Fahmida Y. Rashid

Despite security researchers citing the dangers of using URL shorteners, they’ve proliferated online. Twitter pretty much requires them because of its 140-character limit, and major sites like Google (goo.gl), New York Times (nyt.ms), New Yorker (nyr.lr) and LA Times (lat.ms) have popularized their own sites, too. It’s getting to the point where people (send) e-mail […]

Spammers and other cyber-scammers often cash in on breaking news and topical information to trick users into downloading malware or clicking on suspicious links. The latest scam targets people interested in the latest WikiLeaks exposures. One e-mail scam, intercepted by the researchers at Symantec, has “IRAN Nuclear BOMB” in the subject line and a spoofed […]

10 Compact Hard Disks Delivering Terabyte-Scale Storage by Fahmida Y Rashid Seagate Constellation.2 This 2.5-inch hard disk drive from Seagate Technologies is available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities. Designed for storage arrays and enterprise data centers, these drives operate on less than 6.4 watts and have a 7,200-rpm spin speed. The enterprise-class drive in […]

Mexico’s central securities depository is using IBM software that can settle securities trades in near real time, IBM said Dec. 22. Rapid settlement means banks don’t need to have as much cash on hand to cover trades, which reduces the risk of financial losses, according to IBM. Indeval, Mexico’s central securities depository, is using Dali, […]

Apple joins the growing list of U.S. companies that have cut ties with WikiLeaks in recent weeks by removing an application from its online app store. The app gave users access to the documents posted on the whistleblower site. “We removed WikiLeaks because it violated developer guidelines. An app must comply with all local laws. […]

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission adopted the net neutrality regulations in a 3-2 vote at its meeting on Dec. 21. However, it’s clear that even amongst the majority, the commissioners were not satisfied with the rules. The voting followed party lines, with the three Democratic commissioners voting for, and the two Republican commissioners voting […]

A distributed denial-of-service attack against anti-spam group Spamhaus has provided evidence that cyber-criminals have found a new target: WikiLeaks supporters. The cyber-criminals have combined the intense interest over WikiLeaks with a misleading domain name to trick users into going to a fake site, security researchers said. Spamhaus was hit by DDoS attack on Dec. 18. […]

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk remains a handy way to get certain digital tasks done cheaply and quickly, and that includes generating massive amounts of spam, according to researchers. The Mechanical Turk service is a labor marketplace where requesters can post specific tasks for small amounts of money. The Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) are usually repetitive and […]

In a leaked presentation, two companies that sell their services to cellular carriers showed off a wireless product that appears to achieve the opposite of the net neutrality rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. In the PowerPoint presentation, available on Wired, Allot Communications and Openet proposed a tiered, fee-based access to Web services. Under […]

Recently, researchers at GFI Software have noticed an increase in the number of fake security software scams purporting to be disk utilities that fix disk errors. Instead of listing Trojans, these security alerts pretend to find disk fragmentation or file system integrity problems. “Fake AV authors have added a new branch to their rogueware business,” […]