Brian Prince

Google has fired back at Consumer Watchdog’s criticism that the company accidentally snooped on the personal WiFi networks of several members of Congress. In May, Google admitted that it had accidentally used code, written for a WiFi project, which caused the Google Street View vehicles used to photograph streets and terrain to collect SSID (service […]

Activision Blizzard has backtracked on its plans to require posters on its “World of Warcraft” and “StarCraft” forums to use their real identities. In an announcement July 9, Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime said the reversal was driven by user feedback. Activision Blizzard is the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard’s July 6 announcement about […]

Microsoft plans to release four security bulletins July 13 for Patch Tuesday, including one to cover the security hole discovered by Google engineer Tavis Ormandy. Two of the four bulletins cover Windows, while the others are related to Microsoft Office. All told, the company plans to fix five different vulnerabilities in its products. The bug […]

Plans for a National Security Agency program to monitor for cyber-attacks against the public and private sector is already drawing concerns, according to a report. According to the Wall Street Journal, plans for a program known as “Perfect Citizen” are being seen by some as an attempt by the NSA to get more deeply involved […]

Websense is taking a new approach to its data loss prevention (DLP) story, opting to make a full version of its product suite available to customers via download. The complexity of implementing DLP has slowed adoption of the technology in the past, and experts say proper planning upfront can be the difference between easy deployments […]

Researchers at Websense have uncovered a new Trojan that poses as a Windows Input Method Editor, or IME, and infects a system. IME is a Windows component that allows users to input characters or symbols on their keyboard from other alphabets. According to a July 5 blog post by Websense, “The Trojan can install itself […]

A German data protection official has started legal proceedings against Facebook due to privacy concerns. Johannes Caspar, head of the Hamburg office for data protection, accused the social networking site of illegally accessing and saving personal data of non-users, according to the Associated Press. Caspar said his office has begun taking legal steps that could […]

EMC’s plan to buy data warehousing specialist Greenplum may be a harbinger of more acquisitions in the data warehousing space, analysts say. According to EMC, the deal will help lay the foundation for a new data computing product division within EMC’s Information Infrastructure business. Greenplum’s database uses a shared-nothing MPP (massively parallel processing) architecture designed […]

The “insider threat” is a favorite term of vendors pushing access monitoring solutions, but research has shown malicious insider breaches are not the most common ways for data to leak out of your organization. Still, when they happen, the results can be serious, both for the business and the person who gets caught. A former […]

Hackers exploited a cross-site scripting vulnerability on video sharing site YouTube during the holiday weekend, targeting fans of singer Justin Bieber. Using the vulnerability, the attackers were able to insert HTML code into YouTube pages devoted to Bieber and greet fans with redirects to adult content as well as a numerous pop-up messages, including one […]

Apple has removed more than 40 applications from its App Store after accusations of fraud were made against a developer. During the July 3 weekend, accusations were made by other developers that Thuat Nguyen used fraud to catapult his software to the top of the ebook bestseller list. In response, Apple said it took the […]

Microsoft said it is investigating a security flaw revealed by researchers upset at Microsoft’s “hostility toward security researchers.” A group going by the name “Microsoft-Spurned Researcher Collective”-a play on the name of the Microsoft Security Response Center-published information last week about a vulnerability affecting Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that can be used to […]