How You Get Hacked at Starbucks - Infographic

via mashable.com

For those who frequently use the free public Wi-Fi in coffee shops such as Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, you're likely already aware of how easy it is for hackers to steal your personal and financial information over the shared network.

But what you may not realize is how cybercriminals could gain access to sensitive data in other ways that might not be on your radar.

According to ThreatMetrix, a provider of cybercrime prevention solutions, some hackers even leave malicious USB drives on tables for curious customers to plug into their devices. This allows them to retrieve personal information and even social network passwords. Although this may seem unlikely, ThreatMetrix says the scenario actually occurs...

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LivingSocial Has Been Hacked

via businessinsider.com

LivingSocial has been hacked, reports All Things D.

An internal memo to employees said that the company noticed “unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers."

Just how much data? More than 50 million customer names, email addresses, birth dates, and encrypted passwords...

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The Ultimate (Free) Virus Protection Guide

via gizmodo.com

So you got caught with your pants down on the Internet (figuratively, folks) and contracted a virus. That sucks. Or maybe you were wearing protection but still fell victim to some nasty bit of code that managed to slip by your antivirus software undetected. That sucks even more. Either way, it's nothing to feel ashamed about. The web is a dangerous place and even the most tech savvy users sometimes slip up. You can even get a virus through no fault of your own simply by visiting a reputable website that, unbeknownst to you, has been compromised by a hacker with malicious intent. The web is a war zone, and even if you're not a target, you can still end up a casualty.

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Twitter serious about security; considering two-step authentication

via digitaltrends.com

Twitter passwords are just too easy to crack. But according to Wired, the platform is finally getting its act together and working on a sorely-needed two-step authentication system.

We’ve even taken an inside look at the flourishing black market for hacked Twitter accounts, and it’s clear that much of this activity is being controlled by inexperienced hackers who are willing to compromise and takeover an account for less than $100, in most cases.

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If you’re not afraid of #CISPA, you’re not really paying attention

via techi.com

SOPA was a black eye for the US government. Nothing in the last few decades can compare to the complete turnaround Washington DC had to make once the people of the internet and websites across the web made their opposition to the bill known back in January, 2012. Now, the politicians and other entities have learned from their mistakes. This time, they have been able to pull off the unthinkable.

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Microsoft: 25 percent of computers are still vulnerable to viruses and malware

via digitaltrends.com

If your trial version of the antivirus software that came preloaded on your computer has expired, has become out-of-date, or you were hoping to do without the protection (and cost) – think again. According to Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report, “computers without antivirus software are 5.5 times more likely to be infected.”

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CISPA Cybersecurity Bill Passes the House

via mashable.com

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, passed the House of Representatives Thursday on a bipartisan vote of 287-127 with 18 representatives not voting. CISPA now faces the tough odds of being adopted and passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, which favors other approaches to cybersecurity legislation.

CISPA's passage in the House comes despite a veto threat from the White House, which argued the information-sharing bill risks compromising Americans' online privacy and affords companies legal shelter should they put customers' privacy at risk...

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Who's tracking you online? This app can tell you - and stop them

via digitaltrends.com

If you hate targeted ads, the Internet can be a very frustrating place. Online juggernauts like Twitter, Facebook, and Google keep developing partnerships with third-party sites that track your every mouse hover, all while developing native tracking programs. The goal: targeting you for ads with scary accuracy, and even if the objective is peddling wares and not peeping at your personal life, it’s at least invasive and at most a gross abuse of power. And the companies keep introducing new ways to bombard you, like how Facebook is testing targeted ads in its Graph Search and tightening its partnerships with third-party trackers.

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Cyber threats at the top of US intelligence report for the first time

via theverge.com

Cyber threats are the number one type of danger facing the United States, according to US national intelligence director James Clapper, the man in charge of coordinating the CIA and the NSA, among many other agencies. "As more and more state and nonstate actors gain cyber expertise, its importance and reach as a global threat cannot be overstated," Clapper said in testimony he gave to the House Intelligence Committee last week, as part of his office's annual global threat assessment report.

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IRS Doesn’t Deny Snooping Emails Without A Warrant

via techcrunch.com

The IRS refuses to deny whether its Criminal Tax Division rummages through suspected tax dodgers’ emails without a warrant. In response to the American Civil Liberties Union request for its privacy policy, the IRS dumped 247 records, revealing that the agency definitely believed it could access emails without a warrant before a court deemed the practice illegal. The agency is conspicuously silent on whether it still applies those old spying rules.

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Google challenges US government's private data demand in court

via theverge.com

Google is fighting back against National Security Letter, the secretive, controversial form of datarequest for data from the US government that bypasses the court process and comes with a gag order. The company has filed papers in a case called In Re Google Inc. Petition to set aside Legal Process; while the documents are sealed, Bloomberg reported on the nature of the filing. No details are currently available on the request itself, but the move is significant — Google would be the most prominent company yet to challenge an NSL.

