Brian Prince

Google is bolstering Chrome security with a plan to block vulnerable plug-ins from launching. “We’re working on tackling the problem of out-of-date plug-ins, starting with the two most widely used and targeted plug-ins,” a Google spokesperson told eWEEK. “Adobe Flash now ships with Chrome and is automatically kept up-to-date with Chrome’s powerful auto-update. And in […]

Sybase pulled the covers off SQL Anywhere 12 June 29 and revealed what users can expect in the upcoming release of the company’s mobile database. In SQL Anywhere 12, the company has added new “support for storage and synchronization of spatial data,” Apple iPhones and a number of self-management features. The support for spatial data […]

The White House has published a draft of a strategy designed to make the concept of trusted identities and authentication more of a reality in the digital world. In a 39-page document (PDF) entitled the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” (NSTIC), the White House promotes what it calls the Identity Ecosystem, an interoperable […]

A new study from Worcester Polytechnic Institute shows mobile online social networks are providing tracking sites and other third parties with users’ physical locations or the unique identifiers for their mobile devices and other information. The paper, “Privacy Leakage in Mobile Online Social Networks” (PDF), was unveiled last week at the 3rd Workshop on Online […]

The board of directors for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted today to allow the longstanding application for an .xxx domain for the adult entertainment industry to move forward. The application will now move on to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee. The creation of a top-level domain for adult sites has been […]

Data loss prevention sounds like a great idea. But poor planning can run up costs, making how organizations choose tools an important-and meticulous-process. There are several things organizations should take into account when buying a DLP solution, starting with what type of data they want to protect, Securosis analyst Rich Mogull said. From there, organizations […]

Not all phishing takes place online. Text message-based phishing, called smishing, is still out there, and though on the decline, a report from security vendor Internet Identity (IID) shows it is still being used to target credit unions. In smishing, scammers use text messages to impersonate companies and lure victims into calling a fake interactive […]

A U.S. Senate committee has given the thumbs up to a controversial cyber-security bill that some claim expands executive powers too far in the event of a cyber-attack. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PDF) was approved by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today in a unanimous vote. Critics have accused […]

Twitter and the Federal Trade Commission have reached a settlement over charges that the microblogging service failed to protect user privacy in two security incidents last year. The FTC complaint centered on a January 2009 incident in which an attacker used an automated password-guessing tool to gain administrative control of Twitter and reset numerous passwords. […]

Symantec is raising the alarm about a rogue antivirus operation that appears to be taking a page from telemarketers. According to Symantec, a company called Online PC Doctors is using the phone — instead of misleading applications — to convince users their computers are infected, and then offering to remotely connect to the “infected” machine […]

Google is taking issue with a report from SMobile Systems suggesting Google Android applications are leaving users open to identity theft. In an analysis of more than 48,000 applications (PDF) currently available on the Android Market, SMobile found that 20 percent request permission to access sensitive information an attacker could use for some malicious purpose. […]

Mozilla’s Firefox security update June 22 brought more than just a bevy of patches for the Web browser. It also brought new protections against crashes caused by plug-ins. In Firefox 3.6.4 for Windows and Linux, if a plug-in crashes or freezes, the browser will continue running while portions of the Websites controlled by the plug-in […]