Two-step account verification is a hot topic after hackers nearly wiped out the digital life of tech journalist Mat Honan recently, and Dropbox is the latest online service to enable the added security measure.
If you play PC games from Blizzard Entertainment such as Diablo III and World of Warcraft you need to review your account security as soon as you can.
Could you avoid an epic hack against your personal data and online accounts similar to the recent attack against former Gizmodo writer Mat Honan? Hackers bent on breaking into Honan’s Twitter account wreaked havoc on the technology writer’s personal computing devices and online accounts. The bad guys remotely wiped his iPad, iPhone, and Mac, and deleted his Google Account. The attack cost Honan most of his personal data (he didn’t backup the information) including family photos that may be unrecoverable.
Apple's decision to to buy AuthenTec, a mobile and network security provider, reflects the realization that we need stronger security for devices as the mobile industry moves toward e-wallets and locked-down phones for enterprises.
A hacker group calling itself the D33ds Company has posted more than 450,000 login credentials online, claiming that the pilfered e-mail addresses and passwords came from an unnamed Yahoo service. The hackers say they were able to obtain the credentials through an SQL injection, a common attack method that gave Sony so much trouble in 2011.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates around 64,000 computers in the U.S. infected with the DNSChanger Trojan may have Internet connectivity problems Monday. This particularly nasty piece of malware first surfaced in 2007 and is able to reroute a PC's Web traffic without knowledge of the user. DNSChanger achieved this by manipulating the Domain Name System (DNS) routing service for infected computers.
Thousands of PCs worldwide may be unable to access the Internet beginning July 9 unless those machines are rid of the pernicious DNSChanger malware that first surfaced in 2007. The Federal Bureau of Investigation helped shut down the criminal ring responsible for DNSChanger in late 2011. The federal agency then briefly handled the Internet Domain Name System routing for all infected Mac and Windows systems.
The touch-centric Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 is plug-in free, but the browser may still be able to run Adobe Flash video, according to an online report. Microsoft is reportedly taking the Google Chrome approach with IE10 and building Flash capability directly into the touch-friendly browser. But Flash won't be available for every site on the Web in Metro IE10. Instead, Microsoft will only extend the capability to select popular sites, according to Windows bloggers Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera.
If you recently visited a New York City Apple Store, you may have unwittingly participated in an art project that earned its creator a visit from the U.S. Secret Service.
Two prominent hacker groups, <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/231303/lulzsec_anonymous_hacks_were_avoidable_report_says.html?tk=rel_news">Anonymous and LulzSec</a>, have ignited increasing concern over computer security by staging spectacular attacks and data heists against large corporations and government websites. The two groups have pulled off more than 30 attacks in the past two months, taking down websites belonging to the <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/230235/lulzsec_sets_sights_on_us_senate_and_gamemaker_bethesda.html?tk=rel_news">U.S. Senate</a> and the <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/230462/has_lulzsec_gone_too_far.html?tk=rel_news">CIA</a>, humbling the gargantuan company <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/229316/lulz_boat_hacks_sonys_harbor_faq.html?tk=rel_news">Sony</a>, and compromising nearly 2 million user logins and IDs across the Web.
An official Fox News Twitter account falsely reported that President Barack Obama had been assassinated after hackers gained access to the account early Monday. The phony messages were posted to the Fox News Politics Twitter account sometime before 2:30 a.m. Eastern Monday and were still live more than five hours later. The account has more than 33,000 followers. A group calling itself the Script Kiddies claimed responsibility for the hack, according to <a href="http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/07/04/hackers-claim-fox-news-twitter-account-report-fake-obama-shooting/">The Next Web</a>.
Arizona State Police recently fell victim to a <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/231067/lulzsec_said_it_leaked_arizona_police_documents.html">second embarrassing data dump</a> that included information stolen from the personal e-mail accounts of 12 Arizona police officers. The stolen data, according to the hackers, includes names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers, online dating account info, voicemails, chat logs, internal police reports, and racist chain e-mails. Hackers also say they nabbed the personal data of Stephen Harrison, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/231213/anonymous_picks_up_slack_as_lulzsec_calls_it_quits.html">Lulz Security</a> may be officially disbanded after 50 days of online hijinks including raids against the servers of <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/231201/lulzsec_says_goodbye_with_new_data_dump.html">NATO</a>, the <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/230235/lulzsec_sets_sights_on_us_senate_and_gamemaker_bethesda.html">U.S. Senate</a>, <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/228983/hackers_deface_pbs_site_promise_more_lulz.html">PBS</a> and <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/231215/lulzsec_a_short_history_of_hacking.html">many others</a>. But law enforcement officials are still actively searching for the rogue hackers. So far, however, it appears the law is coming up empty. FBI agents recently descended on the home of Iowa resident Laurelai Bailey hoping to find out more information about the February hack into security firm <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/220209/lessons_learned_thanks_to_hbgary_and_anonymous.html">HBGary Federal</a>, according to <a href="http://gawker.com/5816291">Gawker</a>.
Sony hacker George Hotz a.k.a Geohot is reportedly <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/231202/sony_hacker_said_to_land_facebook_job.html">working at Facebook</a> after spending several years agitating technology giants. The news follows Hotz's antics this year when Sony sued him for distributing digital keys and a set of tools that would let you run <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/216541/sony_asks_for_restraining_order_over_ps3_hack.html">illegally copied games</a> on the PlayStation 3. Before his Sony showdown, Hotz was also one of the first people to jailbreak Apple's iPhone with a hardware unlock, although software tools that could do the same job soon replaced this method.
The <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/231215/lulzsec_a_short_history_of_hacking.html">hacker group LulzSec</a> made headlines recently with its smash and grab data breaches against Sony, the U.S. Senate, Arizona's Department of Public Security and PBS. But it turns out that attacks like these are often avoidable, according to a new report sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security.