hackers

Facebook is set to face a $35 billion class action lawsuit over claims it used facial recognition tools without permission. The case will proceed despite Facebook's protest that no one suffered direct financial losses. The case is taking place in ... Illinois, where three individual lawsuits from 2015 were combined into a single class action case. It's based on Facebook using automated recognition on uploaded photographs. The way it works is like this: let's say that Bob uploads a photograph to Facebook, which also includes his friend Alice. After the upload is complete, Facebook scans the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Shelby C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am in a huge hurry to upgrade my machine to Windows 10 because there won't be any more security updates for Windows 7 in January 2020, when Windows 7 reaches its end of life. I have tried to ... upgrade using the Upgrade Assistant and Windows 10 media, but I keep getting ' SAFE_OS phase error during Replicate_OC operation ' error, whatever that means. Windows 10 simply won't install on my machine! I have looked at articles all over the Internet including one from the Windows Club and none of them work. I really need your help! Can you please ... (view more)

Researchers say they discovered eight security flaws in the way Android handles voice calls through the Internet. Unlike most such bugs which involve specific apps, these problems were with Android itself. The good news is that the researchers ... reported all of the bugs to Google while carrying out the project and most have now been fixed. However, it does raise concerns about the development and design of the system itself. (Source: github.io ) The researchers looked at the three latest Android versions (7, 8 and 9), specifically addressing the components that allow Voice Over Internet ... (view more)

Microsoft has issued an emergency patch for Internet Explorer. In the most extreme circumstances, a user simply visiting a website could give a hacker complete remote control of a computer. Between Chrome's dominance and Edge becoming the default on ... new Windows machines, Internet Explorer is far from popular and is now used on around 8 percent of desktop computers. However, that still means around a hundred million machines could be affected by this bug. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) It's a sign of how serious the problem is that Microsoft has issued an emergency patch, or as it calls it, an out-of- ... (view more)

Google has released a security update fixing a major flaw in the Chrome browser. While Chrome normally updates automatically, it's a serious enough problem that it's worth manually checking for updates to the browser in order to be certain. The bug ... was highlighted by the Center for Internet Security, a non-profit organization that crowd sources security problems and fixes. It says the flaw could be exploited simply by the user visiting a compromised web page. It says that: "Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Neil W. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your interesting article on whether a VPN is safe for online banking . However, one question I can't seem to find the answer to is: do I need VPN on a public network? Do I need a VPN on a ... private network? What about a VPN on a shared network? An example might include a student doing banking at a university shared network. What do you think? " My response: Short answer: A VPN, or virtual private network is useful in a few cases - for example: hiding your tracks online (to some extent, but with major limitations) or accessing geo- ... (view more)

Apple is offering a million dollar bounty to anyone who can successfully hack an iPhone and shares the details. But its limited to specific circumstances that will mean the payout is well worth it for the company. Like several tech giants, Apple ... already had a reward scheme for people who find and report bugs. To date the biggest bounty Apple has offered is $200,000 and only to people who have previously been approved to explore Apple bugs. The million dollar bounty is officially open to anyone. The new offer was made at the Black Hat convention in Las Vegas, the leading annual gathering of ... (view more)

Officials in Lake City, Florida have voted to pay half a million dollars to hackers to regain access to computer files. It's the second such payment by a local government in the state in as many weeks. Lake City's government computer system was hit ... by a ransomware attack in which hackers remotely encrypt files and then demand payment to unlock them. They asked for 42 units of the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin, worth roughly $500,000. That payment method makes it much harder to trace the recipients. The good news in this case is that public safety networks are unaffected and that all ... (view more)

Mozilla has issued an emergency patch for the Firefox browser that is a must-install. It fixes a security gap that hackers are actively exploiting on compromised websites that serve up malicious code. How to Patch Firefox For most users, restarting ... Firefox should be enough to trigger the update. Users can also click the menu icon near the top right of the browser (the three vertical bars), then scroll all the way down near the bottom and click the "(?) Help" sub menu, then click the "About Firefox" option, which will trigger the update. Once the update has been downloaded, Firefox ... (view more)

PC and laptop manufacturer ASUS unwittingly installed malware on its customers' laptops, according to a cyber security company. The malware went out to around a million people, yet appears to have been a highly targeted attack. The claims come from ... Kaspersky Lab, with rival firm Symantec confirming it has found similar evidence of the attack. At the time of writing, ASUS has yet to comment publicly on the claims. (Source: kaspersky.com ) According to Kaspersky Lab, the hackers took advantage of ASUS Live Update Utility. That's a tool by which ASUS automatically updates software on laptops, ... (view more)