Brian Prince

Security researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have highlighted a potential attack vector for accessing your mobile devices-the smudges from your fingertips. In a paper (PDF) presented this week at the USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., the researchers revealed that oily residues on the surface of touch screens used on devices such as smartphones […]

Apple announced Aug. 11 that it has swatted two bugs used to jailbreak the iPhone. The update comes roughly a week after the release of JailbreakMe 2.0, which took advantage of two vulnerabilities in the iOS mobile operating system used by the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. According to Apple, the first was a stack […]

Sybase announced a new release of its database replication product armed with functionality designed to reduce latency when moving data between enterprises data stores. In Replication Server 15.5, Sybase uses its high volume adaptive replication technology to reduce the time it takes to replicate large data volumes by analyzing rapidly changing data and only delivering […]

Security researchers are warning users of Google Android-based devices about the appearance of what may be the first Short Message Service Trojan targeting their devices. It was originally discovered on a Russian smartphone news site. Dubbed Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, the malware is being used to ring up charges by sending text messages to premium rate numbers. According […]

Microsoft released 14 new security bulletins in Aug. 10’s Patch Tuesday update to cover nearly three dozen vulnerabilities. Fourteen is the largest number of security bulletins ever released by Microsoft on Patch Tuesday. Eight of the bulletins are rated critical. Of the eight, four are considered by Microsoft to be high priority: MS10-052, which resolves […]

Researchers at M86 Security have uncovered yet another botnet built on the Zeus Trojan that is swiping bank information from people in the United Kingdom. The attack is still ongoing, and is known to have stolen ???675,000 (nearly $1.1 million) from customers between July 5 and Aug. 4. According to M86, the crew behind the […]

Microsoft is investigating a new report of a security vulnerability in Windows that can be exploited to gain elevated privileges. Microsoft confirmed that the bug, a privilege escalation issue in the operating system’s kernel driver, is being analyzed. Danish security firm Secunia published an advisory on the bug Aug. 6, identifying the issue as a […]

Tektronix Communications, which describes itself as a “provider of communications test and network intelligence solutions,” announced Aug. 9 that it will acquire Arbor Networks. The deal, made for an undisclosed sum, is meant to help Tektronix build a brand in security, Tektronix Senior Vice President and General Manager Rich McBee told eWEEK. “By adding Arbor […]

Two recent examples of malware utilizing digital signatures belonging to legitimate companies have put a spotlight on the question of what to do about it. Researchers at Trend Micro recently found a variant of the Zeus Trojan that used a certificate belonging to Kaspersky Lab’s ZbotKiller product, which ironically is designed to destroy Zeus. Though […]

If the golden rule of doing onto others as you would have them do onto you still applies, the general public may be more open to the idea of cyber-espionage than some think. According to a survey of 1,077 computers users by Sophos, 63 percent said it was OK for their country to spy on […]