Items tagged with security
There have been several high profile security breaches over the last couple of years, and in many instances, cyber thieves were able to extract personal information of their target's customers. Usually this resulted in the company offering a free year of identity theft protection to those affected, though in the...
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Last summer, we learned about a super-invasive piece of hardware called "StingRay" which law enforcement can put to use to keep an eye on cellular communications in a given area. Since then, those who make use of StingRay have wanted nothing more than for us to forget about it, and in some cases have tried to deny its...
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Mozilla on Friday announced some major changes coming to the development of add-ons for its Firefox browser. One of the biggest changes is a new extension API called WebExtensions, which isn't all that different from the one used in Chrome and Opera. By switching to WebExtensions, Mozilla is making it easier for...
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Karma's a dirty little devil, a fact that as many as 37 million unfaithful online users may find that out the hard way. That's because the hackers who infiltrated Ashely Madison, a dating website for married folk to practice infidelity under the tagline "Life is short. Have an affair," published a cache of personal...
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Amid all the praise Windows 10 is receiving around the web, there is one thing that's at the center of most complaints -- automatic updates. Windows 10 Home users generally don't have a choice in the matter, the updates are mandatory and sent out automatically. For some people with limited bandwidth, that policy is...
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Considering that Android is installed on around eight out 10 smartphones around the world, it was pretty scary to find out about Stagefright, a vulnerability that's present on almost all of them. Even more frightening is that in many cases, the exploit could be triggered with a simple text message. In theory, an...
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If you're keen on not wanting your movements tracked online, Mozilla may have just saved you the need for installing extensions to prevent it. Well, as long as you don't mind using the Developer Edition of Firefox, that is.
Mozilla for quite some time has offered robust protection tools, such as Private Browsing...
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While the NSA had the support of all US telcos with its spying efforts, it's come to light that none offered the level of assistance that AT&T did. Recent documents that are part of the ongoing Snowden leaks show the NSA heaping a bit of praise on its relationship with AT&T, saying it was "highly collaborative" and...
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It's time for another dose of skepticism, because more information has been brought to light over how much data is being sent to Microsoft with its latest operating system. According to an anonymous source on a Czech website (translation available here), key-logged information and even file search results are sent...
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When acquiring a new notebook or desktop, one of the first things many power users do is wipe it clean. No one likes the "junk" that comes preinstalled, and if time is available, sometimes it's just preferable to start fresh. But what if that was easier said than done? What if that preinstalled junk became more like a...
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There are a lot of positive uses for drones and other unmanned aircraft. Amazon envisions a day when packages will be dropped off on your doorstep courtesy of a drone, and Facebook wants to use them to bring wireless broadband to remote regions. Good stuff, though as it goes with just about all technology, somebody's...
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With the amount of positive hype that surrounded Windows 10 well in advance of its launch, it almost seemed like Microsoft could do no wrong. That was up until the actual release, that is, when multiple caveats were revealed. The biggest one is no doubt the fact that users of the Home edition lack complete control...
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There have been many juicy bits of info to come out of this year's Black Hat conference, including hacking into autos, Macs that suffer a Thunderbolt bug, Microsoft boosting its bug bounty, and yet more vulnerabilities relating to Android. But wait - there's more!
According to Christopher Domas, a researcher for...
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It's estimated that half of all smartphone shipments will have a fingerprint scanner within the next four years. Many smartphone owners already use them, whether it's for unlocking a device or making a mobile payment. That's great for convenience -- it beats having to bang out a hard-to-guess password -- but as far as security is concerned,
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Microsoft has taken advantage of the ongoing Black Hat conference in Las Vegas to announce that it has increased the maximum payout in its bug bounty program from $50,000 to $100,000 - a sign that it's committed to making sure its software is as secure as possible.
This move of course comes hot on the heels of the...
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Not long after Samsung announced that it would roll out security updates to Galaxy devices on a monthly basis, Google stood up and said, "Hey, great idea, we're going to do that with Nexus hardware!" That's not a verbatim quote, mind you, but it's the gist of what Google announced only hours after Samsung in regards...
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As the most dominant mobile platform on the planet (in terms of market share), Android has become a popular target of hackers and cyber scoundrels looking to spread their malware to unsuspecting users. It's something Samsung is taking seriously, and to ensure that you stay protected against new and emerging threats...
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Adobe's Flash platform is running out of friends. You may recall that a few weeks ago Mozilla disabled Flash by default in its Firefox browser due to the discovery of multiple critical vulnerabilities, and around the same time, Facebook's chief security officer urged Adobe to set a kill date for its buggy API. Expect...
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Three recently graduated students at Boston University warn that there are a couple of different ways for scammers to use a Square Reader device to steal credit card data. One of the methods involves physically altering the tiny credit card reader and turning it into a skimmer. For someone who knows what they're...
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There's a lot to love about Windows 10, but as it happens, there are a bunch of caveats to be aware of, as well. In fact, as soon as the OS released last week, security experts the world over began to raise a stink about how this is the OS that basically throws away your privacy, and in some cases, even your...
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Windows 10 is off to a blazing fast start. The last official count had Windows 10 installed on more than 14 million devices in its first 24 hours, and unofficially there are now more than 67 million PCs and hybrids running the new OS. So naturally the bad guys are looking to capitalize on the situation, which they're...
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Earlier this week, we learned of a scary piece of malware that can strike almost all Android devices in use. As has become a theme of late, the exploit is trigged via a simple text message. While it's easy to assume that you'll be safe simply by not reading any unsolicited text messages from people you don't know...
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