Security

Social Protection app DRM's your Facebook photos

Intel and McAfee have collaborated on a new browser plug-in and Facebook app called Social Protection that throws a thicker wall of privacy around your photos, while still allowing you to share them with friends.

Brian Foster, senior vice president of consumer product management for McAfee, said the combo is intended to protect the digital content you own so that only your friends can see it. "The focus is on everyday use of Facebook, and how your digital content has ended up in the wrong places unintentionally," he said this morning in a phone conversation with CNET.

It … Read more

Five-minute Facebook security checkup

Facebook has been taking a beating in the press for its disappointing financial performance and declining stock price. But reports of the social network's death are a bit premature.

After all, a billion users is nothing to sneeze at. Even if only half that number sign into their Facebook accounts every day, as the company claims, that's a lot of eyeballs to present ads to.

I bet not even one out of 10 Facebook users has ever changed the service's default security settings, which make your profile information available for anyone to search and allow every other … Read more

iOS app hacking alive and well

LAS VEGAS -- While Apple was making its decidedly lackluster Black Hat debut just one floor up, security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski was explaining the dark art of iOS app hacking to a smaller but still crowded room.

A senior forensics scientist at viaForensics, he clearly didn't have much faith in the security of apps running on iOS. "iOS can be infected through a new zero-day, or you can take a phone and run real fast. Apparently, bars are a great way to pick up iPhones," he said as the audience chuckled, clearly remembering the two separate lost iPhone prototype incidents. … Read more

How to stay safe at Black Hat and DefCon

LAS VEGAS -- From journalists hacking the press room Ethernet to RFID skimmers swiping your ID without even touching your credit card, the war stories you've heard about Black Hat and DefCon are true more often than not.

The best way to avoid getting hacked at the annual security conferences is to not show up. Go somewhere disconnected, like a nice mountain retreat, instead of hitting the paranoia pills with several thousand other security professionals and obsessives in Vegas' urban playground.

But if you must go to Sin City, there are some actions you can take to protect your … Read more

Microsoft implements BlueHat prize tech

LAS VEGAS -- A year ago this week, Microsoft announced a startup-style contest with serious reward money called BlueHat to get security researchers to apply their expertise to innovative defenses. Today, the company revealed that the efforts of one of the three BlueHat finalists would be incorporated into its Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit tool.

Mike Reavey, the senior director of Microsoft's Security Response Center, explained that the BlueHat contest process was a big win for Microsoft. "In less than a year, we were able to solicit for ideas, receive them, implement them, and get them to customers," … Read more

650,000-volt iPhone case is a real stunner

Seth Froom was the victim of a violent robbery last summer. His response was to create the Yellow Jacket, an iPhone case crossed with a Taser. The project is currently up on Ingiegogo for fundraising.

As far as stun guns go, the Yellow Jacket makes sense in that you are likely to have it with you at all times, in a convenient place where you can reach it when you need it.

However, you might be nervous about having 650,000 volts of electricity surging around your phone. Froom says that tests of the prototype have shown that calls stay connected during discharge. … Read more

Password-protect e-mail on your iPhone and iPad

After last week's post describing two apps that keep your iPhone and iPad data private, a reader posed this question:

Is there any app that allows you to use it like the 'mail' app on an iPhone etc., but has a password lock facility? Else children will be reading all my mail.

I'm sure Apple had a reason for not allowing iPhone and iPad users to require a passcode to access the device's mail app, but I don't know what that reason was.

I came up with a free workaround that requires creation of a send-only … Read more

Panda's Cloud Antivirus upgrades offline protection

A major update to Panda Cloud Antivirus today provides more robust protection for fans of the lightweight security suite.

Available exclusively today from CNET Download.com, Panda Cloud Antivirus Free 2.0 (download) and Panda Cloud Antivirus Pro 2.0 (download) bring some welcome changes to Panda's security alternative. The Pro version now comes with a firewall that leverages Panda's community network and uses intrusion prevention signatures.

In version 2.0, people with Cloud Antivirus Free get access to the behavioral analysis engine that had previously been only in the Pro version. Other improvements in both versions include … Read more

Two apps keep your iPhone and iPad data private

Nothing beats having access to all your files, e-mail, and contacts almost anywhere you go. Just reach into your pocket for your iPhone or your bag for your iPad and connect to an available network.

The easier the data is to access, the harder it is to protect. This week AT&T unveiled its service that prevents data, voice, and text-message access to iPhones and iPads that owners report to the company as lost or stolen, as CNET's Roger Chen reported last week.

Reactivating the device requires a call to AT&T customer support. The company asks … Read more