Solution: For now, I recommend you update your software with the fix made available on April 14th. To do this, get into your software and click on Skype -> Check for Updates, or you can download the software here. Make sure you check for an even newer update in the coming weeks.
Skype has been alerted to the problem and released the following statement:
Based on a recent assessment of 40,000+ SSNs of children, it was found that more than 10% those SSNs were being used by someone other than the child, far in excess of the rate of misuse in the adult population. The study points out the major issues that surround child identity theft and why we need to start paying attention now. It is more prevalent than many think and the threat is growing. Here are a few of the statistics that were found:
Sony just admitted this week that their Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) division, which they though was not affected by the recent breach, has also been compromised. They believe that the hackers stole personal information from an additional 25 million users and that the breach included credit card information.
In an unrelated article, Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Nobuo Kurahashi estimated the cost of Sony’s recovery from the data breaches to be approximately $1.25 billion:
Kurahashi estimates that the data breach will cost Sony about Y100 billion, or $1.25 billion from lost business, various compensation costs and new investments–assuming that no additional security problems emerge. The cyber attacks on Sony in recent weeks involved the theft of personal data that include names, passwords and addresses from accounts on its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment gaming services. Sony has also said that more than 10 million credit-card numbers may have been compromised.
Tests conducted showed that security experts were able to obtain usernames, passwords and messages from phones using WiFi in public places. The tests all used volunteers so that no actual breach occurred. In cases where the iphone 4 was targeted, the information could be taken and stored without the user even knowing.
This issue is a huge problem for the UK’s nearly 5 million BT hotspots located in train stations, coffee shops, hotels, and airports. While the smartphone service providers have knows about these WiFI security flaws for some time, they have still not done anything about it.
Using inexpensive communication equipment and free software that you can download from the internet, thieves can set up bogus hotspots to start sniffing your personal information. Once you have established a connection with one of these impersonators, whether on a phone or laptop, they can start decrypting your sensitive data.
The lawsuit was filed in Federal court in Tampa Florida on April 25 by two customers who claimed Apple was tracking iPhone owner’s movements without consent, according to Bloomberg.
The case was filed after word that the iPhone and iPad with 3G support maintains an unencrypted log file showing where users are based on cell tower triangulation. That file is transferred to user’s computers during the sync process with iTunes and is maintained as part of the device’s backup file collection.
PlayStation is a fun game, data breach is not.
As of March 31st, the Sony PlayStation Network has about 77 million accounts. These accounts link users to the network to obtain downloads and access online movies through services like Netflix. While Sony states that not all of the 77 million accounts are active accounts and some individuals have multiple accounts, they are not denying that a breach of information occurred.
The company spokesman, Patrick Seybold, admitted that the hackers not only gained such information as names, addresses, phone numbers, user names, birth dates, email addresses and passwords of registrants; but they are unsure if credit card information was compromised as well. Update: Sony recently announced that an additional 25 million records were breached.
According to recent Wall Street Journal findings, Apple Inc.’s iPhones and Google Inc.’s Android smartphones regularly transmit your locations back to Apple and Google, respectively. This new information only intensifies the privacy concerns that many people already have regarding smartphones. Essentially, they know where you are anytime your phone is on, and can sell that to advertisers in your area (or will be selling it soon enough).
The actual answer here is for the public to put enough pressure on Apple and Google that they stop the practice of tracking our location-based data and no longer collect, store or transmit it in any way without our consent.
We’ve all done it before – left the table to get a coffee refill or go to the bathroom and left our laptop, iPad, smartphone or purse sitting on the table. We justify it by telling ourselves that we are in a friendly place and will only be gone a second. Our tendency is to blame technology for information theft, but the heart of the problem is almost always a human error, like leaving our devices unattended. Realizing that carelessness is the source of most laptop theft makes it a fairly easy problem to solve.
My office is directly above a Starbucks, so I spend way too much time there. And EVERY time I’m there, I watch someone head off to the restroom (see video) or refill their coffee and leave their laptop, iPad, iPhone, briefcase, purse, client files and just about everything else lying around on their table like a self-service gadget buffet for criminals and opportunists alike.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ380SHZvYU[/youtube]
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