Just as phishing is getting noticed as a big problem, so a raft of solutions is appearing on the horizon. Here’s another: PassMarks. Here’s how it works. When a customer logs on to his banking website, a personalized image known only to the customer and the bank appears. If the customer doesn’t see the passmark … Read more
This week’s Loose Wire column is about Bluetooth security: Next time you’re carrying your whiz-bang Bluetooth phone watch out: Serious flaws mean your contact numbers and other info stored in the phone could be stolen without you even knowing it. This latest threat is called Bluesnarfing. Full text at the Far Eastern Economic Review … Read more
Phishers can now access banking websites that use an extra ‘keylog-proof’ security layer. For several months phishers — folk fooling you into giving up valuable passwords — have used keylogging software which will capture passwords and user names as you type them into banking and other financially-oriented sites. But these aren’t much use against websites … Read more
Is Bluesnarfing something to worry about? Yes, according to an Austrian study. In the middle of last month a researcher at Salzburg’s Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, Martin Herfurt, set up a laptop and Bluetooth dongle near the public restrooms in Hall 11 at CeBIT, Europe’s biggest IT-exposition in Hannover. He then started to sniff for Bluetooth cellphones. … Read more
Did software, deliberately programmed by the CIA to fail, hasten the end of the Soviet Union? The Washington Post reports (registration required) that “President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion … Read more