On Tuesday, a civil liberties group won a case against law enforcement on the use of GPS to track suspects. The Global Positioning System (GPS) used in cell phones, tablets and laptops to pin point the location an individual has traveled is a new technology being utilized. “The group has argued that prosecutors are getting information about a suspect’s location with a judge’s approval — but without a warrant providing probable cause, which is typically needed in criminal cases for a warrant.”

“The ACLU questioned how often prosecutors have used applications for such information and sued to get details, a challenge the Justice Department said would violate the privacy of those under investigation or prosecuted.”

 Read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44414394/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/

Apple released a security patch to protect iPhone users from unauthorized users accessing their devices.

“Security flaw in iOS software have the potential to affect millions of devices that are at the core of Apple’s business.

Apple has sold 25 million iPads since it launched last year. The company sold over 18 million of its popular iPhones in just the first three months of the year.”

Read more:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/15/us-apple-security-idUSTRE76E5RN20110715

With the recent Sony PlayStation security breach, “Sony thinks an “unauthorized person” now has access to all PlayStation Network account information and passwords, and may have obtained the credit card numbers of the service’s 70 million users.”

“The PlayStation maker said it believes hackers now have access to customers’ vital information, including names, birthdates, physical and e-mail addresses, and PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords, logins, handles and online IDs.” For now the PlayStation has been temporarily shut down until a full investigation has been completed. Users are encouraged to change their passwords.

Read more:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/04/playstation-network-hacked

760,000 current and former students, employees and businesses were notifying that their personal information was hacked on December 15, 2010. The university is offering 12 months of free credit monitoring service as a precaution. Two firms were hired to investigate the breach and these firms both confirmed illegal access to the server was obtained and neither firm found evidence of any data being accessed. Based on the report, two Ohio University system administrators lost their jobs since they failed to protect the confidential information.

Read more:

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/12/16/server-hacked-at-osu-760000-affected.html

Leon Walker suspected his wife of infidelity, since his wife kept a book of passwords next to the shared laptop, Mr. Walker logged on to Clara Walker Gmail account to confirm his suspicions.

 “Walker is being charged with Michigan statute 752.795, which reads, in part: “A person shall not intentionally and without authorization or by exceeding valid authorization do any of the following: Access or cause access to be made to a computer program, computer, computer system or computer network to acquire, alter, damage delete or destroy property or otherwise use the service of a computer program, computer, computer system or computer network.””

 Mr. Walker is being charged with felony computer misuse and faces five years in prison.

Read more:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9202659/Husband_s_E_mail_Snooping_May_Lead_to_Five_Years_in_Prison?source=rss_news

Two members of the group Goatse Security hacked into AT&T’s customer database and gathered the E-mail addresses using a brute force attacked through a security hole. Goatse Security notified AT&T of the breach after harvesting the data.

“The pair used the fact that iPad 3G’s SIM has an ICC-ID, a 19-digit code that AT&T associated with a user’s account and email address. AT&T used the ICC-ID to pre-populate a field containing the owner’s email address when the user needed to login and check account status. By attempting ICC-IDs until they got a “hit,” the pair was able to gather the email addresses.”

These individuals were each charged with one count of fraud and one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization.

Read more:

http://www.examiner.com/technology-in-national/hacker-pair-responsible-for-2010-ipad-3g-data-breach-arrested-by-fbi

Well some people are figuring out ways to gain access to your bank accounts and credit card numbers by using E-mails with a blank subject line and a single link in the message. These E-mails may contain viruses that will infect your computer and ever continue to spread to infect anyone you know in your address book. The information that is stolen is then resold in the black market.

Read more:

http://www.wbir.com/national/article/145526/16/Tis-the-season-for-scammers?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|t

Hackers have different techniques that help them access other people’s financial information via their computers. “They may send e-mail with attachments, links or images that install secret software when opened. Sometimes, just visiting a website or downloading files can cause a “drive-by download. Hackers phish by sending e-mails that look like they’re from legitimate vendors or trusted sites, only to have bogus links or tricks to lure consumers into entering personal information.” These viruses have attacked home computers and have been remotely gained controlled by using robot networks also known as “botnet” or “zombie army.” In this article a survey was taken to determine the state of viruses that have affected U.S. households being 40% with 16 million homes having serious problems in the past two years. Your computer could be one in a hundred or one in a thousand of computers in the botnet. People need to learn how to be more cautious when it comes to their interactions on the internet.

Read more:

http://www.ajc.com/news/crime/staying-ahead-of-cybercriminals-674233.html

While hackers finding new ways to gain access to people’s accounts, Facebook have implented a new security feature to allow access from a public computer using a temporary password that will be sent to your mobile device. This temporary password will allow you to access the account within a 20 minute window. The only downside to this is if the phone is either lost or stolen, the new owner will have access to your account. Also as a safeguard feature they have a remote log out system now. So if you log into a friends computer or phone and forget to log out. You can actually go into your account settings and see from where you are logged in at and log out.

Read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20101013/tc_pcworld/facebooktightenssecuritywithonetimepasswords

PayPal is a very common and popular way of sending money without sharing financial information. Last week vulnerability was found on PayPal.com. “That bug would allow a malicious hacker to insert code on the site that could potentially be used to access a user’s account.” This bug could capture information that would allow the hacker to gain elevated access privileges to sensitive page content, session cookies, and a variety of other information maintained by the browser on behalf of the user. Cross-site scripting attacks are therefore a special case of code injection. Cross-site scripting carried out on websites were roughly 80% of all security vulnerabilities documented by Symantec as of 2007.

Read more:

http://blogs.forbes.com/firewall/2010/10/06/hackable-bug-found-on-paypal-com