Brian Prince

The Federal Trade Commission outlined today the beginnings of a new framework to protect online privacy, starting with a “Do Not Track” feature. The recommendation was included in a sweeping report (PDF), which FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said includes concrete guidance for an industry that has failed to properly self-regulate. “If companies tell consumers what […]

Security researchers are reporting the appearance of ransomware kidnapping PCs. What appear to be two separate campaigns have emerged. The first, discussed here by Sophos by Nov. 26, was observed using a drive-by attack to infect computers via malicious PDFs. Once installed, the malware encrypts media and Microsoft Office files on a victim’s computer. The […]

A new iteration of an old scam has surfaced on Facebook pushing a fake application that promises to enable users to see who has visited their Facebook page. The problem? Facebook does not allow this capability. According to Sophos, the app is spreading across the social network with messages that say: “OMG OMG OMG… I […]

At the center of the WikiLeaks controversy is U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, the man suspected of having passed the whistle-blower Website a massive collection of U.S. embassy cables. Manning has been in military custody for the past several months with charges of transferring classified information to his personal computer and passing it […]

WikiLeaks was hit by another blow from a denial-of-service attack today. Though the attack initially focused on cablegate.wikileaks.org-the site WikiLeaks is using to host its cache of diplomatic cables-the attackers eventually moved on to wikileaks.org. Earlier today, WikiLeaks posted a message on its Twitter feed that the attack had exceeded 10G bps. “The attacks are […]

Trend Micro revealed plans today to acquire Mobile Armor in a move meant to expand the company’s encryption capabilities. The acquisition, which is being made for an undisclosed sum, is expected to close before the end of the year. Mobile Armor offers full disk, file, folder and removable media encryption for endpoints. Its technology targets […]

WikiLeaks was hit with a denial-of-service attack as it prepared to publicize a trove of diplomatic documents. The attack occurred Nov. 28, striking the controversial site before it posted a collection of more than 250,000 U.S. embassy cables online. The main WikiLeaks.org site appeared to bear the brunt of the attack, according to Paul Mutton […]

The week may have been cut short for some due to Thanksgiving, but the security news machine kept churning nonetheless. A report by security firm BitDefender highlighted the challenge of malicious links and malware on Facebook. According to BitDefender, more than 20 percent of the people using the company’s safego application were exposed to malicious […]

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the country’s enemies of using malware to disrupt centrifuges involved in uranium enrichment. “They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts,” he was quoted as telling reporters at a media conference. “They did a bad thing. Fortunately, […]

A Swedish appeals court today upheld the convictions of three founders of The Pirate Bay Website who have been accused of violating copyright laws, according to reports. The popular file-sharing site has been at the center of legal controversy for years. While the site remains in operation, the Svea Appeals Court refused to reverse the […]