New media, it would appear, now outpaces the old. More data is consumed and processed than at any time before in human history. But as we hasten into a world where the immediate is often favoured over the verified, the attention-grabbing over the considered, and the assumed over the researched in terms of how we both receive and disseminate...

If you've got an email account or social media profile, it's likely you've come across phishing of some kind before. In a sentence, phishing is the fraudulent attempt to steal personal information by social engineering: the act of criminal deception. Verizon's latest Data Breach Investigations Report notes that "social engineering remains worryingly...

What has happened? A severe zero-day vulnerability has been fixed in WordPress, which - if left unpatched - could allow a malicious attacker to modify the content of any post or page on a WordPress site. Woah! Any post or page could be hijacked? Yes, it's as though you've handed the reins of your site over to a malicious hacker and said - "publish...

We all know that ransomware is a growing problem for businesses and home users alike, and that most of it is targeted against Windows users. And we're also familiar with warnings to avoid downloading Android apps from third-party marketplaces rather than officially-sanctioned ones such as the Google Play marketplace. But infosecurity is not a world...

Adobe is no stranger to finding itself in the security headlines for all the wrong reasons, and it seems that things may not be changing as we enter 2017. There was controversy earlier this month when news broke about how Adobe took the opportunity on Patch Tuesday of using its regular security updates to force Adobe Acrobat DC users into silently...

Another year has gone by...but "123456" still remains the most common password employed by users to protect their web accounts. On 13 January, password manager and digital vault developer Keeper Security broke the somber news in a blog post: "Looking at the list of 2016’s most common passwords, we couldn’t stop shaking our heads. Nearly 17 percent...

Hopefully, we all know by now that it's a big mistake to post too much personal information on social media. For instance, telling the world that your house will empty because you're going away on holiday could lead to burglary. Similarly, it's a pretty dumb idea to post photos of your debit card on Twitter. And we all should know by now about the...

In recent weeks there have been some peculiar new strains of ransomware spotted. Take the Popcorn Time ransomware, for instance, which lets you decrypt your files "the nasty way" by helping the blackmailers spread their attack further. If you can infect two other victims (and get them to pay up) Popcorn Time's developers will allegedly send you your...

Ransomware is a significant problem, there's no doubt about that. Time and time again, companies and individuals fall foul of malware that encrypts their data files and demands a ransom be paid for the elusive decryption key. But sometimes, just sometimes, the ransomware authors make mistakes. Because sometimes, ways are found to undo the damage...

2016 was an exciting year in information security. There were mega-breaches, tons of new malware strains, inventive phishing attacks, and laws dealing with digital security and privacy. Each of these instances brought the security community to where we are now: on the cusp of 2017. Even so, everything that happened in 2016 wasn't equally significant....

In January 2017, note-taking app Evernote is set to introduce a new privacy policy that introduces machine learning features. The privacy policy has got many users hot under the collar, fearful that some Evernote employees will be able to read their notes. There is no option to opt-out. While we...

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has told members of its Colonel's Club to change their passwords following an attack against its website. The fast food giant confirmed that the attack affected only Colonel's Club users. The loyalty program allows its 1.2 million registered members to collect Chicken Stamps and exchange them for rewards like meals. KFC...

If you have a Sony network-connected CCTV camera, you may have a security problem. Researchers at SEC Consult uncovered a backdoor in Sony IP cameras that could allow a hacker to remotely execute malicious code, spy on users, brick devices, or recruit them into a DDoS botnet. As the vandal-resistant Sony IPELA Engine IP cameras at the centre of the...

Once again, researchers have uncovered security flaws that could allow malicious hackers to attack implanted medical devices, such as heart pacemakers and cardiac defibrillators, with the potential to deliver fatal shocks. In a newly-published paper, "On the (in)security of the Latest Generation Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators and How to Secure...

San Francisco's transport system, known as Muni, was hit hard by a ransomware attack this weekend that forced the network to offer free rides to passengers. More than 2000 systems at the public transport agency are believed to have been hit, including Windows workstations, servers and ticketing machines. The first many users would have known that...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has had extraordinary success at building a social network that has attracted over a billion users. But that's not to say that he's had such luck in every other area of IT. Take securing his online accounts from attack, for instance. To misquote Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of being Earnest": "To lose control of...

What has happened? The AdultFriendFinder website appears to have been hacked, exposing the personal information of hundreds of millions of user accounts. What is AdultFriendFinder? I don't want to be indelicate, so I'll just tell you it's strapline: "Hookup, Find Sex or Meet Someone Hot Now". Oh! So like Ashley Madison? Yes, very much so. And we all...

In late September, when Apple released iOS 10, it also took a dramatic step back in at least one aspect of iPhone and iPad security. Russian firm Elcomsoft discovered that local password-protected iTunes backups made of iPhones and iPads running iOS 10 were an astonishing 2500 times faster to crack than iOS 9. ...

According to new research published by Microsoft last month, one in three users fell victim to a tech support scam in the last year. One in five followed up on a suspicious interaction by downloading software or visiting a fraudulent website, while nearly one in ten lost money.The classic scamThe traditional form of a tech support scam has been around...

Macro malware arrived with a bang 21 years ago, and it's still causing problems. Concept, the first ever virus to spread by infecting Microsoft Office files, turned the anti-virus world on its head overnight when it was shipped by Microsoft on a CD ROM in August 1995. Up until then the main thing computer users had to worry about was malware hiding...