While Washington continues its dog-and-pony show about a clumsy telephone network dragnet designed to find needles in haystacks, people really concerned about the future of the republic should simply look up — at all these low-flying planes making deliberate left-handed circles around D.C. and dozens of other cities. The FBI has [Keep reading]
Plenty of folks think they could never be outsmarted by a hacker; plenty of them are wrong. In fact, perhaps 97% are wrong. Two new studies make this point, and show the devastating consequences of being wrong. (This story originally appeared on Credit.com. Read it there.) Security firm McAfee has [Keep reading]
It’s the most vexing digital-age question: Should I share this? After the AdultFriendFinder.com hack and the IRS “Get Transcript” debacle, CNBC asked me to look into the topic of online oversharing. You can read the story I wrote here. But here’s one thing to think about: Oversharing rarely *feels* like oversharing. That [Keep reading]
Parents today are dooming their children to an over-exposed digital life by posting nearly 1,000 photos of kids before age 5, a new British study suggests. An advocacy group named The Parent Zone polled 2,000 U.K. and found they post 973 photos before their child’s fifth birthday. Even worse: many parents admit [Keep reading]
Identity thieves used the IRS’ own systems to steal personal information from about 100,000 taxpayers, the agency said on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Criminals already armed with some data on the taxpayers used the IRS “Get Transcript” website to obtain even more data on their victims, the IRS [Keep reading]
A computer security researcher says he recently found a way to hack Starbucks’ gift card system and add value to a gift card essentially for free. Starbucks has not yet responded to my questions about the attack, but the researcher says the bug he exploited has been fixed. Computer security consultant Egor Homakov, [Keep reading]
One of the Internet’s largest adult dating websites has suffered a major data breach, with up to 4 million members impacted, according to U.K. news station Channel 4, which broke the story today. Victims face potential embarrassment or other serious repercussions in addition to the usual potential for identity theft. [Keep reading]
The disparity is as dramatic as any you’re likely to see in a public opinion survey. Nine out of 10 Americans say it’s important to control the information collected about them and who can see it, but fewer than 1 in 10 Americans are confident that either the government or corporations [Keep reading]
Ryan Benharris had $200 stolen from his debit card after his Starbucks account was hijacked recently, but that’s not why he was furious at the firm. He was angry about what happened next. “I had to beg and plead to get my money back,” he said. “They lied to me…I’m [Keep reading]
Headlines during the weekend screamed that a hacker had taken control of a commercial airliner and been able to make it move “sideways” in flight. There’s a lot to unpack about this story, but let me get out a few points quickly. 1) There is no evidence that a hacker [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan