I received a message from my brother’s son yesterday.
“Please be careful: some hackers have found something new. They take
your profile picture and your name and create a new FB account. Then
they ask your friends to add them. Your friends think it is you, so
they accept. From that moment on they can say and post whatever they
want under your name. Please don’t accept a second friendship demand
from me, I have only one account. Copy this on your wall to keep
others informed”
I noted and bang came an email today from Facebook.
Image via CrunchBase
I scanned it.
Watch it.
Result.
Compared to in the past, when email was the key method for spreading viruses, our Virus Lab research shows that more than 80% of malware now spreads via the internet. More notably, only 1% comes from suspicious or ‘dodgy’ sites – the rest spreads via legitimate websites that have been hacked.
Yes, that was close, but relax…
avast! Free Antivirus is the minimum protection anyone should have against viruses and spyware. If you spend a lot of time online, however, you are naturally exposing yourself to greater threat. Fortunately, you can increase your security by adding more defensive layers.
The glasses are equipped with a near-infrared light source, which confuses the software without affecting vision.
Law enforcers, shops and social networks are increasingly using facial-recognition software.
Prof Isao Echizen said: “As a result of developments in facial recognition technology in Google images, Facebook et cetera and the popularisation of portable terminals that append photos with photographic information [geotags]… essential measures for preventing the invasion of privacy caused by photographs taken in secret and unintentional capture in camera images is now required.”
The near-infrared light “appends noise to photographed images without affecting human visibility,” he said.
Shop mannequins
Prof Echizen said the glasses, which connect to a pocket power supply, would be reasonably priced, but there are some simpler alternatives.
Heavy make-up or a mask will also work, as will tilting your head at a 15-degree angle, which fools the software into thinking you do not have a face, according to an online guide produced by hacktivist group Anonymous.
In September, following a review by Ireland’s data protection commissioner, Facebook suspended its facial-recognition tool that suggested when users in Europe could be tagged in photographs.
In November, it emerged some shop mannequins were collecting data on shoppers using facial-recognition software.
The Hacker News has provide a Link for outlining the Essentials of Information Security.
“”The Essentials of Information Security Kit: Includes a Free PC Security Handbook – 2nd Edition eBook”
Download this kit to learn everything you need to know about Information Security.
The Essentials of Information Security brings together the latest in information, coverage of important developments, and expert commentary to help with your Information Security related decisions.
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A new Malware doing the rounds with an email stating that some one has uploaded a photo.
Avoid clicking and delete the message.
Be careful about opening emails that claim you have been tagged in a Facebook photo, because they may actually be malware, according to a security expert.
Sophos’s NakedSecurity blog outlined the threat on Wednesday. The company’s SophosLabs intercepted a “spammed-out email campaign” which was designed to spread malware. Sophos provided the following example:
If you’re a Yahoo Voices user, it’s time to change your password.
Security for the service appears to have been compromised early Thursday morning. A list titled “Owned and Exposed” which is “brought to you by the D33Ds Company” was posted online revealing a number of details for the service including all of the email addresses and passwords for Yahoo Voices’ 450,000 users.
The site hosting the information is intermittently down; however, we were able to open the document and verify that it does in fact contain user emails and password data.
At the end of the document the group remarks that it posted the information to be a “Wake-up call” rather than a threat.
“We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat,” the document says. “There have been many security holes exploited in webservers belonging to Yahoo! Inc. that have caused far greater damage than our disclosure.
“Please do not take them lightly. The subdomain and vulnerable parameters have not been posted to avoid further damage.”
The group also included this quote from Jean Vanier in its closing remarks: “Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.”
But it wasn’t just Yahoo! email addresses that have been infiltrated: Gmail, MSN, Hotmail, Comcast and AOL accounts have also been hacked. (Yahoo! Voices allows you to sign in with non-Yahoo! email addresses.)
Thanks to Sucuri Malware Labs, you can now check to see if your email account via Yahoo! Voices — notYahoo! Voice, which some media outlets have reported — was a part of the leak.
Check if your email information was compromised by clicking here.
The leaked email account information first surfaced online early Thursday morning by a hacker group called “D33ds”. Because the passwords were stored unencrypted, the long list of usernames and passwords were posted in text for all to see.
The news comes just one day after 420,000 member accounts from social network Formspring were compromised, and a few weeks after millions of passwords were leaked online from sites such as LinkedIn, eHarmony and Last.fm.
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