Swine flu national emergency should spur businesses to action President Obama's declaration of a national swine flu emergency should send up a red flag to businesses that are still unprepared for a pandemic. Read more...
President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 flu outbreak a national emergency this past weekend, giving health-care systems the ability to bypass some federal regulatory requirements in order to quickly implement disaster plans should they become overwhelmed.
Similar to declaring a hurricane emergency as a storm approaches landfall, the national emergency declaration gives authority to health-care facilities to submit waivers to establish alternate care sites, and modified patient triage protocols, patient transfer procedures and other actions that occur when they fully implement disaster operations plans.
----------
Bugs and Fixes: Stymie Malicious Media, Attacks
Essential OS fixes are big this month. And fans of free software need to update their Firefox and OpenOffice copies.
----------
U.S. gov't cybersecurity spending to grow significantly, study says
U.S. government spending on cybersecurity will grow at a compound rate of 8.1 percent a year between 2009 and 2014, outpacing general IT spending, according to the government analyst firm Input.
Spending on vendor-supplied information security products and services will increase from $7.9 billion in 2009 to $11.7 billion in 2014, Input predicted. General IT spending by the U.S. government will increase by 3.5% a year during the same time frame, said Kevin Plexico, Input's senior vice president of research and analysis.
----------
Virginia man to serve prison term for selling counterfeit software
Gregory William Fair, of Falls Church, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In addition to the prison term, Judge R.W. Roberts ordered Fair to pay $743,098 in restitution.
Fair also forfeited $144,000 seized from a safety deposit box and residence, a BMW 525i, a Hummer H2, a Mercedes CL600 and a 1969 Pontiac GTO. All the cars were purchased using funds from his counterfeit software operation, the DOJ said.
----------
China ready for cyberwar, espionage, report says
Looking to gain the upper hand in any future cyber conflicts, China is probably spying on U.S. companies and government, according to a report commissioned by a Congressional advisory panel monitoring the security implications of trade with China.
The report outlines the state of China's hacking and cyber warfare capabilities, concluding that "China is likely using its maturing computer network exploitation capability to support intelligence collection against the U.S. government and industry by conducting a long term, sophisticated computer network exploitation campaign."
Published Thursday, the report was written by Northrop Grumman analysts commissioned by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
----------
Botnets contributing more than ever to click fraud
For the third quarter of the year, 42.6% of fraudulent clicks came from botnet-infected computers, according to Click Forensics, a company that produces tools to detect and filter out fraudulent clicks. The figure is the highest in four years, when Click Forensics began producing reports. For the same quarter a year ago, botnets accounted for 27.5% of bad clicks.
----------
DHS to get big boost in cybersecurity spending in 2010
The U.S. Senate yesterday passed legislation approving a budget of nearly $43 billion for the DHS for fiscal 2010. Of that, about $397 million is supposed to go toward improving cybersecurity within the agency. That's $84 million, or about 27%, more than the $313 million that was allocated for information security in fiscal 2009.
----------
Swiss foreign ministry hit by computer attack
AFP – 2 hrs 35 mins ago
GENEVA (AFP) - Unidentified hackers have penetrated the Swiss foreign ministry's computer system to seize data, forcing parts of it to be shut down for several days, the ministry revealed Monday.
----------
Nigeria's anti graft police shuts 800 scam websites
AFP – Thu Oct 22, 1:02 pm ET
LAGOS (AFP) - Nigeria's anti-corruption police said Friday they had shut down some 800 scam websites and busted 18 syndicates of email fraudsters in a drive to curb cyber-crime the country is notorious for.
----------
How Victims Encourage Cybercrime
Security firm Kaspersky notes that anonymity of users can mask cyber threats and make them tougher to prevent.
----------
Cybersecurity Quiz: Know Your Threats
Separate cybersecurity fact from fiction in this survey of the threats posed by cyberattacks.
----------
ERIC TOTALLY DISAGREES:
From Security Perspective, Windows 7 Off To A Rocky Start
Oct 22,2009
Experts express consternation over early vulnerabilities, UAC configuration issues
----------
Major Secure Email Products And Services Miss Spear-Phishing Attack
Oct 22,2009
Experiment successfully slips fake LinkedIn invite from 'Bill Gates' into inboxes
----------
Metasploit Project Sold To Rapid7
Oct 21,2009
Open-source Metasploit penetration testing tool creator HD Moore joins Rapid7, commercial Metasploit products to come
----------
The Internet is set to undergo one of the biggest changes in its four-decade history with the expected approval this week of international domain names — or addresses — that can be written in languages other than English, an official said Monday.
