet news sites experienced a bug that redirected visitors to Facebook--specifically, a Facebook error page. At least one source, Say Media, believes that the issue...
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In what sounds like a scene out of one of those (well meaning, but never remotely accurate) cyber-action movies, teams of technicians from Symantec and Microsoft’s Digital Crimes unit wielding a court order from the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, were escorted by U.S. Federal Marshals in raids on data centers in New Jersey...
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Following rumors that hacktivist collective Anonymous had breached the US Federal Reserve servers this past weekend comes word from the Fed itself to acknowledge that it did in fact happen. Despite the fact that Anonymous managed to leak information on some 4,000 banking executives, the Federal Reserve is down-playing...
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In the cloud storage and sharing market, Dropbox is the prototypical service that everyone emulates, and LogMeIn’s new offering, Cubby, indeed bears a striking resemblance. Like Dropbox, it offers 5GB of free cloud storage that you can access, manage, and edit via a Web browser, mobile device, or synced desktop folder. If you invite...
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Social butterflies beware, there's a brand new strain of the Facebook Token Hijacker malware going around, and it preys on victims who want to score a pair of free UGGs boots. What makes this malware "special" is that it's armed with improved obfuscation techniques to keep its dirty code hidden from anti-malware...
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Google’s Eric Schmidt has written a book in collaboration with fellow Googler Jared Cohen called The New Digital Age, and the Wall Street Journal has been reviewing it and pulled out some interesting bits to share. One of the prevailing themes of the work is that Schmidt sees China as an increasingly major...
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If our not-too-subtle hint a couple of weeks ago about the perils of having Java installed wasn't enough to convince you to uninstall, you should waste no time in heading on over to the official site and grabbing the latest version (7u13). When it comes to Java, the Swiss-cheese of the software world, it's important...
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Concerned that hacking is on the rise? You've every right to be worried. Following recent reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times surrounding intrusion from outside forces into their news systems and e-mail databases, Twitter has now affirmed a security puncture of its own. The company released a blog post noting that it...
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Have you ever found yourself caught in a Captcha loop? It's where you do your best to decipher strings of text that sometimes look like a bunch of hieroglyphics, only to get it wrong over and over again until finally, you punch in the correct characters and are granted to access to a site you're now too frustrated to visit. Even more annoying...
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On Wednesday, GitHub expanded and improved its search feature to make it easier to locate code stashed on the site by live-indexing newly uploaded code. In theory, it sounds like a nice improvement on the site’s ability to deliver results to those looking for certain code or developers, but it appears that the...
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There are some basic rules to follow when selecting a password. For example, while we're sure your significant other is a fine person, using their name as your password is a terrible idea. Same goes for your son's birthday. The object is to select a series of characters and symbols that's nigh impossible to guess, but it doesn't stop there....
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Most of us have dozens of passwords to remember, including for multiple email accounts, Google, Facebook, online banking and credit card accounts, services like Dropbox and Evernote, and on and on, and it’s simply a pain. It can be difficult to create a strong password that you’ll actually remember, and...
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When Oracle released its Java Update 11 earlier this week, it patched several zero-day exploits that security researchers had previously identified. Nevertheless, a number of firms still recommended uninstalling Java due to a number of remaining bugs. It's taken less than a week for new flaws to surface -- and these...
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Java is a mess; Oracle’s software has become a popular target of cybercriminals, and news about Java exploits is becoming more and more common, even as the solutions Oracle provides offer little comfort. Wait, it gets worse: According to Kaspersky Labs and security company Seculert, the terrifying and massive Red October botnet espionage...
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