Security - SocialTimes

Kids Network Everloop Partners with Nat Geo & Mattel

Julie Andrews — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:40:19 +0000

The social media site started by three entrepreneurial moms and geared toward kids younger than 13 years of age, Everloop.com, announced a new partnership today with two globally recognized kids’ brands, National Geographic’s Animal Jam and Mattel’s Monster High.

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Samsung Hires One Of Android’s Most Notorious Hackers

Bilal Hameed — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:20:46 +0000

Samsung Mobile has hired Steve Kondik aka Cyanogen, known as one of the most notorious and successful Android Hackers, for an undisclosed amount as a Software Engineer. Looks like with the heating competition in the mobile handset space Samsung has opted to hunt down talent, while others are stockpiling patents.

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Beef Up Internet Security, Urge Panelists

Julie Andrews — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:05:34 +0000

L-R: Joanna Coles, Randi Zuckerberg, Barbara Walters, Chelsea Clinton, Amy Guggenheim Shenkan

ESPN journalist Erin Andrews didn’t plan on becoming an advocate for stricter Internet security.

Then again, she never expected to be filmed in the privacy of her hotel room, either, by a complete stranger, who was holding a cell phone up to a peep hole, in the sick hope she’d walk by. (It was later discovered he had been stalking her and had creepily caught 14 additional women on tape).
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LinkedIn, Netflix, Foursquare and Square Apps Are An Identity Thief’s Dream Come True

Bilal Hameed — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:20:05 +0000

Mobile apps for LinkedIn, Netflix, Foursquare and Square have been found to significantly lack in security precautions according to an evaluation conducted by ViaForensics. The evaluation revealed that apps for these services do not adequately store user passwords, which are kept by the apps without proper (rudimentary) encryption. This basic flaw in the apps has put the users of these apps at a risk of financial or identity theft.

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50% iPhone Users Ignore Sync and Updates

Bilal Hameed — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:15:09 +0000

David Chartier, a former Mac World writer, revealed that nearly 50% of the iPhone users ignore to sync their iPhones with iTunes after unboxing the phone. Call it laziness or lack of awareness of the iPhone user to keep their devices up to date, whatever it is, it shows that so many iPhone devices are on the same initial state, absent critical security updates.

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Scam Alert: Don’t Trust Emails From Apple About iPhone5

Bilal Hameed — Wed, 25 May 2011 09:20:37 +0000

Fraudulent emails have started surfacing that announce the imminent availability of the new iPhone 5GS from coming Friday. These emails are part of a new wave of phishing scams and are likely to be an attempt to hack Apple IDs and passwords.

The Apple ID of a user is his/her core identity in the eyes of Apple Inc, and any cyber criminal can get to enjoy all the services that Apple has to offer on your behalf. The hacker would have unlimited access to all of user apps and can utilize the user’s money (which is some cases is a lot) to buy new ones.

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GoLiveCampus.com Gives Schools Safe Access to YouTube Content

Kenna McHugh — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:08:23 +0000

For parents or teachers, YouTube and other social networking sites can be a double-edged sword. Though they are rich with educational content, they also contain explicit videos, inappropriate comments and ads. But now, there is a way for users to safely access educational content on YouTube and Web 2.0. They can use a filtering program called GoLiveCampus.com by iBoss Web Filters.
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Nickelodeon Educates Kids on Digital Bullying

Kenna McHugh — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:30:08 +0000

Parents of kids who like to surf on the Internet might be able to breathe a little easier. The popular children’s television network Nickelodeon is raising its voice to educate kids on digital bullying. Nick, the popular TV network for kids ages 2 to 14, began an on-air public service campaign today. The campaign features some of its stars offering advice on what kids can do when confronted with hostile texts, emails or Facebook posts.
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Facebook is Not Using Your Photos for Ads

Kenna McHugh — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:00:53 +0000

Most Facebook users might be familiar with a certain status update that is being circulated around saying that Facebook is going to use photos of you, your family and friends in advertisements. The reason for using the photos is to fool people into believing their friends endorsed a product or service.
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Tumblr's Security Breach Downplayed as Time Goes By

Kenna McHugh — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:12:25 +0000

“Time heals all” may play an important role in blogging platform Tumblr’s snafu this last weekend. The company is downplaying the significance of a security breach, according to Mashable.
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Thinkmodo Crushes It: Viral Video for Limitless Nabs 2 Million Views

Kenna McHugh — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:45:30 +0000

Is it possible for a hacker with a tiny electronic device hack into a host of jumbo screens in Times Square and play videos from his iPhone? Not yet. However, if you watched the YouTube video that has been watched by more than 2 million viewers in the last week, you might think so.

