Top 10 Stories

As if your parents weren't enough, now it seems the Xbox One wants to wash your mouth out with soap, too. Despite promises from Microsoft that it would not eavesdrop on customers with the Kinect or Skype, gamers online are saying they have been banned from Xbox Live for using foul language, and not against other people, either. They were just cursing in frustration over something. Xbox users allege that Microsoft banned them from using Skype...

Last Thursday, Twitter announced the global availability of tailored audiences; promoted tweets that are targeted at individuals based on the websites they have visited. It seemed like a good opportunity to explain how Twitter is going to do it, how it has been using a different technique to track the websites you visit for some time now, and how to turn it all off if you want to.  

Brazil's largest bank had to deal with a huge security breach of its mobile banking app as users had access to information about other customers at the institution. Customers at Banco do Brasil (BB) using mobile banking through the bank's iOS and Android apps could get access to private data such as balance and statements from other, random account holders. The damage was not greater only because transfers and payments require a password. The service...

Consumer advocates have asked federal regulators to declare phone companies to be in violation of federal privacy rules when they sell subscriber information to third parties, including the CIA. Led by Public Knowledge, privacy groups asked the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday to declare that such cooperation in violation of the Communications Act, which restricts how carriers may use or sell subscribers' personal information. The action is in response to a New York Times report...

The issue of hacked WordPress sites continues to persist, as evidenced by one victimized URL being used to host links to thousands if not millions or billions of shady pharmaceutical sites without the knowledge of the owners. Security firm Blue Coat recently discovered that the storm.ca site, which belongs to a Canadian internet services company, was being used to host links to more than ten thousand pages of scam sites. After reporting the issue to...

This week, FireEye released a report detailing how Chinese-speaking advanced persistent threat (APT) actors systematically attacked European ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs). Within 24 hours, the Chinese government officially responded. Our report provides further proof that cyber espionage is a reality in today’s world. First, attackers appear to have no financial incentive to hit these targets. Instead, the goal appears to be collecting time-sensitive geopolitical information — in this case, insight into the intense international diplomacy surrounding Syria’s...

The growing availability of bandwidth might lead to SA becoming a breeding ground for cyber criminalstargeting other countries. So says Stephan le Roux, district manager for RSA, the security division of EMC Southern Africa. Le Roux is of the view that while there are positive developments with the sudden explosion of Internet access, where schools are getting WiFi and municipalities envisioning world-class cities where private homes, healthcare institutions and companies can enjoy easy Internet access, this could also see the...

Cyber-thieves are seeking to mass-produce new forms of ransomware, the security company Sophos has suggested. It said there were discussions on underground forums about ways to produce a "kit" that criminals could use to craft their own variants. Scammers try to extort cash by using ransomware to encrypt data, preventing access, or falsely accusing people of possessing illegal material. Sophos said the problem had become much more widespread in 2013.  

t’s not uncommon for cyber criminals to register domain names similar to the ones of major companies in an effort to lure unsuspecting users into their traps. High-Tech Bridge has conducted an interesting study to find out how fraudsters are abusing domain names similar to the ones of antivirus companies.  The company has used its ImmuniWeb Phishing Monitor module to analyze 946 domains that are similar to the ones of Symantec, Kaspersky, McAfee, Avast, Bitdefender, Avira, Norton, F-Secure,...

Energy giant Shell is embarking on a company-wide push to use cloud software in order to reduce its hardware kit. Speaking at HP's Discover conference, Karel van Zeeland, founding member of Shell's IT4IT consortium, which leads the firm's work deploying IT for other divisions, explained that software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools are now being implemented wherever possible. "We are moving away from on-premise installations of software and to the SaaS model. We don't need the kit to make these...