passwords

Democrats to employers: Stop asking for Facebook passwords

Democrats in Washington are aiming to protect employees being asked to hand over the keys to their Facebook accounts.

A new bill introduced yesterday in the U.S. Senate would seek to stop employers from requesting passwords or access to an employee's account on Facebook and other social networks.

Known as the Password Protection Act Of 2012 (PDF), the bill is the latest response from politicians over the growing trend of employers eager to snoop around their workers' online accounts.

In some cases, current employees are being pressured to allow access to their Facebook accounts. A teacher's aide … Read more

OS X 10.7.4 fixes FileVault password snafu

Last week a security hole in OS X 10.7.3 was uncovered where the account passwords for Lion users who had upgraded from Snow Leopard and who were still using the legacy FileVault encryption scheme were being stored in plain text in system log files. This issue happened apparently because a debugging flag for the OS software had been left enabled in the public release. Following this finding, Apple today issued the next version of OS X Lion, which along with other fixes and tweaks, closes this security hole for these users.

The security hole was found to be … Read more

Thousands of Twitter passwords exposed

Twitter is investigating the release of what appear to be thousands of user account passwords and e-mail addresses.

"We are currently looking into the situation. In the meantime, we have pushed out password resets to accounts that may have been affected," Twitter spokesman Robert Weeks told CNET in an e-mail. "For those who are concerned that their account may have been compromised, we suggest resetting your passwords and more in our Help Center."

The user data, so vast that it took five Pastebin pages to post, was released yesterday and blogged about on Airdemon.net, putting … Read more

How to manage the FileVault password hole in OS X 10.7.3

A security hole has recently been found in the latest version of OS X 10.7.3, through which a user's password may be written to a log file in plain text if that person is using the older legacy FileVault data encryption technology from past versions of OS X.

While the hole may be a problem for a certain group of people who still use the legacy encryption scheme, there are several things that can be done about it.

The hole happened when an Apple software engineer apparently left a debugging flag enabled in the production release of … Read more

Bare-bones collection management with Granthaalok: The Book-Library Manager

Although public libraries, university libraries, and other large lending institutions typically have fairly sophisticated software to manage their collections, there are smaller entities like churches, nonprofits, and even individuals who could use an electronic hand when it comes to keeping track of their holdings. Granthaalok: The Book-Library Manager aims to provide a simple solution for the user who needs a way to keep track of what gets checked in and out and by whom. Unfortunately, the program's unattractive interface and generally unintuitive functioning make it hard to recommend.

Granthaalok's interface consists of a large gray rectangle with a … Read more

Get Norton Identity Safe free for all platforms

Norton Identity Safe is not a password manager in the traditional sense. It's more of a log-in manager, able to automatically plug in your username and password when you sign into various sites that require them -- all the while keeping that info secure and synced.

Originally, the software came bundled with various Norton security suites, but now it's a standalone product with a surprising (for Symantec) price. As long as you grab it before October 1, you can get Norton Identity Safe absolutely free.

The tool is available not only for Windows and Mac, but also Android and iOS. … Read more

Six tips to make your Mac safer

The Flashback Trojan went viral last week, infecting an estimated 1 percent of OS X computers worldwide. While the infection rate has subsided since then, that doesn't mean Mac owners should return to complacency.

It doesn't mean that there's cause for panic, either. Here are some common sense, effective tips for safeguarding your Mac against more malware.

Get a security suite: You can stop rolling your eyes now. Concerns about security suite performance generally come from the way that most security programs used to tie Windows into knots. While the Windows suites have gotten significantly better, their … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: Can an employer ask for your Facebook password?

Social-network users have an expectation that their views of their networks are theirs alone, that there is a private side to the public persona. But to get some jobs or scholarships, that expectation is thrown to the wind. What's truly private in a networked world?

Recently, reports have popped up about potential employees being required to divulge their personal social-network passwords or let hiring managers view their account. Some college sports players have to let "compliance officers" into their online social worlds.

What can a hiring manager or school reasonably ask of a person when it comes to monitoring their online social life? And where can, or should, a person draw the line? On this Roundtable, we discuss the topic with Bob Sullivan, author of the Red Tape Chronicles for MSNBC.

Celebrity hacker pleads guilty to Scarlett Johansson e-mail hack

Christopher Chaney entered guilty pleas to nine felony counts in federal court today, admitting that he hacked into dozens of celebrities' e-mail accounts, including those of Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Today's guilty pleas shine a bright light on the dark underworld of computer hacking," said U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., whose office prosecuted the case, according to the Los Angeles Times. "This case demonstrates that everyone, even public figures, should take precautions to shield their personal information from the hackers that inhabit that dark underworld."

Chaney, 35 … Read more

Senators ask feds to probe Facebook log-in requests

We knew that political posturing over the privacy brouhaha involving employer requests for access to Facebook accounts was only just getting started.

Today U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on two federal agencies -- the Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- to investigate what they call a "new disturbing trend" of prospective employers demanding job applicants to turn over user names and passwords for their social networks.

"I am alarmed and outraged by rapidly and widely spreading employer practices seeking access to Facebook passwords or confidential information … Read more