----------
Microsoft to open up Outlook .PST data format
----------
Google Oops! User Voice Mails Disclosed in Search Engine
Reported flaw in Google's voice mail service said to expose users' messages to search engine users. The messages are reported to include the audio file and transcript of the call, but also included the callers name and phone number.
Random users Google Voice mail is searchable by anyone?, Michael Bettiol, Boygeniusreport.com, October 19, 2009
----------
Answers to Windows 7 upgrade questions
Ed Bott: My compatriots in the Windows blogosphere aren't always discriminating in giving out advice. I read a staggering number of rumors, many of them promulgated by people who should have known better.
----------
OFF TOPIC:
Groups Challenge SoCal Desalination Project
By SONYA ANGELICA DIEHN
VISTA, Calif. (CN) - Environmentalists are challenging the City of Carlsbad over a $300 million desalination plant planned for drought-stricken Southern California. Two groups say Carlsbad and Poseidon Resources' enormous project has undergone too many changes for a 2006 environmental impact report to still apply.
----------
BAD NEWS:
LifeLock settles with Experian to not set fraud alerts
Dan Kaplan October 23, 2009
A lawsuit settlement affirms that third parties are not permitted to set fraud alerts with the major credit bureaus.
----------
Blogger: Time Warner Routers Still Hackable Despite Company Assurance
A blogger who stumbled across a vulnerability in more than 65,000 Time Warner Cable customer routers says the routers are still vulnerable to remote attack, despite claims by the company last week that it patched the routers.
Last Tuesday, David Chen, an internet startup-founder, published information about the vulnerability in Time Warner’s SMC8014 series cable modem/Wi-Fi router combo, made by SMC. The problem would allow a hacker to remotely access the device’s administrative menu over the internet and potentially change the settings to intercept traffic, making possible all sorts of nefarious activity.
----------
Monday, October 26, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Monday 10/19/09
Mozilla unblocks one sneaky Microsoft plug-in
... Late on Friday, Mozilla added .Net Framework Assistant and the accompanying Windows Presentation Foundation plug-in to its rarely-used blocking list, which then threw up a warning to users notifying them that the pair was being barred from Firefox.
----------
Microsoft issues first Windows 7 patches
Windows 7 was affected by nine of the 34 vulnerabilities, or 26% of the total.
Windows Vista, meanwhile, was impacted by 19 of the 34 vulnerabilities -- 56% of the total.
Windows XP was affected by the most vulnerabilities of all: 24 out of 34, or 71% of the total.
----------
Phishers Reveal Poor Passwords
----------
Medical Records: Stored in the Cloud, Sold on the Open Market
... unknown to patients, an increasing number of outside vendors that manage electronic health records also have access to that data, and are reselling the information as a commodity.
http://www.patientprivacyrights.org/site/DocServer/Zones_of_Privacy.pdf?docID=881
----------
ASCII Art spam is back
The ASCII art spam is not limited to only non-word characters. It can be numbers, alphabets and combinations of all, which can make things even worse for certain spam filters:
d""b8 88 db 88 88 dP"Y8
dP 88 dPYb 88 88 `bo
Yb 88 dP__Yb 88 88 `Y8b
boodP 88 dP""""Yb 88ood8 88 8bodP'
----------
How hackers find your weak spots
While there are an infinite number of social engineering exploits, typical ones include the...
----------
SECURITY: RISK AND REWARD
New secure password rules
Most companies have some form of policy on passwords. The rules go back more than a decade and are repeated...
----------
Hiring hackers: A rebuttal (part 2)
The original articles on hiring hackers and criminal hackers into IT groups as programmers, network...
----------
38 Oracle security patches coming next week
----------
Scareware earns cybercriminals £850,000 a year
Cybercriminals are earning as much as £858,000 a year out of scareware, says Symantec.
----------
A Guide to Windows 7 Security
Until now, Windows Vista was the most secure version of the Windows operating system. Windows 7...
----------
"Google Voice Mails have been discovered in Google's search engine, providing audio files, names, and phone number as if you were logged in and checking your own voice mail. Some appear to be test messages, while others are clearly not. Google has since disabled indexing of voice mails outside your own website."
