security

A new security technique could completely prevent hackers from intercepting data communications. The technique involves hiding an encryption key inside the same light that travels through standard fiber optic cables. The technique, known as quantum ... key distribution, uses a small amount of data as a key for decrypting much larger quantities of data. Quantum key distribution conveys the encryption key in the form of photons, the fundamental elements of visible light. Polarized photons can be used to indicate a 0 or a 1 -- standard computer binary code -- which is enough to carry any digital ... (view more)

Windows 8 and Windows RT will get their first security fixes this Patch Tuesday, November 13, 2012. For Windows 8, three of the fixes have been marked "critical," Microsoft's highest security rating. The fixes address zero-day vulnerabilities ... reported by security firm Vupen last week. Vupen recently announced it had found "multiple vulnerabilities" in Windows 8 and also in Microsoft's newest web browser, Internet Explorer 10. Remote Code Flaws Found in Windows 8 The "critical" fixes will address remote code execution vulnerabilities that, theoretically, could allow a hacker to install malware ... (view more)

It appears that during Tuesday night's election the privacy of a number of high-profile Twitter users was invaded when an unknown website or Internet service compromised their accounts. That prompted Twitter to force password resets on many of its ... users. It remains unclear at the moment how the security breach occurred or how many users' accounts were compromised. Whatever that number, Twitter created a huge stir by sending out more password reset emails than necessary. "We unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts, beyond those that we believed to have been compromised ... (view more)

According to a new report, nearly one in every eight home networks in North America is infected with malware. Experts consider about half of those threats to be "serious." The study comes from Mountain View, California's Kindsight Security Labs. In ... its third-quarter malware report, the company indicates that 13 per cent of all home networks are infected. Kindsight's report suggests that about 6.5 per cent of these infections are serious enough to have converted the computers on the infected network into a botnet , or are capable of compromising a user's information security. ZeroAccess Botnet ... (view more)

The barcodes on airline boarding passes may look innocent. However, one security researcher says that a smartphone camera allows anyone to figure out whether or not they'll be selected for a security check. Aviation expert John Butler recently ... noted, via his blog, that the information on barcodes isn't encrypted. (Source: wordpress.com ) Although airport staff use special scanners to read the barcodes, it turns out that a camera phone can scan the barcode and the proper app can convert it to a string of codes. You can then use the Internet to find out what these codes mean. Pre-Check ... (view more)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says an Internet firm claiming it collected only shopper opinions about the products they bought was actually collecting personal data. The firm, Compete, is negotiating a court-approved settlement of the charges. ... So far, the punishment the company will face has not been publicly revealed. Compete used online ads to recruit customers into its "Consumer Input Panel", telling them they can give their opinions and win prizes. To participate, however, consumers needed to install special tracking software on their computers to monitor what websites they visited. ... (view more)

Be careful when using Bing, Microsoft's search engine, says a security expert. According to the expert's report, Bing is more likely than other search engines to offer users links to malicious websites. The report comes from Fraser Howard, a ... computer security researcher with SophosLabs. In the report, Howard suggests that users of Bing are twice as likely as users of Google to find malicious links on their results pages. Bing Bad, Google Less Bad That's a startling number, given that Google has more than four times the market share of Bing. However, it remains unclear how accurate and ... (view more)

Yesterday Mozilla's security chief told users to stop using the latest edition of his company's browser. Michael Coates said the first release of Firefox version 16 contained a serious security flaw. Fortunately, hackers were unable to exploit the ... flaw and Mozilla has since offered a solution to the problem. The problem was particularly serious because Firefox users may have unknowingly upgraded to the new edition. Mozilla uses background updates, so security patches and new editions are downloaded and installed without user control or approval. Most of the time this isn't a problem. In this ... (view more)

According to a new report from Microsoft, Windows 7 and Windows XP users are now facing more malware threats than ever before. Meanwhile, the number of malware programs designed to infect Vista machines is decreasing. Microsoft released these ... findings in its semi-annual Security Intelligence Report, which provides a review of security threats and infections faced by users of Microsoft products during the first half of 2012. Threats to Windows 7, XP On the Increase In the report, Microsoft says the average number of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) machines infected by malware rose by 23 per ... (view more)

A security company has come up with a way to reduce the effectiveness of website hacking. The plan is to split customer passwords and store them in two or more separate locations. The idea for split passwords comes from security firm RSA, which says ... the new technique aims to frustrate hackers who breach website security in order to acquire user names and passwords. Sometimes that data are stored without any encryption. Even when they are encrypted, hackers are often able to break the encryption, given enough time. Such breaches of security can be particularly dangerous if any of the site's ... (view more)