Security

Research in Motion has won key government security certification for its BlackBerry 10 operating system months ahead of its launch, allowing the smartphone to be used in secure government workplaces.

The FIPS 140-2 certification signals that U.S. and Canadian government agencies, along with private firms, can deploy BlackBerry 10 smartphones as soon as they launch, with a guarantee that data stored on the devices is appropriately secured and encrypted.

FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) certification is issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and it's a must for mobile platforms before the U.S. government can … Read more

Facebook this weekend disabled a loophole that might have allowed some accounts to be accessed without a password.

The vulnerability, which was posted to Hacker News on Friday, could potentially have allowed an unauthorized user to access another person's Facebook account.

The flaw centered on e-mails sent out by the social network which contained links that, once clicked, would log a user straight into a Facebook account without the need for any secondary authentication, such as entering a password. The e-mails could be discovered through a simple Google search query, with 1.3 million accounts potentially open to the … Read more

AT&T and T-Mobile, the two GSM carriers in the U.S., have turned on a database designed to cut back on smartphone theft.

The database went live yesterday and allows either AT&T or T-Mobile to block a device from being used on either network. In order to do that, the companies ban a device's IMEI number -- a unique identifier that tells networks what the device is and who owns it -- and effectively stop it from being able to place calls.

In the past, stolen smartphones were blocked by eliminating the use of a … Read more

Do you really need to log-in to every single free hotspot Wi-Fi zone? Ever since I learned that you are most vulnerable to getting hacked at Wi-Fi hotspots, I rarely log-in to free Wi-Fi hotspots unless it's an absolute must. One way to protect yourself is to make yourself invisible with CyberGhost VPN! So, just in time for Halloween, we bring you a 24 hour spooktacular giveaway of CyberGhost VPN (69.99 USD value) to give you that invisible power and get you protected from cyber-thieves.

Rated 4.5 stars by CNET, CyberGhost VPN hides your IP address and … Read more

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today that hackers are "actively" attacking some of the country's largest financial institutions.

According to a report in The Hill, America's top security official issued the warning at a Washington Post event today, but didn't specify the nature of the attacks.

"Right now, financial institutions are actively under attack," The Hill quoted Napolitano as saying. "We know that. I'm not giving you any classified information... I will say this has involved some of our nation's largest institutions. We've also had our … Read more

Huawei, the embattled Chinese telecom equipment company, is reaching out to a security researcher in Germany for a little help.

The company's global security chief, John Suffolk, told Reuters in an interview published today that Huawei has dispatched engineers to Germany to meet with Felix "FX" Lindner and go over the security flaws he has found in a host of its products.

According to Reuters, which spoke with Lindner earlier this month, Huawei products ranging from a cheap home router to major telecom equipment appear to be vulnerable to hacking. Lindner stopped short of saying a backdoor … Read more

Need to shut down your PC in a hurry? Simple. Here are two handy keyboard shortcuts to save you time and mousing.

Close all open programs A little-known set of keystrokes will shut down all active programs at once in no time.

Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and then Alt-T to open Task Manager's Applications tab. Press the down arrow, and then Shift-down arrow to select all the programs listed in the window. When they're all selected, press Alt-E, then Alt-F, and finally x to close Task Manager.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's seven steps that … Read more

If you live in South Carolina, there's a very good chance that slipshod state government security has allowed an overseas computer criminal to acquire your Social Security number.

The South Carolina Department of Revenue acknowledged the massive electronic security breach today, saying an electronic intrusion led to 3.6 million Social Security numbers being stolen. The state's population is approximately 4.7 million.

"We are taking immediate steps to protect the taxpayers of South Carolina, including providing one year of credit monitoring and identity protection to those affected," Gov. Nikki Haley said in a statement.

Anyone … Read more

Huawei has offered to give the Australian government "unrestricted" access to the firm's software source code and hardware equipment in an effort to dispel security fears, months after the Chinese telecoms giant was barred from supplying infrastructure equipment for the country's national broadband network.

The Australian government barred Huawei from bidding on contracts for the network earlier this year, saying it had a "a responsibility to do our utmost to protect [the network's] integrity and that of the information carried on it".

John Lord, Huawei's Australian chairman, said on Thursday that the … Read more