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Twitter Lets You Turn on SSL (https://) Permanently: Safety for Notebooks/Tablets on Public Hotspots

Todd Ogasawara — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 03:32:33 +0000

Some of you may recall the Firesheep Firefox plugin developed last year that used a packet sniffer technique to find unencrypted browser cookies for sites like Facebook and Twitter. The plugin let the Firefox user hijack accounts using these sites in the local network (usually a wireless one). The quick fix was to use the “https” SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption when accessing these sites. However, the vast majority of people either did not know or neglected to do so.

Twitter just made it a little easier to secure your web based sessions from their site (Twitter.com).

Making Twitter more secure: HTTPS

They’ve added a one-time option setting to permanently turn on SSL for your account. If you frequent public hotspot with your netbook, notebook or tablet, you probably want to consider turning this option on.

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Google Responds to Last Week's Android Market Malware Apps Issues

Todd Ogasawara — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:33:43 +0000

Apple’s iOS App Store and Google’s Android Market provide two vastly different perspectives on the effects of app gatekeeping controls.

On one hand, Apple keeps such a tight rein on what is allowed into the App Store and how the app functions that many developers and content providers feel frustrated. On the other hand, Google provides no app gatekeeping at all for their Android Market. One result of this approach was malicious malware apps appearing in the Android Market last week Tuesday. The particulars of the malware apps are provided in this Android Market Help item. The malware afflicted Android devices running version 2.2.1 or older.

March 2011 Security Issue

The official Google Mobile Blog reported over the weekend that the apps have been removed from the Android Market and that the developer accounts associated with the apps have been suspended. Google is also pushing a security update for the Android Market to fix the effects of the malware apps. The blog item notes that Google is working to prevent similar exploits in the future.

An Update on Android Market Security

It will be interesting to see how Amazon’s Android store will deal with the issue of controls when accepting apps and vetting them for end-user safety.

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Will Motorola's Android Security APIs Fragment Android More?

Todd Ogasawara — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:30:54 +0000

Infoworld reports that Motorola Mobility bought a small company to deal with Android security shortfalls.

Motorola’s big plans to fix Android’s security woes

There are a couple of interesting side notes either directly stated in this article or implied by this news.

1. The article notes: Android devices can’t be managed to meet business-class security needs like a BlackBerry or iPhone can. There are a couple of interesting points raised in this single sentence:
1.1. Apple’s iPhone is considered, at least by the article’s author, to be a business-class device that is on par with the BlackBerry.
1.2.There is no mention of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. Its predecesor, Windows Mobile at one time defined much of what we think of as a business class phone. Ironically, the author notes: he management infrastructure created would be similar to that available on Research in Motion’s BlackBerry platform, on Microsoft’s now-defunct Windows Mobile platform, and on Apple’s iOS 4 platform.
2. Motorola plans to provide APIs for their Android security software
2.1. Although other vendors can work with their API, it is not clear that they will
2.2. What happens if Google itself provides what they should have done earlier: A unified and standard way to deal with business class security holes?

This effort, while needed, may end up fragmenting Android even more. Up to now, Google has been fragmenting Android all by themselves so far. They may soon get help in this effort.

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Apple Said to be Testing Android-like Gesture Locks: Why You May Want to Keep Using a PIN

Todd Ogasawara — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 01:15:44 +0000

9to5Mac reports that:

Apple testing Android-like gesture-based lock screen for iOS

Apple currently provides a PIN numeric lock for the iPhone and iPad. Android phones have the PIN option plus an option to use a finger gesture over a 4 by 4 matrix of dots to secure a phone. Apple will probably have to offer this option just to give potential customers a checkbox to check off when comparing iOS devices to Android devices. However, I hope that most people will decide not to use this feature. Here’s what I learned after using a gesture lock on my Android phones for several months and speaking to other Android users.

1. The smudge mark left by fingers on a screen leave a trail that makes it easy to figure out how to unlock the phone if a very simple gesture is used. My informal discussions indicate that a significant percentage of people use a gesture that can be deciphered from the smudge trail. Frequent screen wiping can help reduce this problem. However, how many clean screens do you see on a daily basis?

2. Using a complex gesture reduces the probability of someone reading your smudge trail. However, it also makes unlocking the phone a slightly longer task that is prone to entry errors.

3. Depending on the quality of your screen, the condition of your fingertip (moist,etc.) and your current state of coordination, it can be a mulitple attempt task to unlock a phone. This can become very annoying.

After a few months, I gave up on gesture locks and went to a PIN security lock for my Android phones. I suspect many iPhone and iPad users will use the gesture lock for a while because of its initial novelty but will revert back to PINs eventually. I also suspect that some system administrators will enforce PIN only security locks for those who use their phones in an enterprise setting.

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