The world is full of stories we never hear about. The car crash that was narrowly averted. The oven fire that was doused in the nick of time. The credit card database that wasn’t stolen because intrusion detection systems alerted the firm about the presence of a hacker. The [Keep reading]
Fake news can have real consequences. A man with an assault rifle just walked into a busy pizza place a few blocks from me in Washington D.C., apparently inspired by an Internet conspiracy about a child pedophile ring connected to the Democratic Party. I’m writing this story not as politics [Keep reading]
Long live the credit card magnetic stripe! You won’t need those chip cards at gas stations for a looonggg time. The march towards protecting consumers from credit and debit fraud with newfangled chip cards is slow, but steady. How slow became apparent on Thursday, when Visa and Mastercard announced they [Keep reading]
Here’s a new kind of ID theft you have to worry about: App ID Theft. Retail apps are cool again, but be careful what you click on. The New York Post revealed recently that Apple’s App Store is getting crowded with fake impostor apps. They appear to be legitimate retail [Keep reading]
There are times when Americans have been able to show an honorable amount of restraint in their communications. World War II and its “Loose Lips might Sink Ships” campaign, for example, when folks bit their tongues and said nothing about where family members might be when fighting in Europe or [Keep reading]
A simple, decade-old hacker trick likely led to the hacking of critical Hillary Clinton staff members. If John Podesta can fall for it, with the Presidential election at stake, so can you. So listen up. I know I sound like a broken record when I warn people to think before they click, [Keep reading]
It’s much easier to steal $1 million from one person than $1 from a million people, so naturally that’s where identity thieves have taken their “industry.” Small-dollar credit card fraud is old, tricking corporations into wiring millions of dollars overseas is in. (This story first appeared on Credit.com. Read it [Keep reading]
It reads like a typical Internet hoax that catches viral fire: “Stand with me at Standing Rock,” the post begins. “The Morton County Sheriff’s Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps.” [Keep reading]
The FCC today ruled that when it comes to your personal information, Internet service providers are more like telephone companies and less like websites — and so it has limited ISPs ability to make money by digitally stalking you and selling that data. The ruling represents a rare win for [Keep reading]
It’s easy to blame dumb consumers using bad passwords when a large-scale Internet attack occurs, and that’s what happened on Friday when sites like Reddit and Twitter became unavailable during an Internet of Things-driven denial of service attack. But a developing melodrama has U.S. security firms saying passwords were hard-coded into the gadgets [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan