Cyber Security

The internet in Syria appears to have returned after a nationwide blackout knocked the country offline for more than 19 hours.  Monitoring company Renesys noted signs of activity at around 14:30 GMT (17:30 local time) on Wednesday.  Local state-run media had reported earlier that a “fault in optical fibre cables” was to blame for the Continue Reading →

Kazaa. LimeWire. Napster. There are hardly any widely used filesharing sites that didn’t try to “go legit” at some point after being dinged for facilitating piracy. It doesn’t usually work. Napster, for example, no longer exists; it was nearly bought by a porn company before it was acquired by Roxio and then sold to Best Continue Reading →

If you’re looking for some serious control over your family’s Wi-Fi use and home network, a Palo-Alto, Calif., company has developed a new cloud-based solution. PowerCloud Systems’ Skydog Wi-Fi router and mobile companion site lets parents monitor Internet access and even receive text notifications for certain network activity. The system works by signing up with Continue Reading →

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released its annual “Who Has Your Back?” report, ranking 18 companies by how well they protect user information from government eyes. Twitter and Sonic.net get high scores from the EFF, as they meet all six of the organization’s privacy guidelines, which include requiring a warrant for sharing content and telling Continue Reading →

Starting on Thursday, Facebook is rolling out a new Trusted Contacts feature under your account security settings. Here, you can pick three to five folks who will have the power to help you when you lock yourself out of your account like a dummy. It’s pretty unlikely that you’ll get accidentally locked out of your Continue Reading →

The United States Department of Defense will reportedly grant security approval to Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and Apple’s iPhone and iPad running iOS 6 for use by Pentagon officials, according to The Wall Street Journal. Both companies have been pressing officials to grant them clearance and allow Defense employees to switch from outdated BlackBerry devices. The Continue Reading →

Several high-profile Twitter accounts have fallen victim to hacking attacks lately, and in response to the situation Twitter has issued a memo to media and news organizations suggesting steps they can take to protect themselves moving forward. Buzzfeed has posted the memo in its entirety, which asks organizations to help keep their accounts secure as Continue Reading →

Spanish police have arrested a Dutchman suspected of being behind one of the biggest ever web attacks. The 35 year-old-man was detained in Barcelona following a request from the Dutch public prosecutor. The attack bombarded the websites of anti-junk mail outfit Spamhaus with huge amounts of data in an attempt to knock them offline. It Continue Reading →

Another high-profile hack has hit the internet: this time, daily deal website LivingSocial is the victim. In an internal email, CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy says that the cyber-attack gave hackers access to its users’ names, email addresses, birthdates, and encrypted passwords. The passwords were thankfully both hashed and salted, so unlike some other large hacks targeting Continue Reading →

Twitter is reportedly working on a two-factor authentication system. Wired writes that the company is currently testing the new security solution internally before rolling it out to the public. Following a number of high-profile hacks, including that of Wired editor Mat Honan, several companies have shifted to two-factor authentication, including Apple, Microsoft, and others. Today’s Continue Reading →