Robert Lemos

Bouncing e-mail and the Internet black hole

PR representatives and others who have tried to contact me at my mail-at-robertlemos-dot-com address may not have gotten through in the last week.

I recently switched my Web domain to point to my TypePad domain and in the process, apparently partially broke the logical path for e-mail. If you have not gotten a response from me in the last week, please resend your e-mail. I will try to respond to all e-mail in the next few days so that you know I received it.

Thanks and sorry for any issues.

Real-Time Hackers Foil Two-Factor Security

In mid-July, an account manager at Ferma, a construction firm in Mountain View, CA, logged in to the company's bank account to pay bills, using a one-time password to make the transactions more secure.

Yet the manager's computer had a hitchhiker. A forensic analysis performed later would reveal that an earlier visit to another website had allowed a malicious program to invade his computer. While the manager issued legitimate payments, the program initiated 27 transactions to various bank accounts, siphoning off $447,000 in a matter of minutes. "They not only got into my system here, they were able to ascertain how much they could draw, so they drew the limit," says Roy Ferrari, Ferma's president.

Technology Review

Network defenders have failed to adapt to current attack trends, continuing to focus on patching operating-system vulnerabilities and leaving ubiquitous applications open to an increasing number of attacks, stated a report published on Tuesday.

Network defenders have failed to adapt to current attack trends, continuing to focus on patching operating-system vulnerabilities and leaving ubiquitous applications open to an increasing number of attacks, stated a report published on Tuesday.

SecurityFocus

Molly Redden just finished her 10-page English paper when a pop-up dialog box leapt to the front of her screen: "Alert! Your system is infected," it warned.

A sophomore at Georgetown University, Redden had been working late on a Saturday night, finishing up a paper for the next week's class. Now, a window listing dozens of viruses covered her desktop, and a dialog box asked her if she wanted to proceed with removal. She clicked "Yes."

Yet when the software asked her to pay $49.95 to clean her computer, she knew something was wrong.

Symantec's YourSecurityResource

Social networks are rife with examples of users failing to understand the privacy implications of posting sensitive information online.

In February, for example, school officials in Wisconsin suspended a teacher who posted on Facebook a picture of herself pointing a gun at the camera. In April, the Swiss insurance company Nationale Suisse fired an employee after she called in sick and then posted updates on the same site. Others have raised concerns about users handing so much personal information to social-networking companies themselves.

Now, researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario have developed a browser plug-in to help users keep their information private from prying eyes and from social-network providers as well.

Technology Review

Popular apps need better patching, says report

Network defenders have failed to adapt to current attack trends, continuing to focus on patching operating-system vulnerabilities and leaving ubiquitous applications open to an increasing number of attacks, stated a report published on Tuesday.

Network defenders have failed to adapt to current attack trends, continuing to focus on patching operating-system vulnerabilities and leaving ubiquitous applications open to an increasing number of attacks, stated a report published on Tuesday.

SecurityFocus

Scare Tactics

Molly Redden just finished her 10-page English paper when a pop-up dialog box leapt to the front of her screen: "Alert! Your system is infected," it warned.

A sophomore at Georgetown University, Redden had been working late on a Saturday night, finishing up a paper for the next week's class. Now, a window listing dozens of viruses covered her desktop, and a dialog box asked her if she wanted to proceed with removal. She clicked "Yes."

Yet when the software asked her to pay $49.95 to clean her computer, she knew something was wrong.

Symantec's YourSecurityResource

Privacy Plug-In Fakes out Facebook

Social networks are rife with examples of users failing to understand the privacy implications of posting sensitive information online.

In February, for example, school officials in Wisconsin suspended a teacher who posted on Facebook a picture of herself pointing a gun at the camera. In April, the Swiss insurance company Nationale Suisse fired an employee after she called in sick and then posted updates on the same site. Others have raised concerns about users handing so much personal information to social-networking companies themselves.

Now, researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario have developed a browser plug-in to help users keep their information private from prying eyes and from social-network providers as well.

Technology Review