What you need to know about VPNs
A virtual private network (VPN) brings additional security to anyone using a public network, such as the Internet. Using a variety of security methods, such as encryption, the VPN is able to safeguard any data transmitted across the network, which may be at risk if it simply used the underlying public network infrastructure.
VPNs are often employed when it would not be practical to use a physical private network, usually due to financial reasons. As businesses embrace mobile working and face increasing pressure to protect sensitive information, many are employing virtual private networks to improve their network security.
Human behavior is the biggest threat to company security
A new survey of cyber security professionals from information management company Nuix shows that businesses are placing greater emphasis on insider threats.
The report reveals that 71 percent of respondents report that they have an insider threat program or policy, and 14 percent say that they allocate 40 percent or more of their budget to insider threats.
Another nail in the coffin for Flash as Facebook defaults to HTML5 video
The demise of Flash has been long, lingering, and painful -- and highly over due in many people's books. There has been a spate of high profile ditchings of Flash recently: Speedtest.net, Twitch, Chrome and Netflix to name but a few. Now Facebook has thrown its hat in the ring switching to HTML5 video.
This is a move that is browser-agnostic, and means that every single video you see on the social network will default to HTML5. While many will see this as a cause for celebration, the change does not completely spell the death of Flash -- it will continue to be used on Facebook for many games.
Armed gang uses Grindr to target victims for gay-bashing
Dating services are big business these days, and they offer a modern way to meet a life partner. But there's also a dark side. Tinder is perhaps the most well-known dating app, and Grindr is a near identical service aimed at gay and bisexual men.
Police in London are warning that the app -- which is available for iOS and Android -- is being used by an armed gang to set up fake dates with men. With two million people using the app around the world, Grindr offers rich pickings for homophobes to look for victims.
Insane bug makes it incredibly easy to hack many Linux systems
Linux is usually touted as the operating system of choice for those concerned about privacy, but a recently discovered bug makes it unbelievably simple to bypass authentication. A vulnerability in Grub2 -- the bootloader used by many Linux distros -- means that all it takes to take control of a computer is to press the backspace key 28 times.
Two researchers from the Cybersecurity Group at Spain's Polytechnic University of Valencia published a paper that reveals just how easy it is to gain access to many Linux systems. It's not a problem that Ubuntu, Red Hat, and Debian users need to worry about too much as patches have already been issued, and users of other distros can make use of an emergency patch in the Grub2 git repository.
Stop doing quizzes on Facebook if you place any value on your privacy
You might think that talking about Facebook and privacy in the same breath is a little odd. The two just don’t go hand in hand, surely? Trying to use Facebook whilst maintaining your privacy is an exercise in futility, right? Well, yes, it’s certainly true that hitting a social network is not the thing to do if you want to fly under the radar, but many people do not realize just how easy it is to unwittingly hand over reams of personal information to companies and persons unknown.
While a majority of users are aware that anything they post -- essentially -- becomes Facebook's property, and can be exploited in a variety of ways. Anything shared to the social network can be used to dig up an ever-more accurate picture of who you are, where you are, what you do, what you like, and who you know. Quizzes, personality tests, friend comparisons, and year in review apps, however, are blackholes for personal data -- and the huge range of apps from Meaww have been singled out as being a major cause for concern.
Critical patches issued after spying backdoors found built into Juniper firewalls
Networking manufacturer Juniper has discovered backdoors built into its firewalls. The company says that a number of its devices running the ScreenOS operating system include serious vulnerabilities that could be used to take remote control of networked devices, or to decrypt VPN traffic.
The company says that the security issues were unearthed during an internal code review and has issued an out-of-cycle fix to address the vulnerabilities. Network admins are advised to treat the threats seriously, and to make use of the available patches immediately.
Google dedicates $1 million to independent research for Drive security
Google is placing an increased importance on security in 2016. The company has set aside $1 million to fund independent research into the security of its Drive cloud storage service, and will continue to offer a bug bounty program.
Acknowledging that "keeping files safe in Google Drive is super important", Google says that next year it will make the money available to independent security researchers. The money comes in addition to the funds that are used to employ hundreds of security experts at the company, with independence bringing an extra level of scrutiny.
Could the Internet of Things spark a data security epidemic?
Internet of Things this, Internet of Things that -- it’s all anyone can talk about these days. And rightfully so, when you consider the development and adoption of IoT products are driven by multiple factors, including an increase in broadband penetration worldwide, the development of wireless communication technologies, advances in 'smart' device capabilities and an increased demand for personalized, omnichannel customer experiences.
But transitioning to an IoT-dominated world is a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, you have businesses benefiting in many ways. For instance, connected devices allow them to better understand their customers’ needs and preferences by analyzing their behavioral patterns. For consumers, on the other hand, it’s all about personalization, personalization, personalization -- getting from point A to point B faster than ever before -- in a more relevant and personal way. Furthermore, most conversations around data protection solely focus on elaborate 'hacks', when in reality, the most immediate and grave security threats aren’t always sophisticated or complicated. It’s time that we flip the IoT conversation on its head to focus on the increasingly common data vulnerabilities and less complicated security threats -- of which, consumers are lacking awareness.
BlackBerry's privacy stance is yet another reason to avoid the company
We are living in a post NSA-world (and I am a post-NSA girl...) and privacy is in the public consciousness more than ever before. After the government surveillance revelations that came courtesy of Eddy Snowden, most tech companies have been trying to stress to customers and clients just how willing they are to stand up for privacy.
But not BlackBerry. Company CEO John Chen has used a blog post to lash out at his contemporaries for supporting strong encryption. He makes a thinly-veiled reference to Apple, accusing that an unwillingness to comply with law enforcement requests put us all in a "dark place". Chen says that "our privacy commitment does not extend to criminals", seemingly failing to recognize that privacy is very much an all-or-nothing concept.
Security researcher finds 685TB of unprotected MongoDB data
There is roughly 685TB of private data from MongoDB instances sitting online, without any protection, researchers have uncovered.
Following the recent discovery by security researcher Chris Vickery, who saw the data of more than 13 million MacKeeper users exposed, another researcher ventured even deeper and found even more unprotected data.
AVG update to fix false Trojan warning
Anti-virus giant AVG sparked fear among internet users on Thursday after its popular security scanner falsely identified websites as infected with a malicious Trojan horse application.
Visitors to popular websites, such as Mirror.co.uk and Twitch.tv, were greeted with a warning that AVG had detected a threat called "Trojan horse Exploit.SWF_c.AP", with the recommendation to remove it. Once removed, the warning pop-up window would reappear multiple times.
FreeSmartSoft products still hiding an uninstallable 'back door'
It’s three weeks since we exposed freeware developer FreeSmartSoft for including an uninstallable adware-serving back door in some of its products.
The company had released some updated versions since then, so we checked out a copy of the popular FSS Google Book Downloader to see if any lessons had been learned.
Most Android devices run an outdated OS version
More than 80 percent of Android devices are running an outdated version of the operating system. Those are the results of an inquiry among users of G DATA security solutions for Android.
G DATA believes the lag in the adoption of new versions lies in the long delays before manufacturers roll out updates to their devices, as well as the fact that some devices simply don’t support the latest version of Android.
P2P file sharing and its impact on business
When you think of peer-to-peer file sharing you probably bring to mind services like Kazaa and Limewire that were among the early sites allowing users to share media, or of more recent operations like Pirate Bay.
But while it's easy to think of P2P in terms of individuals downloading music or movies, a new report from security rating company BitSight reveals that it’s a problem for businesses too.
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