Privacy and data protection

Malware has been found on ATMs in Eastern Europe and elsewhere that allows criminals to steal account data and PINs and even empty the machine of its cash, a computer forensics expert said.

About 20 ATMs have been compromised in that manner, mostly in Russia and Ukraine, but there are "early indications" of compromised ATMs in the U.S., said Nicholas Percoco, vice president and head of SpiderLabs at Trustwave, which provides data security and payment card compliance services.

Percoco said he could not elaborate further on where the compromised ATMs were located and how they were used. … Read more

Updated at 5:50 p.m. PDT with plaintiff saying he will drop the lawsuit; at 2:35 p.m. with legal expert comment; at 1:15 p.m. with information from Facebook's terms of service; and at 12:30 p.m. with more details, comment, and background.

A Florida librarian and activist said on Tuesday that he will drop a civil lawsuit he filed against Facebook alleging that the social network failed to adequately protect users from a virus.

Theodore Karantsalis, of Miami Springs, Fla., was seeking $70.50 from Facebook in the lawsuit, which was filed a … Read more

Updated at 4:20 p.m. PDT with Twitter phishing attack, at 4:10 p.m. with Facebook comment and 2:30 p.m. with attack also downloading malware onto computers.

Phishers were having a field day with Facebook and Twitter on Thursday.

A new phishing scam hit Facebook users that, like others in recent weeks, sends them to a Web site which steals their log-in information and also secretly downloads malware onto computers when they visit the malicious Web site in what is known as a "drive-by download."

Meanwhile, Twitter users were getting messages from new followers … Read more

The U.S. National Archives on Wednesday said it is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing hard drive that contains personal information of former Clinton administration staff and visitors.

The small portable hard drive was being kept as a backup, the National Archives explained in a question-and-answer document (PDF) on its Web site. It held copies of about 113 four-millimeter tape cartridges of "snapshots" of hard-drive contents of employees who left the Executive Office of the President.

Because the staff maintained White House entry information and electronic address books, the … Read more

You might have heard about online "phishing" scams designed to steal money from unsuspecting Web users, but now criminals are using another type of scam called "vishing" to commit the same crimes.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission filed lawsuits against two telemarketing firms in Florida and a company claiming to sell extended automobile warranties for violating the Do Not Call registry and fraud for selling bogus warranties for between $2,000 and $3,000 a pop. Since 2007, the companies supposedly made 1 billion calls and generated more than $10 billion.

These companies likely used … Read more

Security companies Symantec and McAfee will be the latest big-name developers to make products for Apple's iPhone, as the two look to cash in on the popularity of the device.

Speaking to Reuters, McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt said his company is developing security software for the iPhone, though no other details on the product were provided. DeWalt also said the company is working on a "much more comprehensive suite for the Apple family."

Symantec is throwing its hat into the iPhone ring too, but it won't be developing traditional security software. Instead, Symantec is looking at … Read more

The police cannot deal with the amount of information generated by surveillance cameras, according to the U.K.'s Association of Chief Police Officers.

Ian Readhead, director of information for the ACPO Criminal Records Office, said this week that police are overwhelmed by the volume of such data and that one of his major concerns is that police don't have the capability to track a car in real time using the Automatic Number Plate Recognition System, which is part of the surveillance cameras' functions.

"The problem is the amount of data," said Readhead, speaking at a data … Read more

Women are more affected by identity fraud than men are, according to a new survey that also found that it takes women longer to restore their identities but they also tend to change their behavior afterward.

In a survey of 808 U.S. households, half of which reported fraud, 28 percent of women said they had been victims of identity fraud compared with 21 percent for men.

This corresponds with a report in February from Javelin Research that found that women were 26 percent more likely to be victims of identity fraud than men.

In the latest survey, from fraud … Read more

Hackers have broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration several times in recent years, according to an Inspector General report sent to the FAA this week.

In February, hackers compromised an FAA public-facing computer and used it to gain access to personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, on 48,000 current and former FAA employees, the report said.

Last year, hackers took control of FAA critical network servers and could have shut them down, which would have seriously disrupted the agency's mission-support network, the report said. Hackers took over … Read more