----------
Helpful Hint for Fugitives: Don't Update Your Location on Facebook
"Fugitive caught after updating his status on Facebook."
----------
Microsoft's Free AV Got 1.5 Million Downloads in First Week PC World – Fri Oct 16, 3:10 pm ET
Microsoft registered more than 1.5 million downloads of its free antivirus software in the week after it shipped.
----------
... Late on Friday, Mozilla added .Net Framework Assistant and the accompanying Windows Presentation Foundation plug-in to its rarely-used blocking list, which then threw up a warning to users notifying them that the pair was being barred from Firefox.
----------
Microsoft issues first Windows 7 patches
Windows 7 was affected by nine of the 34 vulnerabilities, or 26% of the total.
Windows Vista, meanwhile, was impacted by 19 of the 34 vulnerabilities -- 56% of the total.
Windows XP was affected by the most vulnerabilities of all: 24 out of 34, or 71% of the total.
----------
Phishers Reveal Poor Passwords
----------
Medical Records: Stored in the Cloud, Sold on the Open Market
... unknown to patients, an increasing number of outside vendors that manage electronic health records also have access to that data, and are reselling the information as a commodity.
http://www.patientprivacyrights.org/site/DocServer/Zones_of_Privacy.pdf?docID=881
----------
ASCII Art spam is back
The ASCII art spam is not limited to only non-word characters. It can be numbers, alphabets and combinations of all, which can make things even worse for certain spam filters:
d""b8 88 db 88 88 dP"Y8
dP 88 dPYb 88 88 `bo
Yb 88 dP__Yb 88 88 `Y8b
boodP 88 dP""""Yb 88ood8 88 8bodP'
----------
How hackers find your weak spots
While there are an infinite number of social engineering exploits, typical ones include the...
----------
SECURITY: RISK AND REWARD
New secure password rules
Most companies have some form of policy on passwords. The rules go back more than a decade and are repeated...
----------
Hiring hackers: A rebuttal (part 2)
The original articles on hiring hackers and criminal hackers into IT groups as programmers, network...
----------
38 Oracle security patches coming next week
----------
Scareware earns cybercriminals £850,000 a year
Cybercriminals are earning as much as £858,000 a year out of scareware, says Symantec.
----------
A Guide to Windows 7 Security
Until now, Windows Vista was the most secure version of the Windows operating system. Windows 7...
----------
"Google Voice Mails have been discovered in Google's search engine, providing audio files, names, and phone number as if you were logged in and checking your own voice mail. Some appear to be test messages, while others are clearly not. Google has since disabled indexing of voice mails outside your own website."
----------
Helpful Hint for Fugitives: Don't Update Your Location on Facebook
"Fugitive caught after updating his status on Facebook."
----------
Microsoft's Free AV Got 1.5 Million Downloads in First Week PC World – Fri Oct 16, 3:10 pm ET
Microsoft registered more than 1.5 million downloads of its free antivirus software in the week after it shipped.
----------
Monday, October 12, 2009
Monday 10/12/09
Researchers advise cyber self defense in the cloud
Security researchers are warning that Web-based applications are increasing the risk of identity theft or losing personal data more than ever before.
The best defense against data theft, malware and viruses in the cloud is self defense, researchers at the Hack In The Box (HITB) security conference said. But getting people to change how they use the Internet, such as what personal data they make public, won't be easy.
----------
Expert provides more proof hackers hijacked Hotmail accounts
It's almost certain that hackers obtained the Hotmail passwords that leaked to the Internet through a botnet-based attack, a researcher said today as she provided more proof that Microsoft's explanation was probably off-base. Read more...
----------
Sidekick users livid over Microsoft server failure
On Saturday, Microsoft announced that users' data stored on its servers "almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger," referring to Danger Inc., the Microsoft subsidiary that provides data services for Sidekick phones sold by T-Mobile.
...
"I just spoke to a lawyer and explain[ed] the entire situation," said a user tagged as "Calsmail" last Thursday. "He informed me he would be happy to start a class-action suit against T-Mobile. He said he could not only get us out of our contracts but can more than likely get $50 per contact lost."
----------
UC Berkeley tightens personal data security with data-masking tool
----------
No Facebook at work in most US companies
By News Room Yesterday
----------
What's replacing P2P, BitTorrent as pirate hangouts?
