The News Review:
- NEW KIND OF HACKER
- You won’t guess who’s the bad guy of ID theft
- AOL Launches in Taiwan
NEW KIND OF HACKER
Atlanta Journal Constitution (subscripti… – Apr 13, 2008
If you couldn’t already tell that from the latest e-mails offering to enlarge certain parts of your anatomy or saying you won millions in a Netherlands lottery, consider some statistics released last week by tech security company Symantec Inc. :> The amount of spam flowing over the Internet grew by 16 percent in the second half of last year and now makes up more than 70 percent of all e-mail traffic. (Other Internet security companies put the proportion at 95 percent. )> The number of computers used for “phishing” Web sites —- designed to trick users into giving up sensitive financial or personal data —- more than quintupled in the second half of last year from a year earlier. > The amount of “malicious code” —- computer-speak for viruses or other software designed to take over, shut down or steal data from computers —- more than quadrupled last year. Symantec predicts there will soon be more bad software than good software in the computing world… Some say the government needs to get more involved, too. Trade groups for security vendors are beginning to lobby for regulations that would force companies nationwide to implement data protection policies. Such a law would replace different data protection rules in about 40 states. “What we really need is a federal law that will set one very high standard to protect consumers,” said Thompson of Symantec. “Right now too many businesses are leaking information just like a rusty bucket. Of course the government has passed laws (Remember the Can-Spam Act?), and security and software companies have advocated changes and introduced new products before. Yet today, your PC and your personal data are just as threatened as ever.
You won’t guess who’s the bad guy of ID theft
USA Today – Apr 13, 2008
Furthermore, after it occurs the remedies are both painful and unsatisfactory. The book’s title itself —Zero Day Threat — is scary when translated into common parlance. A zero day threat, as defined by the authors, is “a hazard so new that no viable protection against it yet exists. ”
Despite the currency of the subject, nobody has written a book about identity theft quite the way Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz have done. Both technology reporters for USA TODAY, Acohido and Swartz have ferreted out scandal within the identity-theft realm that is bound to lead to reader outrage. Whether the revelations will lead to meaningful reform by Congress and federal regulatory agencies remains to be seen. Surprisingly, the real villains in Zero Day Threat are not the identity thieves themselves, despite their unsavory lives of crime… Rather, the villains are supposed pillars of communities: bankers, credit-bureau managers and computer makers who enable the burglars, and who could ameliorate the identify-theft crisis but, instead, look away in the name of larger corporate profit. Acohido and Swartz did not expect to write a book about villainous bankers, credit-bureau managers and computer makers when they began research five years ago. They began by writing reports for this newspaper on PC viruses and spam, which at first seemed like mutually exclusive topics. The more they reported on their disparate stories, the more Acohido and Swartz realized that spammers and virus writers were more than amateur disrupters in cyberspace. In fact, many of them had become cybercrooks, capitalizing on the vulnerabilities of the Internet. “We found that there were much more complex contagions eroding the security and privacy of sensitive data” than mere spammers and virus writers, Acohido and Swartz comment, “and those corrupters had more to do with business practices and marketing strategies of the financial services and technology industries. ”
The authors promise “astounding revelations,” and they deliver.
AOL Launches in Taiwan
PR Web – PR Web (press release) – Apr 13, 2008
“Our industry-leading products and programming combined with our content partnerships will provide a unique experience for consumers and advertisers, as well as an international, regional and local mix of news, finance and entertainment information. ” AOL. tw offers a wealth of free content and services, including: — E-mail: AOL’s e-mail service with industry-leading spam blocking, powerful virus protection and unlimited storage. — AIM: The full integration of AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) with AOL’s e-mail product, which lets users send e-mails, chat, share pictures, videos and files all from one Web page. — Content: Channels featuring relevant News, Entertainment and Finance. — Regional and local information from partnerships with udn. com (United Daily News), Phoenix New Media and others.