USR-Lib

With Wi-Fi Aboard, Be Careful What You Click

I’M a Modernist, devoted to Mies, postwar abstraction and flying. In the last year or so, I’ve been in Amman, Paris, Venice, Athens, Boston, London, Naples, Dublin, Rome, Reykjavik, Milan, Málaga, Moscow, Montreal and Memphis, to name a few. One year, I was traveling back and forth to Paris so many times that the flight attendants recognized me. I was traveling with an important artist and I...

Facebook Adds New Remote log-out Security Feature

Facebook on Thursday announced a new security feature that will allow users to see if they are logged into their accounts on a different computer and to remotely log out if so. This will address the problem that many of us have of leaving a computer–either one we borrowed at a friend’s house or used at a public spot like a library–logged in to our Facebook account without realizing...

RIM Sidesteps BlackBerry ban in India

The Indian government said it will not shut down the service for at least another 60 days as it evaluates proposals RIM has offered that would allow the government to monitor wireless subscribers’ communications. Indian officials said earlier this month that the company had until the end of August to come up with a solution that would allow them to monitor e-mails and other electronic messages...

RIM Extends Olive Branch to Indian Government

Research In Motion is hoping to find a solution to its drawn-out security battle with India by creating an industry forum to address the government’s concerns. RIM says it wants to create a forum where the company and other mobile firms could work with the Indian government to support “the lawful access needs of law enforcement agencies, while preserving the legitimate information security...

Be Cautious of Internet Access at Airports

Accessing the Internet via an open Wi-Fi network is risky because you have no idea who is the hot spot provider or who is connected to it. At the airport it may seem more secure to use a terminal to check your e-mail or update your Facebook status; however, according to Symantec, these terminals might not be secure at all. Nick Johnston, senior software engineer of Symantec Hosted Services, wrote...

‘Freemium’ antivirus firm Avast gets funding boost

The security vendor Avast has received a $100m investment from private equity firm Summit Partners, in exchange for a minority stake in the company. Avast chief executive Vince Steckler described the $100m (£64m) deal on Monday as “a vote of confidence in our disruptive ‘freemium’ business model”, which sees the vendor giving its product — including updates — for free...

Terrorists, FBI can’t sink Blogetery

A month ago, it appeared that Blogetery, a blog platform that claims more than 70,000 publications, would never be heard from again. The service was shut down last month by its Web host after FBI agents alleged the terrorist group al-Qaeda was using the platform to distribute recruiting materials, bomb-making tips, and the names of people targeted by the organization for assassination. This wasn’t...

Google patches 11 Chrome security problems

Google patched 11 vulnerabilities–three critical, seven high-risk, and one medium–in a new version of Chrome released Thursday. All but one of the problems was in Chrome itself. The additional issue handled in Chrome 5.0.375.127 (Windows | Mac | Linux) is a workaround for a critical Windows kernel bug, according to a blog post Thursday by Jason Kersey of the Chrome team. Chrome has an...

Sophos flags Facebook ‘dislike button’ scam

Security firm Sophos has highlighted yet another scam that’s zipping around Facebook in the form of a third-party application, this one spreading in the form of links claiming to be from friends that encourage members to install a Facebook “dislike button.” Sophos wrote about the scam in a blog post Monday, pointing out that a link to it tends to appear in wall posts that appear...

Mobile banking risks and mitigation measures

Mobile banking, and other financial services, enable customers to pay bills on the fly, check and transfer balances and even trade stocks. Most mobile banking services are delivered via text messaging, mobile websites and applications downloaded to smartphones. Research firm TowerGroup Inc. predicts that by 2012, 108 million people will turn to their mobile devices to conduct some type of banking. We...