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Your Smartphone Is Tracking You In Ways You've Never Imagined - Video

via businessinsider.com

Our phones have become an integral part of our lives, and have fundamentally changed the way we work, the way we navigate the world, and the way we communicate with friends and family.

But do smartphones with all their interactive, location, and connectivity features and apps compromise our privacy and information security?

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The day the internet almost died and what it really means

via techi.com

Let’s establish one thing immediately. Despite the shock journalism and uneducated claims out there saying that the internet attack was so severe that it almost break, the reality is this. It was a big hit that was felt by a lot of people. That’s it. It would be like saying that a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit a big city. Sure, there was probably a lot of damage depending on which city it was, but at no point during or after the earthquake was the entire planet about to explode.

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How to Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft Online

via mashable.com

Identity theft has always been a concern, but with more and more details of our private lives openly accessible on the Internet, it's easier than ever for cybercriminals to steal somebody's identity — which is worth $5,000.

Criminals are also getting more sophisticated and tech savvy, but sometimes, we do most of the job for them. After all, "password" is still one of the most popular passwords on the Internet. And there's no need to tell you why that's a bad idea.

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US Congress restricts government purchase of Chinese computer equipment, citing cyber-espionage concerns

via theverge.com

Whether you’re designing a website for a certain up-and-coming personality or just doing some Photoshop or Illustrator projects for kicks, you can never underestimate the power of color schemes in finding the right colors for your project.

There are so many sources for combination of colors for a specific project. For starters, you can just look out of your window and see which colors look good in your eyes and which ones look revolting when combined; nature can be a good source of inspiration. However, there are more sophisticated tools in choosing the right color combinations, like the products offered by Pantone, where you can easily see which colors look good when juxtaposed. But if you are looking for other places to look for color schemes, here are some tips.

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Inside the Biggest Cyberattack in History

via mashable.com

A cyberattack originally targeting a single company is now being described by experts as one of the biggest Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in Internet history. The assault, which recently began impacting elements of the Internet's physical infrastructure, has been dragging down Internet speeds in Europe — but what makes this type of attack different from all other attacks?

First, some background: The attacks originally targeted a European anti-spam company called Spamhaus, which blacklists what it considers sources of email spam and sells those blacklists to Internet Service Providers. The attack began early last week as waves of large but typical DDoS assaults shortly after Spamhaus blacklisted Cyberbunker, a controversial web hosting company. Cyberbunker has not directly taken responsibility for the attacks against Spamhaus.

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The Biggest Cyber Attack In History Is Taking Place Right Now

via businessinsider.com

Internet speeds around the world have noticeably slowed down due to a massive "distributed denial of service" attack, reports the BBC.

These DDoS attacks bombard targeted web servers with so much dummy traffic that people trying to access a site for legitimate purposes are unable to do so. It's most analogous to a traffic jam on a highway with no one able to move.

The BBC says that security experts are describing it as "the biggest cyber-attack in history."

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Are smartphones the key to better online security?

via digitaltrends.com

Hundreds of millions of people use passwords every day — they unlock our devices, email, social networking, and even bank accounts. However, passwords are an increasingly feeble way to protect ourselves: Barely a week goes by without a major security gaffe hitting the news. This week, it’s Cisco — maker of much of the hardware that essentially powers the Internet.

Right now, almost everyone is looking to move beyond passwords to multifactor authentication: requiring “something you have” or “something you are” in addition to something you know. Biometric technologies that measure eyes, fingerprints, faces, and/or voices are getting more practical, but frequently fail for some people, and are hard to bring to hundreds of millions of users.

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Mayor Bloomberg says surveillance drones are inevitable in NYC: 'get used to it'

via theverge.com

Governmental use of unmanned surveillance drones has inspired a lot of concern about privacy, but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks the battle's already over. In a radio interview this week, Bloomberg said essentially that drones are an inevitable part of our future (and maybe our present), comparing them to the thousands of cameras already located around Manhattan. "What's the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building?" he asked. "We're going into a different world, uncharted... you can't keep the tide from coming in."

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There's A Security Flaw With Apple IDs That Puts Your Account At Risk

via businessinsider.com

Update: Apple has shut down its "iForgot" password recovery page to deal with a security flaw, which is described below.

Original: Watch out, there's a security flaw that could let someone easily take over your Apple accounts, Chris Welch at The Verge reports.

If someone knows your email address and your date of birth they can reset your password. All it takes is a slight tweak of a URL on Apple's "iForgot" page.

Welch says there is a step-by-step guide floating around the Internet, though he didn't link to it to discourage people from actually doing it.

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