If you had boat-loads of miles saved on your American Airlines or United Airlines account you might want to make sure they’re still around, now that botmoh airlines have confirmed thieves used stolen usernames and passwords to book free trips or upgrades. [More]
privacy
President Proposes New Legislation To Protect Consumers’ And Students’ Data
By 1.12.15
From hacks and data breaches to identity theft and good old-fashioned money theft, crime and privacy in the digital world are shaping up to be the big buzzwords of 2015. Protecting consumers from harms like retail and website hacks is one of the bigger, newer challenges facing the feds going forward. Today, President Obama outlined his proposals for some laws that could help protect American consumers online. [More]
Instagram Fixes A Loophole That Allowed Public To See Private Pics
By 1.12.15
Some 300 million people have accounts on Facebook-owned photo-sharing service Instagram, and while many of those users are fine with letting the world see every image they post, some Instagrammers prefer to keep their pics private. However, until this weekend there was a loophole that could give people unauthorized access to private images on Instagram. [More]
Banks Want To Robocall You When It’s Important, But Not Important Enough To Speak To A Human
By 1.8.15
Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, companies can’t robocall you on your cellphone unless you’ve given them prior consent to contact you at that number. Now the banking industry is trying to gain exemptions for this rule, claiming there are times when they just need to call your cellphone even though the need isn’t urgent enough to have an actual human make that call. They also don’t want to be penalized for robocalling the wrong number. [More]
Third Time’s The Charm? House To Take Another Stab At Terrible CISPA Internet Bill
By 1.8.15
Not unlike a mummy, the reanimated corpse of a bad bill that just doesn’t know when to stay dead is once again coming to the floor of a Congress near you this week. Tomorrow, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act — better known as CISPA — is once again going to be introduced before the House of Representatives. [More]
If Your iCloud Password Is ‘Password1,’ Choose Something Else Right Now
By 1.2.15
If you use Apple’s iCloud service, you know that Apple has some limits on what your password can be, which are meant to make your account harder to break into. The password must have at least one letter, at least one number, at least one capital letter, and have at least 8 characters. However, it’s still possible to come up with a terrible password within these parameters. [More]
Marriott: It’s Okay, We Only Want To Jam Your Hotspot In The Rooms You Actually Need It In
By 1.2.15
Last fall, Marriott got in trouble for jamming the signals from users’ portable hotspots in one of their conference centers. That’s illegal, and the FCC fined them big bucks for it. Now the hotel chain is trying to make it legal, which has gone over very poorly in the public eye. But wait, Marriott says — we don’t want to stop you from using personal hotspots in your room! We only want to block you from using them in shared spaces where you could actually benefit from having them. [More]
Ex-Employees Sue Sony Pictures, Claiming Company Failed To Protect Workers’ Personal Info From Hack
By 12.16.14
In the wake of the major hack over at Sony Pictures Entertainment earlier this month, two former employees are suing the company, claiming that Sony Pictures didn’t do enough to protect their personal information from hackers. [More]
In Wake Of Target Ruling, Will Retailers Scale Back Security So They Can Plead Ignorance?
By 12.10.14
Last week, a federal court in Minnesota gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit filed against Target by several banks trying to claim damages from the massive 2013 payment systems breach. Now, some worry that the court’s decision could lead retailers to go with simpler, perhaps less secure, systems rather than risk missing a red flag on a more complicated one. [More]
Bank CEO Rips Walmart For Allowing ID Thieves To Spend $12K Without Anyone Noticing
By 12.10.14
How do ID thieves spend $12,000 in just a couple of hours at Walmart without anyone noticing? Quite easily, apparently. Which is why one CEO of a Texas-based bank is criticizing the nation’s largest retailer. [More]
Pasting A Copyright Notice On Your Facebook Timeline Still Won’t Work
By 12.2.14
It’s like an annual tradition: Facebook announces revisions to its privacy or data use policies, and the people of Facebook Nation respond by copying and pasting a boilerplate notice warning Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies that their political rants and snapshots of their kids’ drawings belong to them, thank you very much. The problem: this does not actually work. [More]
Uber’s Latest Privacy Problems: “Ghost Texting” Drivers’ Contacts, Collecting Android Users’ Data
By 11.26.14
Controversial car service Uber, already under fire recently, has a new pair of privacy concerns this morning. One has to do with drivers’ accounts, and the other is for anyone who uses the Android version of the app. [More]
Soccer Team Requires Fans To Scan Hands Before Entering Games
By 11.12.14
If you think it’s a hassle getting a pat-down and walking through a metal detector at an NFL or baseball game, that’s nothing compared to what fans of one professional soccer team have to go through. In an effort to identify hooligans and cut down on hooliganism, the team now requires hand scans from all of its hometown fans before entering the stadium. [More]
Secure Messaging Scorecard Shows Just How Unprotected Your Online Chats Are
By 11.5.14
The Internet is a place where hundreds of millions of people go to write things they wouldn’t — or can’t — say in public, and many of the most private and secretive communications occur via the many instant messaging services available to consumers. But what you may not realize when sharing your personal thoughts (and images) with someone online is that the level of privacy and security on these services varies wildly from one to the next. [More]
Can Police Force You To Unlock Your Phone With Fingerprint?
By 11.5.14
While the Supreme Court recently made it very clear that police can’t look at the contents of a suspect’s phone without a warrant, what remains unresolved is whether or not authorities with a warrant can then compel a suspect to unlock his/her phone. And does it make a difference if that unlocking involves a fingerprint instead of a passcode? [More]
Citi’s “Secure Message Center” Run By Idiot Robots Who Don’t Care They Sent E-Mail To Wrong Person
By 10.20.14
If you’re a customer of any of the big banks, you’ve likely gotten a few messages in an online inbox that is only available via the bank’s website. You probably ignore most of these because they’re either about site downtime or upsells for add-on products you’ll never buy, but you probably assume that — unlike your gmail, yahoo, hotmail, or AOL account — this inbox doesn’t include messages that are intended for someone else. Wrong. [More]
Adobe’s Newest Security Hole: Telling The World What You Do With Your Library Books
By 10.7.14
It’s pretty great that in the modern age, you can borrow digital books from libraries, to read at home on the computer or e-reader of your choice. It’s a lot less great that the piece of software most library books use is apparently spying and collecting data on every word you read. [More]
Giving Police Backdoor Access To Smartphones Is An Invitation To Be Hacked
By 10.3.14
With both Android and iOS phones making privacy updates that will make it impossible for Google or Apple to unlock a device without a user’s passcode, even with a warrant, authorities from local police to the head of the FBI to the U.S. Attorney General are saying there should be some sort of backdoor way to gain access to these devices. But what they don’t realize is that leaving in that additional point of access just makes phones more vulnerable to other forms of snooping. [More]
