Brian Prince

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently declared that privacy has become less of a “social norm” on the Internet as users have become more comfortable sharing information. Zuckerberg’s comments came Jan. 8 at the Crunchies Awards in San Francisco. The annual ceremony is co-hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat and according to organizers is meant to […]

Spammers are increasingly turning to free-hosting Websites to provide spam URLs, according to a new report from McAfee. In its “January 2010 Spam Report,” McAfee notes the trend is turning into an “all-out gold rush” as dozens of these free-hosting sites have sprung up to provide Web space for anyone who requests it. According to […]

Google has removed several banking applications from its Android Market mobile application store for violating Google’s terms of use. The presence of the applications in question, which according to those with direct knowledge of the situation did not misuse or steal user information, has nonetheless triggered concern among users. The applications were created by a […]

Heartland Payment Systems on Jan. 8 announced that it has agreed to pay up to $60 million to Visa to cover losses to credit and debit cardholders affected by the massive data breach Heartland suffered in 2008. According to Heartland’s news release, the settlement agreement is “contingent upon acceptance by financial institutions representing 80 percent […]

Oracle is planning to release an update that includes 24 security patches affecting numerous products, including the Oracle Database and Oracle E-Business Suite. The update addresses 10 security vulnerabilities related to the database, including one in Oracle Secure Backup. Two of the vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely without authentication, Oracle said in a pre-patch advisory. […]

Adobe Systems on Jan. 7 issued a fix for two security vulnerabilities affecting its Illustrator CS4 and CS3 software. The patch is actually a day ahead of the company’s self-imposed deadline. The fix addresses critical buffer overflow vulnerabilities impacting Adobe Illustrator CS4 (14.0.0) and CS3 (13.0.3 and earlier) on Windows and Mac operating systems. According […]

Oracle has acquired Silver Creek Systems in a bid to expand its data quality portfolio. Financial details of the deal were kept under wraps, but Oracle officials said their intent is to enhance product data quality across enterprise applications, including Oracle’s Product Information Management Data Hub, Agile Product Lifestyle Management, Supply Chain Management and Enterprise […]

Microsoft is kicking off the new year with a single Windows security bulletin. The first Patch Tuesday release of 2010 will contain a fix rated “critical” for Windows 2000 users and low for others. According to Microsoft’s pre-Patch Tuesday notification, the bulletin addresses a remote code execution vulnerability, and the exploitability index-the rating system that […]

When it comes to fighting phishers, users may be the best line of defense. In an experiment, penetration-testing company PacketFocus initiated a spear phishing attack that it says popular e-mail services and appliances — such as Microsoft Outlook 2007, Verizon Email Cloud Filtering and Cisco IronPort — failed to filter. Detailed in a report here, […]

Cisco Systems confirmed that it has acquired Rohati Systems, a security startup founded by former Cisco employees. Rohati came out of stealth mode in 2008 with a focus on providing TNS (transaction networking systems) to enable secure collaboration and ease regulatory compliance. “Cisco can confirm that it has acquired privately held Rohati Systems, a developer […]