----------
EU High Court Amassing Strength & Reach
By NICK WILSON
As the European Court of Justice continues a dramatic rise in power and volume of cases, a comparison is inevitably made with the U.S. Supreme Court where an initially weak political body grew into an enormously powerful interpreter of the law in a vast region of wealth and population. But there are also key differences between the two high courts, based on the greater power held in the U.S. Constitution and the less competitive relationship between the courts of the European nations and the EU's high court.
----------
Google patches DoS vulnerabilities in Android
Researchers at the Open Source Computer Emergency Response Team (oCERT) disclosed two denial-of-service vulnerabilities in Google Inc.'s Android 1.5 mobile phone platform, both of which have already been patched by the vendor.
----------
Hackers exploit this year's fourth PDF zero-day
The bug in the popular Reader PDF viewer and the Acrobat PDF maker is being exploited in "limited targeted attacks," Adobe said yesterday. That phrasing generally means hackers are sending the rigged PDF documents to a short list of users, oftentimes company executives or others whose PCs contain a treasure trove of confidential information.
Adobe promised to patch the vulnerability on Tuesday, Oct. 13, the same day that Microsoft plans to issue its biggest-ever collection of security updates.
----------
Security researchers are warning that Web-based applications are increasing the risk of identity theft or losing personal data more than ever before.
The best defense against data theft, malware and viruses in the cloud is self defense, researchers at the Hack In The Box (HITB) security conference said. But getting people to change how they use the Internet, such as what personal data they make public, won't be easy.
----------
Expert provides more proof hackers hijacked Hotmail accounts
It's almost certain that hackers obtained the Hotmail passwords that leaked to the Internet through a botnet-based attack, a researcher said today as she provided more proof that Microsoft's explanation was probably off-base. Read more...
----------
Sidekick users livid over Microsoft server failure
On Saturday, Microsoft announced that users' data stored on its servers "almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger," referring to Danger Inc., the Microsoft subsidiary that provides data services for Sidekick phones sold by T-Mobile.
...
"I just spoke to a lawyer and explain[ed] the entire situation," said a user tagged as "Calsmail" last Thursday. "He informed me he would be happy to start a class-action suit against T-Mobile. He said he could not only get us out of our contracts but can more than likely get $50 per contact lost."
----------
UC Berkeley tightens personal data security with data-masking tool
----------
No Facebook at work in most US companies
By News Room Yesterday
----------
What's replacing P2P, BitTorrent as pirate hangouts?
----------
EU High Court Amassing Strength & Reach
By NICK WILSON
As the European Court of Justice continues a dramatic rise in power and volume of cases, a comparison is inevitably made with the U.S. Supreme Court where an initially weak political body grew into an enormously powerful interpreter of the law in a vast region of wealth and population. But there are also key differences between the two high courts, based on the greater power held in the U.S. Constitution and the less competitive relationship between the courts of the European nations and the EU's high court.
----------
Google patches DoS vulnerabilities in Android
Researchers at the Open Source Computer Emergency Response Team (oCERT) disclosed two denial-of-service vulnerabilities in Google Inc.'s Android 1.5 mobile phone platform, both of which have already been patched by the vendor.
----------
Hackers exploit this year's fourth PDF zero-day
The bug in the popular Reader PDF viewer and the Acrobat PDF maker is being exploited in "limited targeted attacks," Adobe said yesterday. That phrasing generally means hackers are sending the rigged PDF documents to a short list of users, oftentimes company executives or others whose PCs contain a treasure trove of confidential information.
Adobe promised to patch the vulnerability on Tuesday, Oct. 13, the same day that Microsoft plans to issue its biggest-ever collection of security updates.
----------
McAfee Labs’ October Spam Report
Monday October 12, 2009 at 8:36 am CSTPosted by David Marcus
Cybercriminals are taking advantage of American concerns about healthcare by flooding the internet with spam. According to our October Spam Report, 70 percent of global spam is now “Canadian” pharmacy spam that takes advantage of fears of Swine Flu and rising costs of Medicare and pharmaceuticals.
Spammers generate more than 150 billion spam messages daily; that’s enough to send everyone in the world more than 30 emails every day (including people without computers). Nearly 19 out of every 20 emails are spam, and cybercriminals are growing more sophisticated with their attacks. No brands seem to be safe, and this month’s report analyzes how spammers are abusing the brands of Monopoly, The Hollywood Reporter and even the Jewish organization Chabad to distribute malware.
