websites

Tue
05
Jun
John Lister's picture

Browsers to Support Fingerprint Logins to Websites

Google's Chrome browser may soon support biometric logins to websites such as fingerprints. It follows on from Firefox becoming the first major browser to support biometric logins just a few weeks ago. Both browsers are supporting "WebAuthn," a web ... standard for authenticating logins without passwords. While it's a big step, it's only half the journey as the standard also has to be supported by the websites in question. (Source: digitaltrends.com ) The standard has been jointly developed by two key groups. The World Wide Web Consortium is the main body that develops standards for ... (view more)

Thu
15
Feb
John Lister's picture

Thousands of Sites Hit By 'Cryptojacking' Scam

Visitors to more than 5,000 websites had their computers hijacked to earn money for scammers. But the attack would have earned them less than $25 - and they aren't getting paid anyway. The attack involved compromising screen reader software called ... BrowseAloud. Websites can add the software to their site to make it easier for visitors with vision problems to browse the pages. Because the software is so widely used, compromising it was an effective way to reach a large number of computers - regardless of whether the owners needed to use a screen reader. The software is particularly popular ... (view more)

Tue
02
Jan
John Lister's picture

Websites Face $60 Million Fine for 'Illegal Content'

Social media sites could face fines of almost $60 million if they don't remove hate speech and other illegal posts within 24 hours of receiving a report. The new German law has prompted Facebook to recruit hundreds of staff. It's the result of the ... Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz law, which is known as NetzDG for short, and literally translates as Network Enforcement Act. (Source: BBC.com ) Libel And Hate Speech Both Covered The law doesn't change what content is allowed and not allowed. Instead, it says that sites must remove any content that is "obviously illegal." A prime example is ... (view more)

Thu
14
Dec
John Lister's picture

Trio Admits Hijacking Home Devices

Three Americans have plead guilty to hijacking more than 100,000 internet-connected devices. The group of infected machines (known as a "botnet") was then used to attack websites using a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) to make websites ... unavailable. While most DDoS attacks are carried out on PCs, this attack in particular targeted weaknesses in smaller devices that use the Internet. This included routers, digital video recorders and wireless cameras. That's a significant point, as the tech security community has generally treated security flaws in such devices as a lower ... (view more)

Wed
22
Nov
John Lister's picture

Website User Tracking 'A Major Security Risk'

More than 400 leading websites could be compromising user security by collecting everything the user types - whether or not the user is aware. A Princeton University study also found the collected information was not always adequately protected and ... anonymized. The problem highlighted by the study was the use of third-party tools that website owners can use to find out more about how people navigate their site. These tools often track precisely where the user moves a mouse cursor along with information they type in, even if they then delete it. In principle these "session replay" tools can be ... (view more)

Mon
27
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Firefox 'This connection is untrusted' (appears Randomly)

Infopackets Reader Gord F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a very vexing issue. For the last few weeks, Firefox randomly produces a ' This connection is untrusted ' message whenever I try to sign out of my Outlook email account (outlook.live.com), or ... when I visit other secure websites. It seems to work one minute, then it won't work the next. If I shut down and restart the computer the 'This connection is untrusted' error disappears, only to pop up again the next time I visit a secure website at some point in the day. When I see a 'This connection is untrusted' message, I've clicked the ' ... (view more)

Wed
05
Oct
John Lister's picture

Should You Use a Password Manager?

Lately we've been posting a lot of articles about websites and services that have been hacked . One of the primary recommendations we have also repeated is that users should use unique and hard-to-guess passwords for each site, as this will help to ... prevent any further breaches. The reasoning is that if user account data is stolen on one site ( Yahoo is a good example ), the same username and passwords may also be valid on other sites - but only if users are using the same account names, passwords or password hints. Unfortunately this is often the case, because using the same passwords on ... (view more)

Wed
10
Jun
John Lister's picture

US to Encrypt All Government Websites

All US government websites accessible by the public must use secure connections by then end of next year. The new rules should protect the public, particularly "whistleblowers." New rules laid down this week mandate the change for all public sites ... that are wholly or partly maintained by the federal government. This applies even if the site is operated by a contractor. The rules apply whether or not the site requires a user to log-in. (Source: cio.gov ) Under the rules, sites must use the most secure protection that is widely available. The initial implementation of the rule ... (view more)

Fri
27
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

Web Pages Load Slow, but I have Fast Internet. Why?

Infopackets Reader Paul H. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded my Internet connection speed through my Internet Service Provider, and I now have 60MB broadband service. As I expected, I have really fast downloads and web pages load lightening ... fast. However, some websites are considerably slower than I would expect, even slower than before the upgrade. Any ideas why that might be? " My Response: There are many reasons why some pages don't load as fast as others, even if you upgraded your broadband. The most important point to understand is that even though you have a fast ... (view more)

Wed
25
Feb
John Lister's picture

Google to Block and Ban Sites With Risky Downloads

Google has added a new measure to protect users from visiting risky websites. It's now going to warn users about bogus downloads, even before they go to the website concerned. The changes will affect Google Search, users of the Chrome browser, and ... advertisements provided by Google to third-party websites. Safe Browsing Warnings Extended to Chrome Google's Chrome browser will now contain special warning messages built into the web browser. The warnings are part of Google's Safe Browsing Service , which is also available as a third party API (application program interface). Parts of the ... (view more)

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