Security

LinkedIn has reported that some of its users' passwords have been stolen and published on the Internet. The company is withholding details, including exactly how many passwords were compromised. Members with accounts associated with the compromised passwords will find that their LinkedIn account pas...

Facebook is opening its proposed policy changes to a vote, inviting users to review and approve or disapprove of the newly revised documents. The social network will consider results binding if 30 percent or more of its active user base participates. Facebook's current proposed changes don't include...

Botnets represent a major security threat to e-commerce. The effectiveness of this malicious software has gone far beyond the realm of simple annoyance and inconvenience to a major global, technical and economic challenge. The botnet security issue has become so difficult that federal agencies and t...

For some time, the future of Research In Motion has been questionable, to say the least. Now, President and CEO Thorsten Heins has cast more doubt on the company's prospects with the announcement that RIM is likely to post its first operating loss in eight years. "The ongoing competitive environment...

As Facebook launched its IPO on Friday, it was hit with yet another class action lawsuit over its practice of tracking of users even after they had logged out of its website. The amended consolidated class action complaint was filed by Stewarts Law in a San Jose, Calif., federal court. The timing of...

Twitter has made an important overture to privacy advocates: It is giving users the ability to opt out of being tracked on the service by enabling the Do Not Track feature in the Firefox browser. Ed Felten, chief technology officer for the Federal Trade Commission, broke the news at an industry even...

Social network MySpace settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Tuesday over charges related to how the site was using members' personal information. The social network had access to personal data from users, including their full names, ages and genders. MySpace promised users it would not sha...

The U.S. Federal Communication Commission may have settled for a gentle slap to Google's wrist after investigating alleged violations of the federal Wiretrap Act via its Street View program, but Google's legal woes stemming from that issue are far from over. Europe reportedly is preparing to look at...

The hacker group Anonymous and other so-called hacktivists are the biggest concern for IT security professionals, according to a survey by Bit9. Its 2012 Cyber Security Survey queried nearly 2,000 IT security experts to gauge the current state of enterprise security and otherwise identify what keeps...

Visa has dropped Global Payments from the list of companies that it deems compliant with its security policies following news that the third-party vendor experienced a security breach that could have compromised some 1.5 million Visa and MasterCard accounts. The breach first came to light at the end...

Yahoo has been at work developing a header solution that will implement Do Not Track compliance across its global network by early this summer. The news follows the final report released by the Federal Trade Commission this week that, among other points, calls on companies to make privacy options si...

The Federal Trade Commission this week urged Congress to impose new regulations on companies that collect consumer data related to Internet browsing habits. Under the policy the FTC suggests, data brokers, or the holders of personal consumer information, must allow consumers access to that informati...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission released a report Monday calling for greater privacy protections for online users, including increased transparency regarding the data companies collect from consumers. The report also addressed Do Not Track systems, which allow consumers to opt out of online behavi...

Microsoft, together with partners from the financial services industry, has hit the operators of a botnet running the Zeus Trojan. Escorted by U.S. Marshals, staff of the companies seized command and control servers in two hosting locations -- Scranton, Pa. and Lombard, Ill. -- and took down two IP ...

The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against telecommunications giant AT&T, claiming that the carrier allowed scammers to use a calling service for the hearing-impaired and then stuck U.S. taxpayers with the bill. While many Internet scams have originated from Nigeria, this case reporte...