The report can be downloaded here.
----------
Posted at 2:00 PM ET, 10/12/2009
Avoid Windows Malware: Bank on a Live CD
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/
The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don't use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.
----------
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monday 10/05/09
Let's start today with a bit of 'bright-and-shiny':
Microsoft Demos Prototype Multi-Touch Mice
The other day, I went on a short tour of some of Microsoft’s Labs, where they do everything from rapid prototypes of new products to acoustic testing in anechoic chambers. Most of my time was spent in the Applied Sciences group’s labs, where they are working on some seriously interesting devices.
And they’re not just into mice; in fact, the lab’s specialty seemed to be anything to do with optics and/or input. This lab worked on Project Natal, and also on the pressure-sensitive keyboard I wrote about a while back.
They were kind enough to show me all these crazy multi-touch mice, and, when I was too inept to demo even one of them solo, offered to go through them with me on video.
----------
Malware and standards – is it possible?
I am excited to be involved in the joint industry effort of defining an XML format which will allow for the rapid exchange of information between security companies. This work was done by the “Malware Working Group” operating as part of the “Industry Connections Security Group” (ICSG) and under the umbrella of the IEEE. If you Google for “IEEE” and “ICSG” you should have the link at the top of the list – IEEE ICSG .
There were about 20 people from multiple security companies who contributed to the development of the proposal for the standard and I am very pleased with the results. It is a simple, flexible and powerful format that is already being used by 4 anti-malware companies to transmit meta-data about the prevalence of malware in the field. Wider adoption of this meta-data sharing will replace the trivial malware sample exchange of the past with a real-time exchange of threat intelligence data. Communicating the relationships between malware samples, domains, IPs will open endless possibilities for improving the security of all Internet users.
For example, it will allow us to describe the whole history of domains/IPs that were used by a specific malware writing group, which malware they hosted and even how the malware got installed onto users’ computers. And this can be expressed in an unambiguous way suitable for rapid automated analysis. In a word – it’s powerful!
----------
Testing email with encryption
It can be very useful to be able to talk directly with your SMTP or IMAP server for diagnostic purposes. Things get a bit more complicated when encryption rears its ugly head, but with the right tools, it doesn't have to be a black art more…
----------
Plug-in service to protect Mozilla browser
Mozilla's Plug-in Finder Server checks the versions of installed Firefox plug-ins to warn users of security holes more…
----------
Gmail Login Gets CSRF Protection
Google has silently implemented cross-site request forgery protection for Gmail authentication. The new feature comes in the form of a unique token stored in a browser cookie and checked when the login request is submitted.
----------
Hotmail hacked: Thousands of account details published online
Zack Whittaker: Microsoft admits that several thousand Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were exposed on a third-party site due to a phishing scheme.
----------
DRAM error rates: Nightmare on DIMM street
Robin Harris: A two-and-a-half year study of DRAM on 10s of thousands Google servers found DIMM error rates are hundreds to thousands of times higher than thought - a mean of 3,751 correctable errors per DIMM per year.
----------
Attorney Admits to Trading Settlement Money
By NICK MCCANN
(CN) - An Orange County lawyer has agreed to plead guilty to losing virtually all of a multimillion-dollar class-action settlement through high-risk day trading, the Justice Department announced.
----------
Visa creates guidance for merchants wanting to encrypt
Dan Kaplan October 05, 2009
Visa has taken a leading role in establishing best practices for end-to-end encryption implementation.
----------
Credit Card Skimming Survey: What’s Your Magstripe Worth?
Ever wonder how much the data on the back of your credit card is worth to a corrupt food service worker? The answer, it turns out, depends on which restaurants you frequent in Florida.
For some reason, the Sunshine State is a hotbed of federal prosecutions for “skimming”, in which a retail or service worker with a criminal bent swipes your credit card through a pocket-sized magstripe reader when you’re not looking — capturing your name, card number, expiration date and other information.
In the online black market, wholesalers peddle this data to credit card counterfeiters for as much as $50 for a corporate Visa or Mastercard. (Asian and European cards go for even more.) But how much does the poor food service worker get for putting his job on the line in the first place?
----------
Hackers plan to clobber the cloud, spy on Blackberries
A new era of computing is on the rise and viruses, spies and malware developers are tagging along...
----------
60% of Brits store personal data on their phone
Over 60 percent of Brits keep sensitive personal data on their smartphone, says The Carphone...
