Privacy watch: Medical records privacy law threatened
If you don't think the issue of medical privacy hits close to home, consider the following US examples: In 1994, a loan officer for a bank who also served on his county's health board discovered that...
View ArticleIt's open season on spammers
The problem of spam--how to get rid of it, how to track down the senders, and whether to prosecute those spammers--has dominated many discussions at the third annual Privacy and Data Security Summit...
View ArticleClass on virus creation draws industry ire
When the University of Calgary announced plans last week to offer a course that includes instruction on writing computer viruses, officials expected the antivirus industry to support the move--designed...
View ArticleSecurity Flaws Under the Microscope
A study unveiled at the Black Hat Briefings conference in Las Vegas last week paints a grim picture of network security problems.
View ArticlePDA viruses could get nasty
Viruses that target handhelds can be even more dangerous than their cousins that attack PCs, spawning self-replicating programs that hide easily, a security researcher told an audience of security...
View ArticleAnother form of encryption goes down for the count
News that a nine-year-old encryption method -- one that underlies the protection of virtually all secure online communications -- appears to have been cracked by a team of three Chinese researchers has...
View ArticlePatent overload hampers tech innovation
Much has been made of recent patent applications--such as one involving emoticons on cell phones--that seem a far cry from real breakthroughs like the lightbulb. And while many of the weakest patent...
View ArticlePrivacy Watch: Exploiting legitimate sites
You've heard so many warnings about phishing that you've become wary of any e-mail message purporting to come from your bank or favorite Web store. But if the link in it uses a legitimate Web domain...
View ArticlePGP, SecurStar disk encryption products
You may not always be able to protect your laptop from a thief, but you can keep the data it contains safe. Two new products--PGP Whole Disk Encryption 9.5 and DriveCrypt Plus Pack 3.5--promise to...
View ArticleHow to think like an online con man
Con job, pretexting, social engineering -- the art and science of manipulating human beings for nefarious ends -- goes back as far as the origin of the species. The techniques have been practiced and...
View ArticleTrue crime: The botnet barons
When federal agents announced on November 29 that they'd indicted or convicted eight individuals accused of using botnets (networks of computers infected with Trojan horse applications) to engage in...
View ArticleStupid hacker tricks: The folly of youth
Ah, youth. Ready to take on the world, today's generation of dynamic, tech-immersed youngsters have grown up alongside the Internet. Firsthand, and sometimes single-handedly, they have advanced some of...
View ArticleStupid user tricks: IT admin follies
For those of us who make our living behind a keyboard in IT, it's hard to imagine a more time-tested vulnerability than the end-user. Armed with network access, these IT viruses wreak havoc nearly...
View ArticleWorst Windows flaws of the past decade
June 25, 1998, and June 30, 2008, marked two important milestones in Microsoft's evolution of the Windows OS -- the passing of the torch from Windows 95 to Windows 98, and the less seemly transition...
View ArticleStupid QA tricks: Colossal testing oversights
What do you get when you add the human propensity to screw stuff up to the building of large-scale IT systems? What the military calls the force-multiplier effect -- and the need for a cadre of...
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