Following the lead of other large businesses, IBM implemented a “bring your own device” policy in 2010, allowing employees who work outside of the office to use devices other than corporate-issued smartphones. Unfortunately, the company felt it had to follow this liberal policy with a conservative ban on technologies that IBM considered potential security issues. […]
Tag Archives | security
Apple OS X FileVault Has Broken Lock
As David Emery documented last week on Cryptome, Apple’s original version of FileVault has a serious security flaw, when used in OS X Lion 10.7.3. The authorization process has a debug option left on that logs the password used to access an encrypted volume’s directory tree. In turn, this log file is viewable by anyone […]
No Internet In July, Warns FBI
The FBI warns that nearly a half million internet users will lose their access on July 9 if they don’t take steps to remove a virus on their computers first. Capable of infecting both Macs and Windows PCs, the virus in question is a trojan horse called DNS Changer. A variant, often referred to as […]
Geolocation Has Become A Stalker’s Dream
Back in 2010 when Tom Scott presented a nightmare version of a flash mob gone wrong, it was greeted with rueful awareness that events could coalesce to a dangerous point. The message, that oversharing through social media can have real life consequences, is still being shouted from websites. [yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyMdOT8YJgY’] In one of the more […]
Google Wallet Hacked, Still Safer Than Your Actual Wallet
Poor Google Wallet, hacked twice in 48 hours. Bad enough that Google has had difficulty getting the payment service approved by Verizon for its flagship Galaxy Nexus. Now, just as people are figuring out simple ways to get Wallet on their phones, a new scandal rocks the nascent world of Android mobile payments. Wednesday evening, […]
Symantec Advises Against Using Their Own Product
In a security white paper Symantec published on Wednesday, the company recommends suspending use of their popular remote control product, PC Anywhere, until a complete set of update patches are released. The issue stems from hacker collective Anonymous’s claims of obtaining Symantec’s source code for the product back in 2006. Symantec advises that Norton Antivirus […]
Apple Patent Places Password In Power Cord To Perturb Pilferers
New Scientist uncovers a clever new Apple patent for enhancing security of portable devices. A memory chip is implanted inside a device’s AC adapter that stores a security question or an encryption key for the password required to log into the device. In the event that you forget your password, recovery is possible simply by […]
Identfiying The Problems Of Fingerprint Scanners
Using a fingerprint scanner for your computer feels like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the premise behind it is fairly straightforward. To keep you from having to remember an endless series of unique, strong passwords, you can store all your login information locked away and accessible only through your fingerprint. Nothing to remember, […]
New Facebook Friend Lists — The Good, The Bad, And The WTF
Facebook’s List Team announced changes to the website’s friend lists last night. As usual with Facebook, the results are, well, let’s just call them mixed. The Good: Smarter lists are a welcome sign. Rather than having to populate the lists yourself (definitely a first world problem), Facebook automatically does that based on similarities in alma […]
Hacker Claims Ability To Fake Microsoft Updates
A hacker, who goes by the name Comodohacker, claims he can now fake Microsoft updates using stolen certificates. Comodohacker is believed to be an Iranian student who made news recently for compromising and acquiring four certificate authorities from Dutch certificate authority DigiNotar as well as getting CA’s from GlobalSign. In a post to his Pastebin […]