----------
Cyber Security Awareness Month - Day 5 port 31337
Backdoors and malware and trojans oh my!
----------
Microsoft Demos Prototype Multi-Touch Mice
The other day, I went on a short tour of some of Microsoft’s Labs, where they do everything from rapid prototypes of new products to acoustic testing in anechoic chambers. Most of my time was spent in the Applied Sciences group’s labs, where they are working on some seriously interesting devices.
And they’re not just into mice; in fact, the lab’s specialty seemed to be anything to do with optics and/or input. This lab worked on Project Natal, and also on the pressure-sensitive keyboard I wrote about a while back.
They were kind enough to show me all these crazy multi-touch mice, and, when I was too inept to demo even one of them solo, offered to go through them with me on video.
----------
Malware and standards – is it possible?
I am excited to be involved in the joint industry effort of defining an XML format which will allow for the rapid exchange of information between security companies. This work was done by the “Malware Working Group” operating as part of the “Industry Connections Security Group” (ICSG) and under the umbrella of the IEEE. If you Google for “IEEE” and “ICSG” you should have the link at the top of the list – IEEE ICSG .
There were about 20 people from multiple security companies who contributed to the development of the proposal for the standard and I am very pleased with the results. It is a simple, flexible and powerful format that is already being used by 4 anti-malware companies to transmit meta-data about the prevalence of malware in the field. Wider adoption of this meta-data sharing will replace the trivial malware sample exchange of the past with a real-time exchange of threat intelligence data. Communicating the relationships between malware samples, domains, IPs will open endless possibilities for improving the security of all Internet users.
For example, it will allow us to describe the whole history of domains/IPs that were used by a specific malware writing group, which malware they hosted and even how the malware got installed onto users’ computers. And this can be expressed in an unambiguous way suitable for rapid automated analysis. In a word – it’s powerful!
----------
Testing email with encryption
It can be very useful to be able to talk directly with your SMTP or IMAP server for diagnostic purposes. Things get a bit more complicated when encryption rears its ugly head, but with the right tools, it doesn't have to be a black art more…
----------
Plug-in service to protect Mozilla browser
Mozilla's Plug-in Finder Server checks the versions of installed Firefox plug-ins to warn users of security holes more…
----------
Gmail Login Gets CSRF Protection
Google has silently implemented cross-site request forgery protection for Gmail authentication. The new feature comes in the form of a unique token stored in a browser cookie and checked when the login request is submitted.
----------
Hotmail hacked: Thousands of account details published online
Zack Whittaker: Microsoft admits that several thousand Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were exposed on a third-party site due to a phishing scheme.
----------
DRAM error rates: Nightmare on DIMM street
Robin Harris: A two-and-a-half year study of DRAM on 10s of thousands Google servers found DIMM error rates are hundreds to thousands of times higher than thought - a mean of 3,751 correctable errors per DIMM per year.
----------
Attorney Admits to Trading Settlement Money
By NICK MCCANN
(CN) - An Orange County lawyer has agreed to plead guilty to losing virtually all of a multimillion-dollar class-action settlement through high-risk day trading, the Justice Department announced.
----------
Visa creates guidance for merchants wanting to encrypt
Dan Kaplan October 05, 2009
Visa has taken a leading role in establishing best practices for end-to-end encryption implementation.
----------
Credit Card Skimming Survey: What’s Your Magstripe Worth?
Ever wonder how much the data on the back of your credit card is worth to a corrupt food service worker? The answer, it turns out, depends on which restaurants you frequent in Florida.
For some reason, the Sunshine State is a hotbed of federal prosecutions for “skimming”, in which a retail or service worker with a criminal bent swipes your credit card through a pocket-sized magstripe reader when you’re not looking — capturing your name, card number, expiration date and other information.
In the online black market, wholesalers peddle this data to credit card counterfeiters for as much as $50 for a corporate Visa or Mastercard. (Asian and European cards go for even more.) But how much does the poor food service worker get for putting his job on the line in the first place?
----------
Hackers plan to clobber the cloud, spy on Blackberries
A new era of computing is on the rise and viruses, spies and malware developers are tagging along...
----------
60% of Brits store personal data on their phone
Over 60 percent of Brits keep sensitive personal data on their smartphone, says The Carphone...
----------
Cyber Security Awareness Month - Day 5 port 31337
Backdoors and malware and trojans oh my!
----------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
