Week in review: Facebook privacy problems and web fingerprints
Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news, articles and interviews:
Google encrypts Google Search
Following the unintended collection of payload data from open WiFi networks performed by the cars mapping streets for Google Street View, Google has decided to view this occurrence as a wake-up call and announced that, starting this week, they will start providing an encrypted version of Google Search.
The telephony denial of service attack
While you’re wondering why your phone is ringing incessantly and every time you answer it you hear nothing, a recorded message or an advertisement, thieves are likely pillaging your bank, online trading, and other money management accounts.
Facebook users hit by video attack
Thousands have been hit by the attack which posted a fake video to profiles claiming to be the “sexiest video ever”.
A closer look at Carbon Copy Cloner
If you care about your data, you should consider backups as essential, not just important. Apple did a lot for the average user with the introduction of Time Machine, but there’s another established piece of software that does an amazing job at backing up – Carbon Copy Cloner, currently in version 3.3.2.
Web browsers leave ‘fingerprints’ as you surf
An overwhelming majority of web browsers have unique signatures – creating identifiable “fingerprints” that could be used to track you as you surf the Internet, according to research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Phishing page steals prepaid debit card account information
The phishing site notifies the users that their account has been limited, and requires of them to enter confidential information in order to re-activate the account.
Q&A: Anti-phishing training game
Norman Sadeh, CEO or Wombat Security, is also a Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University where he developed Wombat’s anti-phishing filtering technology. In this interview he talks about this technology and how it works.
Check the privacy level of your Facebook account
If you have been worried lately about what information that you have included in your Facebook account might be accessible to people other than your Facebook friends, wonder no more. Here are a couple of simple tools that check your privacy settings and report back.
60% of Facebook users consider leaving over privacy
Will changes to Facebook’s privacy settings be enough to address user concerns?
A poll of 1588 Facebook users conducted by Sophos has revealed the extent of member concerns over the popular social network’s privacy settings.
LifeLock CEO’s hit by identity theft – 13 times!
The founder and CEO of LifeLock, Todd Davis, thought that a marketing campaign that involved him sharing his Social Security number was a good way of showing that he had absolute faith in his company’s service.
Attackers use final Lost episode to spread rogueware
PandaLabs detected the proliferation in search engines of numerous Web pages distributing the MySecurityEngine fake anti-virus. The “bait’ used in this case has been the much anticipated final episode of the series “Lost’.
EFF’s thoughts on the rights of social network users
The people at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have come up with three principles that should provide the basis of privacy protection on these networks.
Hotmail gets new security features
Not one to be out shined for long by Google – one of its biggest competitors in many fields – Microsoft has been working on some changes that will improve security for the users of their Hotmail webmail service.
Social networking sites passing on user data to ad agencies
Several social networking sites – including Facebook and MySpace – have apparently been sending users’ data to advertising agencies – in spite of all the assurances and promises that this information is not shared with anyone without having previously asked the users for consent and receiving a thumbs-up.
Surviving and recovering from network interruptions
Ongoing changes to network and security device configuration are unavoidable and necessary for business, but they can also have unexpected consequences. How can you reduce the risk associated with configuration changes?