Oracle, Adobe and Microsoft patches are all arriving together on Tuesday 14 October 2014. Paul Ducklin looks at what to expect…
Monthly Archives: October 2014
Mummy, my schoolbooks are spying on me! 60 Sec Security [VIDEO]
Here’s our latest 60 Second Security video for your viewing pleasure. The wry side of the week’s news, in just a minute…
Return of the Android SMS virus – self-spreading “Selfmite” worm comes back for more
Back in June 2014, we wrote about an Android virus that worked a bit like the email worms of the early 2000s. Well, that Android virus has made a comeback, and this variant is both pushier and more flexible than before… 
Police thwarted by remote wiping of tablets and phones
Several UK police forces are left baffled after evidence on phones and tablets has evaporated into thin air, even after suspects have been taken into custody.
FBI’s warrantless ‘hack’ of Silk Road was legal, prosecutors claim
Even if FBI agents did hack their way into the Silk Road without a warrant – and they’re most certainly not confessing to that, mind you – the intrusion would have been an upstanding, law-abiding, Fourth Amendment-respecting act of criminal investigation, the government argued in a Monday court filing. 
Reminder: iCloud’s going to demand app-specific passwords from third-party apps
Yes, your third-party calendar, mail and contacts apps that don’t support Apple’s new two-factor authentication system are going to turn 10 toes up on your iThings. You’ll need app-specific passwords to get at the cloud data. 
Adobe will update e-reader to mop up clear-text data spillage
Adobe is working on an update to fix the latest iteration of its e-book reader, which has a gluttonous appetite for readers’ data and the slovenly habit of reporting our reading habits back to Adobe – in plain text. 
Twitter sues US federal agencies in attempt to remove the gag around surveillance
Twitter doesn’t want its transparency report to be fuzzy to the point of meaninglessness, full of “broad, inexact ranges” about how many times the US government has shaken it down in its surveillance operations, it says – or example, by counting them to the nearest thousand.
SSCC 168 – Amaze your friends by ruining all their USB drives! [PODCAST]
Here’s the latest Chet Chat security podcast for your listening pleasure. Sophos experts Chester Wisniewski and Paul Ducklin take apart the latest computer security stories to turn them into news you can use.
DEA agent steals woman’s identity and photos to lure in suspects on Facebook
The woman gave up her rights when she handed over her phone in an arrest, the Feds are claiming in a court case, so that makes it OK for a DEA agent to put up a bogus account in her name, post her private photos, friend a fugitive, and accept friend requests. Privacy experts call it an alarming expansion of the notion of “consent.”