Yahoo reported the theft of some 400,000 user names and passwords to access its website, acknowledging hackers took advantage of a security vulnerability in its computer systems. The Mountain View, California-based LinkedIn, an employment and professional networking site which has 160 million members, was hacked and suffered a data breach of 6 million of its…
NFC is an acronym for near field communication, a wireless technology that allows devices to talk to each other. In the case of a mobile wallet application, those devices would be a mobile phone and a point of sale device at a checkout counter. Visa is testing out its NFC service PayWave contactless payment service…
In California, an identity thief was recently sentenced to five years in prison for committing what appears to be classic new account fraud. The thief reportedly used a victim’s identity to open a mailbox at a shipping store in Modesto, which he often used to have fraudulently issued credit cards and other financial and identity…
With unit sales of smartphones and tablets eclipsing those of desktop and notebook PCs, cybercriminals will continue setting their sights on mobile, and increased mobile Internet use will continue exacerbating security and data breach issues in the workplace. The issues of “BYOD” or Bring Your Own Device to work is plaguing IT managers everywhere. While…
The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), which works with the Department of Homeland Security, has released a study indicating that attacks on customer bank accounts have increased considerably in recent years. The FS-ISAC, in collaboration with the American Bankers Association, surveyed large financial institutions to collect data on fraud attempts. The responding…
The Chief Information Officer (CIO) has become as important as the CEO. It’s a pivotal position that often can make or break the success of a corporation. As criminal hackers have launched various campaigns against numerous organizations, the CIO has become much more than an information officer. They are the guardian of corporate secrets, instrument…
A new study called “The Digital Divide: How the Online Behavior of Teens is Getting Past Parents” (conducted by Tru Research and commissioned by McAfee) shows an alarming 70% of teens have hidden their online behavior from their parents, up from 45% in 2010. And yet half of parents live under the assumption that their teen tells them everything he/she does…
Most people are aware of the need to protect their financial accounts, and generally take at least some degree of care to prevent criminals from accessing their money. Protecting your online game account, on the other hand, might not be such an obvious priority, but when accounts created for playing massively multiplayer online games are…
Most of us would never fall for a Nigerian email scam. The obvious “scammer grammar” and outlandish requests would tip us off, as would the supposed Nigerian origin of the message, since we’re probably familiar with the typical claims about Nigerian royalty. So you might wonder why these scammers persist in such an obvious ruse,…
Nearly three-quarters of Americans have never installed any type of data protection or security software on their mobile devices, leaving themselves completely open to data loss, viruses, and malware. 72% of us, to be exact, have unsecured smartphones, even as they take on an increasingly important role in our digital lives. Update your OS: The…
