Brian Prince

Skype is rolling out a fix during the next few days for a bug that resulted in instant messages sometimes being sent to the wrong contact. The situation was first reported last week on a Skype user support forum. According to Skype, the issue occurs when the program crashes during a Skype instant messaging session, […]

Symantec has shed more light on why an update to its security software spawned the infamous “blue screen of death” for some of its customers. An antivirus software update that Symantec issued on July 11 was discovered to be crashing Windows XP machines. According to Symantec, the problem was a compatibility issue in SONAR (Symantec […]

Yahoo officials say the vulnerability exploited by hackers that compromised about 450,000 emails and passwords has been fixed. The company confirmed July 12 that hackers had accessed an old file containing the sensitive information belonging to users of the Yahoo Contributor Network. The information was linked to writers who joined Associated Content — now known […]

Yahoo officials confirmed that an older file from the Yahoo Voices (formerly Associated Content) was stolen July 12 by hackers, allowing them to get their hands on more than 400,000 user credentials. Of that amount, less than 5 percent of the Yahoo accounts had valid passwords, the company told eWEEK. Besides Yahoo email addresses, the […]

Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are being targeted in a cross-platform malware attack, according to security experts. Researchers at F-Secure spotted the attack on a Colombian transport site. The attack begins with a signed Java applet and a social engineering ploy in the form of a dialog box prompting the user to run an […]

Google and the Federal Trade Commission are reportedly close to a settlement regarding charges Google circumvented privacy settings in the Apple Safari Web browser. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Google may be forced to pay $22.5 million to settle the charges. The amount would be the largest fine ever levied by […]

Microsoft released patches for 16 security vulnerabilities today, including a bug affecting Microsoft XML Core Services that is being exploited in the wild. The patches are spread out across nine bulletins, three of which are rated €œcritical.€ Among those critical vulnerabilities is a remote-code-execution issue impacting XML Core Services 3.0, 4.0 and 6.0 on all […]

Researchers at mobile security firm TrustGo said they have uncovered a piece of Android malware in multiple app stores that has spread to more than 100,000 devices. It’s yet another example of malware challenges facing Google€™s mobile operating system. The MMarketPay.A Trojan is being hidden in several seemingly legitimate applications, including travel and weather apps. […]

Microsoft plans to release nine security bulletins July 10 to cover 16 vulnerabilities as part of the monthly Patch Tuesday software fixes. According to Microsoft, three of the bulletins are rated “critical,” and deal with issues affecting Windows and Internet Explorer. The remaining six bulletins are classified by Microsoft as “important,” and involve issues affecting […]

Google and Apple have pulled an app from their mobile app stores after it was revealed it was sending user contact lists to a remote server and spamming the contacts with messages. The app, named “Find and Call,” claimed to be an app that helps users organize their address book. However, the app actually takes […]

WikiLeaks today began releasing a database of more than 2.4 million emails to and from Syrian political figures and others from a period stretching from August 2006 to March 2012. According to WikiLeaks, the data set was gathered from €œ680 Syria-related entities or domain names,€ including the Ministry of Presidential Affairs. At a news conference, […]

Taking a page from Google, Twitter released a report Monday, July 2 detailing the government requests for user information. As was the case with Google, U.S. government agencies led the way in demanding user information. Between Jan. 1 and June 30 2012, Twitter received 679 requests from the U.S. government pertaining to 948 users. Twitter […]