Google is offering up to $1 million in total bounties for hackers who can find security exploits in its Chrome browser. There's no better way for the Chrome team to shore up security problems than by inviting people to point them out. The contest will convene at Chrome's table at the CanSecWest security conference from March 7-9.
There are three tiers of rewards, all for bugs in the Windows environment. A full exploit of bugs in Chrome itself will net you $60,000, a partial exploit that combines a Chrome bug with other bugs gets $40,000, and the consolation prize is $20,000 an exploit of Chrome using bugs in Flash, Windows or something else. All winners also get a Chromebook.
Two Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous have claimed responsibility for a denial of service attack on the Interpol website, which is currently out of commission. The international law enforcement agency arrested 25 suspected hackers in more than a dozen cities across Europe and Latin America today. Interpol's "Operation Unmask" followed what it called "a series of coordinated cyber-attacks originating from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain."
The @anonopshispano account called for the attack at 1:54 p.m. Pacific time. The worldwide news account @AnonOps first tweeted "TANGO DOWN" at 2:43 p.m. Pacific time. It published a second message five minutes later, proclaiming that "#Anonymous is not a criminal organization."
Pinterest. It's a free for all, the perfect place to find visually stimulating images and then perform fast, repinning actions. Populate your online bulletin board (a.k.a. pinboard) with the inner visions of your mind. Just don't forget that you're probably frictionlessly sharing with Pinterest some of the same information you're already posting to Facebook and Twitter.
"The idea is that by default, your information is shared between Facebook and Pinterest," says Security Researcher Cameron Camp. "It is semi-opaque as to what information Pinterest pulls from your Facebook."
Mobile World Congress, the largest and most important mobile conference of the year, starts this week in Barcelona. Meanwhile, about 6000 miles away in San Francisco, the RSA Conference brings together cryptographers and security geeks. These conferences, while seemingly unrelated, have more in common in 2012 than ever before. Juniper created an exclusive infographic for ReadWriteWeb encapsulating the colliding worlds of mobility and security. Check it out below.
Do you reuse passwords across multiple websites? The habit is alarmingly common, despite being a well-known security risk. You know how the warning goes: If you use the same password across a number of different websites and one of those accounts is compromised, some evildoer could infiltrate the other sites, potentially exposing a wide range of personal data and even putting one's finances or identity at risk.
Mozilla knows all too well the online privacy and security issues that its users face. Its Firefox browser is the gateway to the Web for millions of people, and it doesn't take that responsibility lightly. Mozilla Labs recently launched what it calls the Watchdog initiative to help users understand and manage passwords and privacy-related matters.
About 1 billion people use the internet on a regular basis. Consider the sheer scale of this information. Now, imagine the number of passwords that are used daily by all these people. Most regular users are familiar with the limited capacities we seem to have to remember passwords. Each of us can probably remember a maximum of 5 passwords, all of which are masked when we type them out and appear as bulleted dots.
While most experts say this is for our benefit, some security researchers argue otherwise. In fact, there are gurus like Bruce Schneier who vote for usability and ask for passwords to be done away with. The alternative solution? Facial recognition software, iris readers, and augmented reality and spatial technology.
Malware permeated the mobile ecosystem in 2011. The issue is not going away either. Smartphones have an unprecedented amount of personal data that malicious hackers are drooling to obtain. Every day they are coming up with more sophisticated attacks and scheming ways on how to infiltrate that data trove in your pocket.
Juniper's Mobile Threats Report for 2011 shows that malware increased in 2011 by 155%. 46.7% of all threats that Juniper analyzed in 2011 were Android, ahead of 41% for Java ME. While Juniper does not have stats for Apple's iOS, it does say that there are dangers that could harm your iPhone as well.
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. People, especially Internet users, are either happily coupled up and doing something lovey-dovey, or they're hunting around on dating sites for their soulmate. Because, you know, true love only happens on the Internet. Unfortunately for some, there's danger in online dating.
"Cyber criminals are constantly looking for that common interest to capitalize on and in this case it's love," said Molly O'Hearn, Vice President of Operations at Iovation. "Just like in the face-to-face world, if something seems too good to be true it probably is."
The biggest geeks in all of technology work in IT security. Sorry front-end mobile developers, cloud gurus, data center managers and do-it-yourself robot builders. Enterprise IT security is run by geeks who love to play cat and mouse with a good botnet, argue over the merits of Blue Coat versus AnchorFree and have a panic button programmed on their highly encrypted smartphones that goes straight to Symantec's headquarters. These are the geek's geeks.
In honor of yesterday's Safer Internet Day, we present a tribute to the IT security folks that keep most of us running during the day and from drowning in a sea of spam and malware. We know the "$#!& people say" meme is a little played out, but we feel that's mostly because there have been some really mediocre entries into the genre recently. The video below is sure to leave you giggling if you belong to the geeky group of IT security experts. Check it out.
Here at ReadWriteWeb, we encourage safer Internet use. We try to bring you the stories that help you navigate the World Wide Interwebs.
So we wanted to make sure you know that today is Safer Internet Day, and it's meant especially for children and young people. Past Safer Internet Day themes have focused on cyberbullying and social networking. This year's very apropos topic is "connecting generations." How do we make sure everyone on the Internet - from young kids to grandparents - feel safe?
Safer Internet Day began as an initiative of the EU SafeBorders project in 2004. Today more than 70 countries worldwide on six of the seven continents participate. Take a look at the map after the jump.