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Candace Bushnell, the author famous for "Sex and the City", has fallen victim to a hacker who not only broke into her Twitter account, but also posted extracts of her as-yet-unfinished next book online. Although the creator of Carrie Bradshaw seems to have expelled the hacker from her Twitter account, and deleted the offending tweets, an early draft version of what seem to be the first 50 pages of Bushnell's book - currently entitled "Killing Monica" - are available online for anyone to download and read to their heart's content.
It's disturbing just how many people seem to leave their computers permanently logged in to online services. Yes, an admin password can prevent a passer-by from installing a keylogger on your computer without your knowledge, but just *what* have you left your computer logged into from its desktop browser? Sometimes an XKCD cartoon can tell it better than words.
Millions of Italian people carry Postepay cards. The pre-paid rechargeable cards, distributed by Poste Italiane, are frequently used to make internet purchases.
And that's why Italian computer users should be on their guard against a criminal email campaign that has been spammed out, designed to steal usernames and passwords that would give hackers access to Postepay users' accounts.
Facebook should be doing more to protect its billion users from abuse, argues Graham Cluley.
"People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them."
Those are the words of Facebook itself. And there's nothing wrong with that. But, unfortunately, it doesn't tell the whole story. There are also people who use Facebook to bully others, to spread hate speech, to defraud, spam, and commit online crimes.
Sky News journalist Gerard Tubb may have hacked into emails sent by "Canoe Man", but he will escape prosecution.
Other journalists would be unwise, says Graham Cluley, to see this as a green light for email hacking.
Evernote, the online note-taking service, has posted an advisoryinforming its near 50 million users that it has suffered a serious security breach that saw hackers steal usernames, associated email addresses and encrypted passwords. It's not clear how the hackers managed to gain access to Evernote's systems, or how long the hackers had access to Evernote's account information.
Two more major organisations have gone public about, what they claim, were attempts by Chinese hackers to infiltrate their networks and steal sensitive information. EADS, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space company, and steelmaker ThyssenKrupp are said to have become the targets of hack attacks originating in China, according to Der Spiegel. EADS - who makes the Eurofighter jet, as well as spy drones, surveillance satellites, and even rockets for French nuclear weapons - are said to have contacted the German government last year to warn them that the military contractor's computer network has been hacked.
I've been speaking to the media today about the Twitter hackthat saw the credentials of around 250,000 users scooped up by cybercriminals. During the day, the same questions have been cropping up - and I thought it would be useful to briefly cover them here.
The FBI has arrested a 27-year-old man, who they claim hacked the accounts of Facebook users, and coerced hundreds of women into stripping while he watched via Skype.
It has taken Yahoo a ridiculously long time, but it is finally rolling out an option that will help protect users' privacy when accessing their web-based email - HTTPS. Yahoo Mail has lagged behind competitors such as Hotmail (in the process of being rebranded Outlook.com) and Gmail by not allowing users to access their email through HTTPS.
Facebook has introduced a new feature for iPhone, iPad and Android users which means you can automatically sync any photos you take on your mobile device with your Facebook account.This removes the nuisance of having to manually choose which photos to upload.
Here are nine things you should know about Facebook Photo Syncing:
It's true to say that there's a lot lot less malware in existence for Macs than there is for Windows PCs. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all. And clinging onto the statistics of the much smaller proportion of Mac malware compared to Windows malware is going to be cold comfort if your Apple Mac is the one which ends up getting infected. The latest Mac malware seen by the experts at SophosLabs, is a new variant of the OSX/Imuler Trojan horse. In the past, earlier variants of the OSX/Imuler malware has been spread via topless photos of a Russian supermodel or embedded deep inside boobytrapped PDF files. This time, it appears that the a version of the Imuler Trojan has been used in an targeted attack against sympathisers of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government, as the malware appears to have been packaged with images of Tibetan organisations.
