Monthly Archives: February 2009
Current Event: California IDs to have biometrics? The DMV hopes so!
It seems that in addition to the recently released biometric IDs in the UK, the California Department of Motor Vehicles seems to have recently tried to set up biometric IDs as well. In an otherwise innocuous vendor contract, the DMV … Continue reading
Security Review: My Linksys Router
This morning, my power for some reason switched off, crashing something in my router and killing my laptop battery. For the rest of the day, wireless was down at my house and my roommate and I were physically plugging in … Continue reading
Current Events: Cyber hackers turn to “virtual assets”
According to the ESET’s 2008 Global Thread Report, there has been a spike in the goals and targets of cyber hackers. Rather than attempting to break into a bank account or deface a website they would go for something more subtle, … Continue reading
Current Event – Facebook the target of scammers
As Facebook becomes more ingrained in people’s public lives, so does the opportunity for people to take advantage of the virtual identities of others. Recently, a Seattle man, Bryan Rutberg, had his Facebook account used to extort money from his … Continue reading
Security Review: Online Advertisers
Online advertisement is the lifeblood of the internet. Without it, sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Google, etc. would go out of business. Approximately a year ago, Google alone reached over 1.1 billion unique users in a month(see 1)–and they had … Continue reading
Current Event: Spike in Online Game hacking
According to an article on Gamasutra online game hacking spiked in 2008. It was noted that it usually wasn’t the games themselves being directly attacked, rather attackers would use social engineering or other techniques to install malware, such as keyloggers, … Continue reading
More on Electronic Medical Records
As mentioned earlier in the blog in “Security Review: Electronic Medical Records,” Google has started an electronic medical record database called Google Health. Today, IBM and Google announced that they have made software to allow PDAs to upload information to … Continue reading
Security Review: .tel domain
According to New Scientist, a UK company called Telnic is introducing a new top-level domain, .tel, with the intention of creating a “phonebook for the internet.” Users will only be able to register contact information, and this information will be … Continue reading
Security Review: iPod Touch
The iPhone has already had a security review and is similar to the iPod Touch, but I’m going to focus more on the security when someone has physical access to the device. There are a number of security measures that are or can be used on the iPod Touch to limit access to certain features. The iPod Touch, probably similar to the iPhone, contains a lot of personal information as well as access to iTunes and the App Store. Continue reading
Current Events – Infections that begin with windshield fliers
Not all computer malware infections are done completely electronically. In recent events, cars in Grand Forks, North Dakota were tagged with “windshield fliers” which resembeled a parking ticket, stating they were violating the “standard parking regulations” and that in order … Continue reading