Round-up of the security news updates

Website collects addresses of users who tweet the word ‘home’ This interesting website scans user tweets for the word ‘home’. If the person who tweeted the word has location tracking switched on, the website uses the location data and saves it as the address of that user. This information is then published on the website […]

Security news updates from the last week

Indian power grids are vulnerable to cyber-attackers The recent power outage in North India caused mayhem and now officials have said that it is possible for cyber-attackers to hack into the Indian power grid. There is a surprising lack of defense protocols in this sector and this is the cause for tremendous alarm. CERT-IN (Computer […]

Security news updates from the last week

Android malware learns a new trick Mobile security software and a cautious nature can help you avoid risky apps over the Android Market (Google Play). But researchers have now discovered a way to convert good apps into malicious ones via an update, after they have been installed on a device. Google’s Bouncer (software to detect […]

Interesting news updates from the last week

450,000 ‘Yahoo! Voices’ passwords hacked In yet another password breach and exposure, around 450,000 login credentials affiliated to Yahoo! Voices were released on the web. The group responsible, D33ds, has said that they hope to raise awareness about password security. Yahoo! had stored these credentials in plain text, which is just ludicrous. Moreover, people continue […]

Password Security: A dash of ‘salt’ and little of ‘hash’ to go please!

Online services like LinkedIn, eHarmony and Last.fm were recently hacked and millions of passwords were found on Russian hacker forums. This has led to a rise in public awareness about password securing procedures like ‘salting’ and ‘hashing’. Quick Heal users are protected from various real-time risks but attacks like this show that web services need […]

Is your LinkedIn account password hacked?

Professional networking website LinkedIn suffered a major security breach of its password database recently. Reportedly a file containing more than 6 million hashed passwords appeared in an online forum in Russia. Out of these 6 million hashed passwords, more than 200,000 passwords have been cracked so far. The file does not contain user names but […]

Future Watch II: Rogue SSL certificates on the rise

Continuing with our series of predicting potential security threats, this post delves into rogue SSL certificates. This attack vector allows phishers and social engineers to gain complete trust of their victims, the prospects of which are quite frightening. SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificates are present on pages where a user needs to enter private data, […]

Has your Facebook account been hacked? Here’s what to do

We hear about Facebook accounts getting hacked on a daily basis. With hackers dedicated to pounce on the slightest mistake made by a user, cases of Facebook accounts being compromised have become quite unavoidable. There are also instances of a friend or family member getting unauthorized access and misusing the information available. If your security […]

25 Worst Passwords of 2011

A password is a secret word or a string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or to gain access to one’s laptop, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn and many more similar accounts. Choosing “password” as your online password is not a good idea. In fact, it’s the worst password you can possibly choose […]