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A study by Ofcom, the UK communications watchdog, has unearthed some appalling statistics which reveal just how badly the general public treat password security.
According to Ofcom's "Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Report 2013" report, a poll of 1805 adults aged 16 and over discovered that 55% of them used the same password for most - if not all! - websites.
It's good news if you're a cybercriminal.
But probably not something that's going to do much good for one of the world's poorest countries. If news reports are to be believed, the West African country of Mali is planning to let anybody register .ML domain names for free. Yes, you read that correctly. For free.
SophosLabs has received a number of disturbing reports from German computer users about a ransomware malware attack that is locking computer screens, and demanding payment of a fine. Like other ransomware attacks, a message appears claiming to come from the police that says that evidence gathered proves that the computer has been used to view pornography involving minors. Unlike most attacks, however, the warning message also includes images of the purported sexual abuse of children, along with the minors' names, dates of birth and location. Some of the images claim to be of girls as young as 13 years old. Obviously, we are unable to confirm if the people pictured in the images are as young as the bogus police warning message claims.
A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army has hijacked the official Twitter account of BBC Weather and started posting some strange messages which aren't the typical "partly cloudy.. showers likely" fare you would normally expect.
Evernote, the online note-taking service, has posted an advisoryinforming its near 50 million users that it has suffered a serious security breach that saw hackers steal usernames, associated email addresses and encrypted passwords. It's not clear how the hackers managed to gain access to Evernote's systems, or how long the hackers had access to Evernote's account information.
A report by the Islamic Republic News Agency this weekend raised eyebrows, as it appeared to claim that Iranˈs Revolutionary Guard Corps had managed to hack and down a foreign spy drone. "A foreign spy drone was hacked outside the field of Payambar-e Azam 8 wargames on Saturday," reporters were told.
The official FARS news agency told a similar story, adding that the revolutionary guard were in possession of pictures taken by the drone and hoped to release them to the world's media.
Within seconds of the news breaking that Pope Benedict XVI was to resign, spam began to appear on Twitter taking advantage of the story. Messages using the hashtag #pope - but with no connection whatsoever with the developing news story of the first Papal resignation for hundreds of years - have sprung up on the social network. Most of the messsages are being posted from accounts which feature images of young women in a state of undress (rather than a state of distress, which is what you would devout expect Catholic followers of @Pontifex to be feeling right now).
The New York Times has reportedthat for the last four months Chinese hackers have been infiltrating its networks, broken into the email accounts of senior staff, stolen the corporate passwords for every Times employee and used those to gain access to the personal computers of 53 employees. According to the report, the first attack came in mid-September 2012 as the newspaper prepared to publish an investigation into the family of Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao, who are said to have accumulated billions of dollars through business dealings. Malware was planted on users' computers which opened backdoors for the hackers to gain remote access to connected systems - including a domain controller that contained usernames and hashed passwords for all of the New York Times' employees.
Is Google doing a good enough job of policing apps in the official Android app store? It seems not, judging by the number of bogus apps that continue to be made available for public download from Google Play, exploiting the name and reputation of legitimate games in an attempt to make money for fraudsters.
The Metropolitan Police have arrested two men and a woman in connection with a spate of computer attacks that have held innocent internet users to ransom.
Ransomware is malicious software that locks you out of your computer or your data, and demands money to let you back in.
One "brand" of ransomware, widely known as Reveton, has been very widely circulated in recent months pretending to be a warning from your country's national police service, locking you out of your PC, and threatening criminal proceedings within 48 hours - usually for unspecified copyright offences.
Facebook users have been surprised to find they have been subscribed to Groups that they left years before, potentially allowing them to view sensitive and private information.
The country of Georgia has long blamed hackers based in Russia for attacksupon its computer networks, injecting malicious code into websites, and planting spyware to steal classified information.Now the Georgian government's CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) claims it has linked an internet attack to Russia's security services, and even turned the tables on a hacker it believes was involved by secretly taking over his computer and taking video footage of him.
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