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Alert

NEWS - September 13, 2016

Sep 13, 2016 11:40AM PDT
Adblock Plus finds the end-game of its business model: Selling ads

"Company touts more than 90 million users willing to see "pre-whitelisted" ads."

Eyeo GmbH, the company that makes the popular Adblock Plus software, will today start selling the very thing many of its users hate—advertisements. Today, the company is launching a self-service platform to sell "pre-whitelisted" ads that meet its "acceptable ads" criteria. The new system will let online publishers drag and drop advertisements that meet Eyeo's expectations for size and labeling.

"The Acceptable Ads Platform helps publishers who want to show an alternative, nonintrusive ad experience to users with ad blockers by providing them with a tool that lets them implement Acceptable Ads themselves,” said Till Faida, co-founder of Adblock Plus.

Continued: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/adblock-plus-starts-selling-ads-but-only-acceptable-ones/

Discussion is locked

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Secret Service Warns of ‘Periscope’ Skimmers
Sep 13, 2016 11:42AM PDT

The U.S. Secret Service is warning banks and ATM owners about a new technological advance in cash machine skimming known as “periscope skimming,” which involves a specialized skimming probe that connects directly to the ATM’s internal circuit board to steal card data.

According to a non-public alert released to bank industry sources by a financial crimes task force in Connecticut, this is thought to be the first time periscope skimming devices have been detected in the United States. The task force warned that the devices may have the capability to remain powered within the ATM for up to 14 days and can store up to 32,000 card numbers before exhausting the skimmer’s battery strength and data storage capacity.

Continued : http://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/secret-service-warns-of-periscope-skimmers/

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No over-the-air update means GM has to recall 4M cars ..
Sep 13, 2016 11:48AM PDT
.. to fix fatal software defect

US motor company General Motors is recalling four million vehicles worldwide due to a software bug that has been linked to at least one death.

A variety of trucks and cars released between 2014 and 2017 are to be recalled to have their software updated for free, according to an announcement issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday. [...]

The recalled vehicles are:

Continued: https://www.hotforsecurity.com/blog/no-over-the-air-update-means-gm-has-to-recall-four-million-cars-to-fix-fatal-software-defect-16637.html
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Infected Android phones could flood America's 911 w/ DDoS..
Sep 13, 2016 11:56AM PDT
.. attacks

"One killer trojanised app or $100k of hardware is enough."

A research trio has shown how thousands of malware-infected phones could launch automated distributed denial of service attacks to cripple the US emergency phone system "for days".

The attacks are a new area of research and exploit the need for emergency call services to accept all calls regardless of origin.

Continued: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/13/911_ddos_threat_analysis_and_mitigation/

Related:
How 911 emergency services across the United States could be knocked offline by a mobile botnet
https://www.grahamcluley.com/2016/09/emergency-services-botnet/
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Facebook security systems go haywire, block site sharing
Sep 13, 2016 12:30PM PDT

Posted @ ZDNet on September 12, 2016 -- 15:16 GMT (08:16 PDT) ...

Social sharing buttons were busted for hours, preventing sharing, because of an errant spam filter, the company confirmed.

If you were trying to share something on Facebook today and couldn't, you weren't alone.

Facebook's security systems were blocking a number of high-profile websites from sharing content from third-party sites to the social network.

Continued: http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-security-systems-block-high-profile-site-sharing/

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iOS 10 Security Updates Move to HTTPS
Sep 13, 2016 1:19PM PDT

Apple has finally moved its iOS security update mechanism to HTTPS with today’s release of iOS 10.

Previously, updates were sent to devices over HTTP and attackers already present on a network could potentially intercept and manipulate updates.

“An issue existed in iOS updates, which did not properly secure user communications. This issue was addressed by using HTTPS for software updates,” Apple said in its advisory, adding that a man-in-the-middle attacker could block devices from receiving updates.

Continued: https://threatpost.com/ios-10-security-updates-move-to-https/120545/