thefts

For the first time ever, more companies are suffering from electronic theft than from physical theft, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by risk consultancy Kroll.

The firm's fourth "Annual Global Fraud Report" (PDF) found that the amount of money lost by businesses to all kinds of fraud rose over the past 12 months to $1.7 million per billion dollars of sales from $1.4 million, a gain of more than 20 percent.

And with that overall increase came a notable shift, with electronic theft just edging out physical theft. The theft of … Read more

In the more dog-eating-dog quarters of the world, Sweden is sometimes mocked for being a namby-pamby welfare state.

Sometimes, though, caring for one's fellow man is beautiful just for its own sake.

So please may we rejoice at the tale of an anonymous Swedish professor who had his laptop stolen.

How can having one's laptop stolen possibly bring us to a happy conclusion? Did someone find his laptop and return it to him? No. Did someone catch the thief and, in a fit of justice, remove all the Pirate Bay stickers from his laptop? Again, no.

However as Swedish news source The Local would have it, … Read more

I remember 1997. I always brought my Kensington cable lock with me to tie down my PowerBook at the grad school library. Honestly, I don't think I've used a laptop lock since.

I'm not alone, apparently. Kensington's new ClickSafe locking system aims to somehow make the process easier. Well, at least half of the process: the new ClickSafe lock automatically snaps onto your laptop without a key, but it still requires a key to unlock--not a surprise, since a lock that could be unlocked without a key doesn't sound very safe at all.

The Kensington … Read more

Call me your e-mail security guinea pig.

The other day I was talking to Hugh Thompson, adjunct professor of software security at Columbia University and founder of consultancy People Security, about his research related to online privacy and he mentioned how easy it can be to hijack someone's e-mail account. So, I challenged him to try to steal mine.

Over the course of an hour, I watched as he mined the Internet for information about me that could be used to reset passwords on Web-based e-mail services, plucking tidbits from a variety of search and other sites to create … Read more

Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are on their way to the Mac, the franchise's developer, Rockstar Games, confirmed Thursday.

Responding to a question about whether Rockstar Games is planning to offer its games on Macs, the company responded with a hearty "yes!" on its Facebook page.

"Look for the long-awaited release of the classic Grand Theft Auto Trilogy for Mac--most likely later this year," Rockstar wrote. "We'll have much more info and a proper announcement soon."

Unfortunately, the company didn't provide … Read more

People are constantly leaving their systems in vulnerable situations, where thieves can easily take them. I once was at a public Wi-Fi hotspot at a cafe and decided to browse the network for connected computers (heck, they conveniently pop up automatically on the OS X Finder's sidebar). While most systems ask for a password and deny access, I was surprised to find at least two computers out of about ten available that had fully shared hard drives and documents folders, with one having everything from personal bank statements and finance spreadsheets to saved job applications available for anyone to … Read more

If you've been thinking about subscribing to Apple's MobileMe service just to get the peace of mind that comes with Find My iPhone, there's an alternative that's $84.02 cheaper.

It's called iHound, and it tracks lost and stolen iPhones.

This app's been around for some time, but like similar tracking tools, it suffered from one major shortcoming: it couldn't run in the background, and therefore couldn't transmit its location unless it was activated. (I don't know about you, but I rarely run my tracker app before I lose my iPhone.)

Now that iOS 4 has arrived, however, iHound can communicate automatically, at regular intervals, even when it's not running. And it does exactly that, sending location data to iHound's servers every few minutes. (Thankfully, there are other interval settings, including 10 minutes and 30 minutes.)

If your phone does go missing, you simply sign into the iHound site to see its last transmitted location on a map. You can also send a push notification with a custom message and even a spoken alert. (Example: "This...is...iHound!" That should get some attention.)

There's even an option to remotely activate a siren, which could help you find a misplaced phone--or startle a thief into ditching it. And the siren can be deactivated only from the site (though an iPhone-savvy thief could simply turn the volume down to zero).… Read more

Many IT folks think snooping is on the rise at their companies. They may know best since they're the ones doing some of the snooping, at least according to survey results released Wednesday by Cyber-Ark.

To put together its fourth annual "Trust, Security and Passwords" (PDF) survey, security vendor Cyber-Ark said it questioned more than 400 IT professionals across the U.S. and the U.K., mostly from enterprise-size businesses.

Among those surveyed, 67 percent admitted that they accessed confidential information not relevant to their jobs. In nominating the department most likely to snoop, 54 percent pointed … Read more

Authorities have finally begun examining the computers, server, and other electronic gear seized from a Gizmodo editor as part of the investigation into a missing iPhone prototype.

Stephen Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney for San Mateo County, told CNET on Wednesday that a court there had appointed a "special master" to search the items seized from the home of Jason Chen in late April. The court has asked the special master to collect only information that pertains to Gizmodo's dealings with an iPhone prototype that the blog purchased for $5,000.

In March, an Apple employee lost … Read more