Fahmida Y. Rashid

Researchers examined Google Wallet and found a lot of customer information stored in plain text on mobile devices, making users vulnerable to social engineering attacks if malicious attackers gained access to the data. A high-level review of data transmitted and stored by Google Wallet shows that users can be at risk for financial or identity […]

Fake software is nothing new, as scammers try to trick users into buying fake antivirus and other security tools. Now Symantec researchers have uncovered a scam around a fake smartphone monitoring tool. SMS Privato Spy is marketed as a tool that allows users to view a smartphone’s screen live, activate the microphone and eavesdrop on […]

A malicious developer cloned popular games on the Android Market and rereleased them as free apps after modifying some code. Google has removed those apps, according to Lookout Security. The developer created at least a dozen copies of the most popular games, adding code to make the phone send SMS messages to premium rate numbers. […]

Adobe released a patch addressing vulnerabilities in its ColdFusion Web application development platform. However, it still has not released a fix for the critical vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that the company promised last week. The vulnerability exists in ColdFusion versions 9.01, 9.0, 8.0.1 and 8.0 running on Windows, Mac OS X and Unix, […]

The FBI has denied a request for information on how the nation’s topmost law enforcement agency is using Carrier IQ’s mobile diagnostic and monitoring software. Michael Morisy of Muckrock News filed on Dec. 1 a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for “manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered […]

Microsoft released 13 security bulletins to fix 17 different vulnerabilities as part of its December Patch Tuesday update, according to the advisory released Dec. 8. Three bulletins were marked critical and the remaining 10 were rated important. “December’s patch is a mixed bag of treats,” Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security, told […]

A new attack uses malicious SMS messages to disable the messaging hub on Windows Phone devices, according to researchers. The SMS message exploits a flaw in how the Windows Phone mobile platform handles messages to trigger a denial-of-service attack that can disable all messaging functionality on the device, WinRumors reported Dec. 12. A factory reset […]

The federal government has launched an assessment and monitoring program under which cloud providers have to commit to a certain level of security before being allowed to work with the government. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) establishes a baseline of security requirements for government contractors interested in providing the federal government with […]

Many companies still fail to adequately manage user privileges and protect sensitive data, exposing them to the risks of data breaches, according to a study from Hewlett-Packard and the Ponemon Institute. A survey of 5,500 IT professionals around the world found that more than half the organizations were still giving employees access to sensitive, confidential […]

In the “How Cool is This?” files, the Federal Trade Commission has decided to send reimbursement checks to more than 300,000 people who have been victims of a rogue antivirus scam. The checks are the result of a settlement between the agency and several defendants named in a complaint file by the FTC in 2008. […]

The Federal Trade Commission would take a hard line on companies that violate consumer privacy using facial recognition technology, the agency’s chairman said at a public workshop.Government officials, privacy advocates and technology companies discussed the ethics of facial recognition and the impact on user privacy at a workshop in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8. Facial […]

Blue Coat Systems has agreed to be acquired by a group of investors led by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which intends to take the Internet networking and security vendor private, the two companies announced on Dec. 9. Valued at approximately $1.3 billion, the deal would give Blue Coat shareholders $25.81 for each share they […]