Brian Prince

Intel has spent the past several days dealing with fallout from the discovery of a master key for the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) protocol, ending a busy week in IT security news. The HDCP protocol was developed by Intel to protect digital video and audio content as it is transmitted between devices and to […]

Security researchers have reported a new phishing scam targeting users of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). According to McAfee, phishers were seen using the free tax payment service as bait this week in a new round of e-mails. The e-mails have the subject line “Your EFTPS Tax Payment ID […]

Adobe Systems is advising users to be cautious before applying an unofficial patch provided by a security company for an zero-day being exploited in the wild. Earlier this week, security firm RamzAfzar released an unofficial fix for the flaw, which Adobe has said it plans to patch in the coming weeks. The bug, which affects […]

Intel is investigating how a master key for the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) protocol used to protect digital content made its way to the Internet. Developed by Intel, the HDCP protocol is used to protect video and audio content as it is transmitted between devices such as Blu-ray players and high-definition televisions and to […]

Uniloc USA has filed a lawsuit against several corporations, alleging unauthorized use of Uniloc’s anti-piracy technology. Named in the lawsuit are Adobe Systems, Symantec, Pinnacle Systems (part of Avid Technology), National Instruments Corp., Pervasive Software, CA Technologies, Sonic Solutions, Onyx Graphics, SafeNet and Aladdin Knowledge Systems (owned by SafeNet). According to Uniloc, the companies did […]

A California man was handed a six-year sentence Sept. 17 for laundering money for a crew of cyber-criminals. Cesar Carranza, 38, also known by the handle “uBuyWeRush,” participated in the money laundering scheme “between April 2004 and November 2006,” the Department of Justice said in a news release Sept. 16. According to the indictment, Carranza […]

Social networking has its upside, but a new poll by Panda Security shows it is also introducing its share of risks to small to midsized businesses (SMBs) in the United States. In the July survey, researchers discovered nearly 33 percent of participants had experienced a malware infection from social networking and media sites like YouTube. […]

A security company is going to market with a plan to bring virtualization to the browser to bolster security against Web-based threats. Arguing that firewalls and antivirus software fail to adequately protect enterprises, Invincea’s strategy is to move Internet Explorer “into a virtual environment in a manner that is transparent to users,” the company said […]

Attackers are changing their tactics and, unsurprisingly, it’s not to the benefit of users, according to a new security report. The 2010 Top Cyber Security Risks Report features data from Hewlett-Packard’s TippingPoint Digital Vaccine Labs, Qualys and The SANS Institute and notes the increasing use of complex obfuscation techniques for PDF exploits and malicious JavaScript. […]

Database Security, Budget Top Admins Concerns, Oracle User Survey Says by Brian Prince Database Security on the Menu In an era of data breaches, database security is on the radar for many organizations. Still, some 17 percent of the respondents said either they don’t know how important database security is for their company or their […]

Apple updated its QuickTime software to patch two security vulnerabilities. Among them is a fix for a dynamic-link library [DLL] loading issue affecting numerous programs running on Microsoft Windows. According to Apple, the vulnerability exists on unpatched versions of QuickTime on Windows 7, Vista, XP SP2 or later. “If an attacker places a maliciously crafted […]

Google confirmed today one of its engineers has been fired for violating the company’s privacy rules. The acknowledgment followed a media report that Google employee David Barksdale accessed the accounts of several teenagers in violation of Google policies. According to Gawker, Barksdale was let go in July for abusing his position as a site reliability […]