Top 10 Stories

Infosecurity - Windows XP may be the operating system getting the most flack for opening up users to hackers and exploits, but it turns out that Windows Vista and Windows 7 experienced the highest infection rates in the fourth quarter of 2013. Microsoft discontinued support – including security patches – for XP in April (with an exception), opening up the door for a rash of zero-days attacking the system – so it’s likely that these...

abcnews - Some of the nation's largest retailers are banding together in hopes of protecting consumers' personal and financial information from hackers and thieves. The Retail Industry Leaders Association, along with several top retailers ranging from Gap Inc. to Walgreen Co., on Wednesday launched an intelligence sharing center focused on the prevention of cybercrimes against retailers.  

The Wall Street Journal - Europe's highest court forces Google to become a Web censor. Even as authoritarian regimes try to assert more control over the Internet, another threat to Web freedom has emerged from Europe's highest court, which on Tuesday issued a sweeping ruling that conscripts search engines as censors and obstructs the free flow of information. Brace yourself for an Internet with borders. The European Court of Justice's directive enables individuals in the...

Softpedia - Bad news for those using Adobe’s Creative Cloud as all services related to it, with few exceptions, are now down worldwide. The unfortunate event happened less than an hour ago and seems to affect Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific regions. Adobe has already acknowledged the issues and is now investigating, which means that it will take some time until the problems are identified and a resolution is offered.  

The Register: The IETF has taken the next small step down the long, long road of protecting user traffic from spooks, snoops and attackers, setting down the basic architectural principle that new protocols should resist monitoring. It's not going to be a trivial undertaking: practically every layer of the Internet protocol stack has its origins in a more innocent era. It's not going to be a trivial undertaking: practically every layer of the Internet protocol...

Arstechnica: Last year, Ars documented how Skype encryption posed little challenge to Microsoft abuse filters that scanned instant messages for potentially abusive Web links. Within hours of newly created, never-before-visited URLs being transmitted over the service, the scanners were able to pluck them out of a cryptographically protected stream and test if they were malicious. Now comes word that the National Security Agency is also able to work around Skype crypto—so much so that analysts have deemed...

Techcrunch: Journalist Glenn Greenwald released a bunch of new documents from “the Snowden archive” today to coincide with the publication of his book No Place To Hide. Those documents include a presentation from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) about obtaining user data from Facebook. The presentation is titled, “Exploiting Facebook traffic in the passive environment to obtain specific information” and, according to the book, was given at the Five Eyes conference back in 2011. It describes social networks...

The Register: Administrators and end users are being advised to update their systems following a set of Patch Tuesday releases from Microsoft and Adobe, which address more than 30 security flaws combined. Adobe said that its monthly update will include patches for its Flash, Reader, and Acrobat platforms, as well as an update for Illustrator. In total, the update will remedy 18 common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) security flaws.

Krebs on Security: The United States Postal Inspection Service is investigating reports that fraudsters are installing skimming devices on automated stamp vending machines at Post Office locations across the United States, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Earlier this month, I began hearing from sources in the banking industry about fraudulent debit card activity on cards that were all recently used at self-service stamp vending machines at U.S. Post Offices in at least 13 states and the District of Columbia.

Graham Cluley: Facebook users are spreading a message across the social network, claiming that Bill Gates will cough up $5000 if you share a photograph of him. Bill Gates is an extraordinary charitable fellow, but he has far worthier causes to donate to than Facebook users who click a share button. Despite that seemingly blindingly obvious fact, hundreds of thousands of Facebook users *have* shared the picture.