Auto Import Function in Dropbox
US Technology Used For Regime Censorship
Telephone Banking Scam
Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley
warned the public about an automated phone call scam targeting
victims' bank accounts.
Anyone who received such a call is advised to
provide no information and to contact their bank's customer service
department via a land-line telephone, in person or via a secure Internet
connection. The recorded message will claim to be from major banks and asking to provide some sort of verification of bank account information, including credit card and debit card numbers, along with PIN numbers.
Stratfor Hacked
Hacker group Anonymous have infiltrated the servers of Austin-based global intelligence service Stratfor. The group posted credit card numbers, names and addresses online; it says belongs to 4000 Stratfor's customers. The client list includes employees of Bank of America, the US Military and the Houston Police Department. Stratfor informed the media they will be contacting its subscribers and offering them a free identity protection service.
21,000 Domains Transferred From GoDaddy in 1 Day
An anti-Go Daddy thread on social site Reddit led to the creation of Godaddyboycott.org, a site set up to let people amass their disapproval with the company's support of SOPA. Yesterday, Go Daddy actually reversed course and dropped its support for the controversial legislation. "Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it," Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman announced in a statement. SOPA, introduced in Congress this fall, would make it easier for the Justice Department to shut down sites allegedly dedicated to piracy.
GoDaddy Boycott Launched By Anti-SOPA
Opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) launch a boycott against domain name registrar GoDaddy, which expresses its strong support of the controversial legislation. The boycott movement basically asked their supporter to transfer their domains to another registrar. While Silicon Valley firms like Google, Facebook and Twitter
overwhelmingly oppose SOPA on the grounds that it will usher in
unprecedented censorship online, suffocate innovation, and endanger the
domain name system (DNS) upon which the Internet is built, GoDaddy
brushes aside all these arguments, and claims that the bill is needed to
“identify and disable all types of illegal activity on the Internet.”
UK's New Cyber Crime Unit
UK government announces a new measure to tackle cyber crime as Britain's internet and electronic communications network comes under increased attack from hackers and foreign intelligence agencies. A Cyber Crime Unit will be formed alongside a team at the intelligence agency GCHQ which will fine-tune the country's military capabilities in the virtual world. According to the government, more than 20,000 malicious emails are sent
to its networks each month, of which 1,000 are deliberately targeted. The GCHQ is expected to help by assisting private companies shore up their cyber defences.
Silent Update For Internet Explorer
Microsoft will begin pushing "silent" updates to its Internet Explorer
(IE) browser to ensure users are deploying the newest versions of the
browser. Users will no longer get a pop-up prompt to then update the
browser with security patches and other updates.
Enterprises aren't bound by Microsoft's new automatic update feature. They can opt out of the silent updates if they prefer to time their own browser updates. They can deploy the Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 Automatic Update Blocker toolkits, which stop automatic upgrades of IE. For those users who had already declined previous installations of IE8 or IE9 through Windows Update won't get pushed the silent updates.
Enterprises aren't bound by Microsoft's new automatic update feature. They can opt out of the silent updates if they prefer to time their own browser updates. They can deploy the Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 Automatic Update Blocker toolkits, which stop automatic upgrades of IE. For those users who had already declined previous installations of IE8 or IE9 through Windows Update won't get pushed the silent updates.
Google 300000 Square Foot Hong Kong Data Center
Google said the data center will be staffed by 25 full-time local employees, including electrical and mechanical engineers, computer technicians, security and catering staff. The company said the investment represents a new commitment to the region. The data center will help increase user access speed for the company's different online services in Asia.
Microsoft Issues Workaround for ‘Duqu’ Flaw
Microsoft has released an advisory and a workaround fix for the zero-day
vulnerability exploited by the “Duqu” Trojan malware. The critical vulnerability resides in most supported versions of Windows, including Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.
The problem stems from the way Windows parses certain font types.
Microsoft says it is aware of targeted attacks exploiting this flaw, but
that it believes few users have been affected.
Cybersecurity Tips
To assist small businesses with cybersecurity, FCC provides tips that's available for download. It includes basic advice such as how to make sure Wi-Fi routers
are secure, encrypt data on computers, install anti-virus software and train employees not to click on links in email from
people they don't know.
Google Sanitizes Chrome 15 for Memory Flaws
Google is now out with Chrome 15, fixing a large number of flaws found
by third party researchers who are being paid bug bounties for their
efforts. Ever since the bounty program started, Google is fixing over 27 flaws and have paid $26,511 in bug bounties to security researchers.
Ten flaws fixed in the Chrome 15 updates were discovered with an open source project called, AddressSanitizer. The AddressSanitizer is a memory error detector for C/C++ and is able to help identify out-of-bounds access issues as well as use-after-free memory conditions. Looking beyond security fixes, Google has also made some incremental feature improvements with Chrome 15. There is a new Tab page layout that shows a user's most visited sites. Additionally, Google has updated the look for the Chrome app store.
Ten flaws fixed in the Chrome 15 updates were discovered with an open source project called, AddressSanitizer. The AddressSanitizer is a memory error detector for C/C++ and is able to help identify out-of-bounds access issues as well as use-after-free memory conditions. Looking beyond security fixes, Google has also made some incremental feature improvements with Chrome 15. There is a new Tab page layout that shows a user's most visited sites. Additionally, Google has updated the look for the Chrome app store.
Rapport By Trusteer
Many major online banks now offer their customer to install additional security software called Rapport by Trusteer. It’s an extra layer of security that sits between your computer and the online banking sites that protects against phising and keylogger.
Here is the list of banks that offer Rapport for their customers for free.
Despite this, for most users Rapport will be a good addition to their security arsenals, but beware the pitfalls. It can slow down Internet surfing. To avoid this, disable Rapport for all but the per-designated bank or eCommerce sites you use.
Here is the list of banks that offer Rapport for their customers for free.
Despite this, for most users Rapport will be a good addition to their security arsenals, but beware the pitfalls. It can slow down Internet surfing. To avoid this, disable Rapport for all but the per-designated bank or eCommerce sites you use.
Yahoo! Data Center Chief Left For Apple
The Godfather of the 'computing coop', Scott Noteboom, fills yet unknown role at Apple. Noteboom was at the head of an infrastructure team at Yahoo! responsible
for breakthrough innovations in data center design. The most recent and
notable one was creation of the Computing Coop – a design that cut both
energy consumption of the company's large-scale data centers, as well
as cost and time it takes to build them.
Microsoft CRM Next Release
The cloud version or CRM Online is going to be first to get a number of
new updates, sometime in the coming weeks. Microsoft will make those
same updates, plus some additional features, available via an
on-premises version of its CRM release.
According to this Microsoft roadmap slide, unified provisioning, billing and administration, as well as identity federation and in-region disaster recovery support are all coming to the online version only. The first three of those capabilities are all related to the integration of CRM Online with Office 365.
According to this Microsoft roadmap slide, unified provisioning, billing and administration, as well as identity federation and in-region disaster recovery support are all coming to the online version only. The first three of those capabilities are all related to the integration of CRM Online with Office 365.
New Data Center Facility in Seattle
Equinix will add a new data center presence in Seattle, WA. The new data center will add significant capacity for Equinix,
which has two data centers in Seattle, including one at the Westin
Bulding. It also reflects Seattle’s growth as a data center market, and
an important gateway to the Asia-Pacific market.
The new Equinix site will add approximately 51,000 square feet of
data center space and capacity for more than 1,000 cabinet equivalents,
and support 4.1 megawatts of IT capacity. Equinix expects to invest
approximately $60 million to build the new IBX data center, which is
estimated to open in first quarter of 2013.
