Cookies are small files that websites store on your computer so they can identify and remember you. They can do useful things, like keep you signed in to a site, or annoying things, like make what seems like every ad bar across the entire Internet show you ankle boots after just one Zappos search. What if that technology could follow you into real life? [More]
privacy
Anthem Hack Included Personal Information For 78.8 Million Customers & Employees
By 2.25.15
Nearly three weeks removed from the detection of a massive data breach, health insurer Anthem Inc. is releasing more details about the scope of the hack, including the fact that personal information for about 78.8 million was compromised. [More]
H&R Block Will E-Mail Your Tax Info To Just Anyone
By 2.24.15
Tax returns contain some pretty sensitive information. You would think that when a tax preparer collects your e-mail address, they might verify to make sure that it is your correct e-mail address. If that’s your assumption, clearly you are not H&R Block, which doesn’t particularly care whether they’re sending your personal information to you or not. [More]
Restaurant Co-Owner Accused Of Creeping On Women With Camera Hidden In Bathroom
By 2.24.15
Police in Maryland say the co-owner of a local restaurant group took advantage of his customers in one of the most invasive ways possible, by allegedly setting up a video camera in the women’s restroom at one of his restaurants so he could secretly film them going to the bathroom. And cue those shudders, folks. [More]
LinkedIn Settles Lawsuit Over Poor Password Protection For About $1/Person
By 2.23.15
Back in 2012, hackers posted a stash of stolen passwords for several million LinkedIn accounts and was quickly sued for failing to protect its users’ information. Now the career-focused networking site has agreed to settle with 800,000 of its premium subscribers, for as little as around one dollar each. [More]
Here’s How To Get Rid Of That Nasty Superfish Vulnerability On Your New Lenovo Laptop
By 2.20.15
Computer manufacturer Lenovo rightly caught heat far and wide from every corner of the internet this week after security researchers discovered a massive security flaw that shipped pre-installed as advertising software. Lenovo should never have put the intrusive software on their computers in the first place, but there is some good news today, as the company is now sharing a list of what computers were affected, and how owners of their machines can remove this junk crap from their systems. [More]
YouTube Launching New Kid-Friendly App With Original Episodes Of Popular Children’s Shows
By 2.20.15
YouTube, long geared toward people ages 13 and over, plans to cater to an even younger crowd with an upcoming kid’s app that will provide original episodes of popular children’s show like Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow. [More]
60,000 Consumers Call On FCC To Not Allow Robocalls To Cellphones
By 2.19.15
Earlier this year, we told you how the American Bankers Association was seeking exemptions from the FCC that would allow banks to get around a law that forbids businesses from robocalling cellphones without prior approval. Today, 60,000 consumers are telling the FCC to just say now to the banks’ request. [More]
Samsung Smart TVs Don’t Encrypt Speech Or Transcriptions
By 2.19.15
Last week, the world collectively freaked out when we learned that Samsung’s smart TVs can take things that we say in our living rooms and uploads them to a third-party transcription service. The gadget-maker tried to calm us all down by explaining how the service works, but there’s a problem: people may have assumed that data is encrypted. It’s not. [More]
Lenovo Laptops Come Pre-Installed With Giant Security Hole
By 2.19.15
It’s not uncommon for a new PC to come with some pre-installed crap on it you don’t want. From proprietary hard drive management tools to antivirus trials, software bundling is sadly common. But the junk shipping on new Lenovo laptops goes one troublesome step further: the bloatware present on several models is not only annoying, but dangerous, with a vulnerability that could let someone easily access users’ private, nominally secure data. [More]
LinkedIn Ads Will Now Follow You Around The Web. Here’s How To Opt Out
By 2.19.15
Because we can’t go anywhere online without some social network tracking our data and using it to cash in on targeted advertising, LinkedIn has created its own online ad network that will allow advertisers to follow you around the web based on the information that LinkedIn knows about you. [More]
New Visa Feature Uses Smartphone Location Tracker To Prevent Fraud By Knowing Where You Are At All Times
By 2.18.15
Forgetting to tell your bank that you’ll be traveling far outside of your normal spending zone can often lead to frustrations like having transactions rejected out of concern that your card is being used fraudulently. In an attempt to make the lives of frequent travelers easier – and prevent fraud – Visa plans to launch a new service this spring that automatically informs banks where you are. [More]
What Can An ID Thief Do With My Social Security Number?
By 2.17.15 — Updated: 5.2.17
When I was working at the library in college, every student had to tell me his/her student ID number to check out a book, and with very few exceptions that number was also the student’s Social Security number. Oh boy, the profitable things I could have done if I’d been enterprisingly evil. [More]
Anthem Says Data From As Far Back As 2004 Exposed During Hack, Offering Free Identity Theft Protection
By 2.13.15
A week after health insurer Anthem announced that it was the latest victim of a security breach, the company revealed that hackers had access to tens of millions of customers’ data going back as far as 2004. [More]
Is Your Social Security Number A Public Record? Depends Where You Live
By 2.12.15
A pile of sensitive personal data from Florida residents is now on the loose online. But it wasn’t leaked from a hack or a breach. It was from a completely legitimate public records dump by the state’s former governor. [More]
FBI Now Investigating Possible Fraudulent Federal Tax Returns From TurboTax
By 2.12.15
Days after TurboTax resumed e-filing of all state tax returns following a third-party security expert’s finding that fraudulent activity reported by state tax officials did not result from a breach of Intuit’s own systems, federal regulators announced they would take a look for themselves. [More]
IRS Issues List Of “Dirty Dozen” Scams Taxpayers Should Be On The Lookout For This Year
By 2.12.15
Each tax season fraudsters manage to separate taxpayers from billions of dollars by using aggressive schemes such as impersonating Internal Revenue Service agents or employing emails and websites designed to gather consumers’ personal information for fraudulent use. This year, the IRS has issued a list of the “Dirty Dozen” scams consumers should guard against. [More]
Researcher Says It Only Takes Minutes To Hack Most Smart Home Security Devices
By 2.11.15
With a security hack taking place just about everyday, consumers are more on-guard than ever when it comes to making sure their personal information are secure from ne’er-do-wells. But a new report points out that we might be inviting those hackers into our homes with open arms thanks to the less-than-optimal security of many smart home products. [More]
