Security

LIVE FROM CES

RIM Opens the Cover on Its PlayBook

The 2011 Consumer Electronics Show kicked into full swing Thursday as exhibitors threw open the show floor doors and let in the throngs of gadget gawkers gathered at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Larger vendors' booths were immediately swamped with attendees poking and prodding the newest wares.

Microsoft released a temporary fix on Wednesday for a vulnerability in its Windows Graphics Rendering Engine that it had warned users about only the previous day. The vulnerability lets attackers run arbitrary code, taking over victims' computers. It affects the Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 an...

Rampant speculation about which major financial institution Wikileaks founder Julian Assange means to target with a document dump in 2011 has at least one U.S. bank playing aggressive defense. Bank of America executives are reportedly scouring documents for potentially damaging information, and try...

A new Trojan that can create botnets has emerged in China, according to Lookout Mobile Security. This Trojan, dubbed "Geinimi," is the most sophisticated Android malware so far, the company said. Once it's installed on a user's phone, Geinimi can receive commands from a remote server that lets that ...

In the ongoing argument about whether the government should pass laws to prohibit companies from tracking Internets users' browsing habits, one voice has been conspicuously absent -- the voice of actual Internet users. Both the government agencies and public advocacy groups that have been pushing fo...

iPads, iPhones and Android smartphones will be among the major targets for cybercriminals in the coming year, McAfee has warned. That's because the consumerization of technology is leaving enterprise IT unprepared for the onslaught of personal devices in the corporate environment. Expect cybercrimin...

Eying what could be a substantial business advantage, enterprises are racing to make their workforces mobile. Salesforce.com's ongoing love affair with the Apple iPad extends beyond equipping its executives with the device to singing its praises at every opportunity. Mercedes-Benz distributors are g...

Human rights groups are increasingly getting shut down by distributed denial of service and other cyberattacks, according to a report from Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The center reported that 280 independent media and human rights websites were hit by 140 attack...

EXPERT ADVICE

Cloud Security: The Journey Is the Reward

Skills develop with practice and repetition. It's true of anything, from playing the piano to driving a car. In any endeavor, the way to get better is to practice. Attempt the activity again and again, learning from mistakes made along the way. "Practice makes perfect" -- that's not a way we usual...

The Rise of Cybervigilantism

Things took an interesting turn in the aftermath of Cablegate, which saw 250,000 documents, many of them sensitive, put on the open Web by WikiLeaks. Julian Assange, the founder of the site, has been charged by Swedish police with a sex crime; the U.S. government is seeking to try Assange, who's cur...

Allegations surfaced Tuesday that the FBI put backdoors into the network stack of OpenBSD. They were made by a Gregory Perry, who claimed to be chief technology officer of NETSEC, a government contractor. The allegations were emailed to Theo de Raadt, founder of OpenBSD. de Raadt sent it on to the O...

The U.S. Army wants to start issuing smartphones as part of each solder's basic equipment, the Army Times reported. It plans to begin fielding smartphones, network equipment and applications in February to the first Army brigade under a combat team modernization program. In addition to smartphones, ...

We've been hearing a lot lately from people who think it's time to start policing the Internet. Last week, the U.S. Congress began holding hearings to determine whether it should outlaw the practice of tracking Internet users' browsing habits. Meanwhile, the European Union started exploring the poss...

Hackers struck at the Gawker blog network's servers over the weekend, stealing more than 1 million rows of data, including cracked passwords. Gawker has been scurrying to revamp security on its servers as a result, and has put up an FAQ page on this issue. Meanwhile, Twitter has been hit with a wave...

Dissident staff members at WikiLeaks, led by that site's former spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg, reportedly plan to launch a spinoff to be named "OpenLeaks." This may be unveiled as early as next week. Like WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks will let whistle-blowers anonymously submit information to a secure o...

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