Banks on watch after suspected card breach
An apparent data breach in Spain has caused Visa and MasterCard to warn banks of possible fraudulent credit card transactions. Read more...

Microsoft denies it built 'backdoor' in Windows 7

Health Net says 1.5M medical records lost in data breach

AOL looks to slash staff by a third

T-Mobile UK employees sold customer data

Washington Watch National ID Program in Deep Trouble, as Budget Is Cut 40%

Spam campaign targets payment transfer system

Worldwide online ad spending drops slightly in Q3

Eight indicted for $9 million hack

Microsoft to release security guidelines for Agile

More Privacy Stories

Opinion: Will the smart grid protect consumer privacy?
The nation's electrical power grid is going to start collecting a multitude of data on utility customers before long. What's the potential for abuse?

A Practical Approach to Protecting Trade Secrets
Trade secrets are increasingly becoming a company's most valuable assets, and not surprisingly, threats to those assets have increased concomitantly. The greatest threat to company data is, of course, not outsiders but a company's own employees A company's ability to protect against rogue employees (as well as against unintentional harm) is governed by both federal and state laws, which vary by jurisdiction and, worse, are in a state of flux in many of those jurisdictions.

iPhone security problems bring new risks
In just four days, not one but two worms targeting the iPhone have emerged. Both of the worms target the same vulnerability, a default password in the SSH server that is installed on jail-broken iPhones. While one worm is a mostly a nuisance, the second siphons personal information from the iPhone, which makes it a serious identity theft threat.

PeerBlock Helps You Surf the Web in Secret
They're lurking out there--sleazy spyware companies, unscrupulous advertisers, and just people you don't want looking at what your computer is doing. PeerBlock (free), an open source program, offers part of a solution--low level blocking of packets coming from, or going to, a long list of hosts.

The Struggle With DLP
Few security technologies have received as much attention over the past few years as Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) solutions have. The concept behind them is exciting, offering the ability to scan traffic on your network and in your systems, and assign rules-based protections to the data that you want to protect. Someone e-mailing out a copy of customer records with SSNs? The DLP system will block it or encrypt it on the fly. Someone trying to copy IP to a USB drive? Alert management and block the action. It can be a great way to protect your most critical information assets, but as many have found, it is not an end-all, be-all solution to your data leakage problems.

Google grows revenue, profit in Q3
Google grew both its revenue and profit in the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, registering results its CEO called "strong" and that exceeded Wall Street expectations.

E-health Security Is a Delicate Balance
John Halamka has an inside seat when it comes to the ongoing debate over establishing electronic health records systems.

NotAwesome Firefox Add-On Hides History
Enough people loved Firefox's history and bookmark searching location bar that the name "AwesomeBar" caught on. While this tool is great for productivity, its omniscience is a serious privacy concern. Don't let your boss see that you've been looking for a new career on job search Web sites. You can clear your history, and completely exclude bookmarks from displaying in the bar, but why waste such a useful feature just to hide a few URLs? NotAwesome is a simple, free add-on that allows you to selectively hide bookmarks from the incriminating gaze of the AwesomeBar.

Trouble With Default Settings at Online Stores
As an Amazon Prime member, I pay a yearly lump sum that entitles me to free two-day shipping for my many Amazon purchases. But six months ago, I noticed that small shipping charges were appearing on my bill at checkout; free two-day shipping was no longer the default choice on my purchases. Instead, a check mark ap­­peared next to the option for paid overnight delivery.

Protect your privacy on Facebook and Twitter
Here's how to safeguard your identity and your personal data in the age of the social Web.

Editors' Picks

Getting to know Windows 7? Don't stop now: From speeding up taskbar thumbnails to reining in UAC, here are 20 ways to make Windows 7 act the way you want. Is Motorola's new Droid good enough to vanquish iPhone envy? To find out, we took it on a 3-day trip. Sure, you could always use Linux as a desktop OS, but Corel Linux 1.0 was the first distro designed for ordinary users. It's been a long, strange trip since then. New touch-screen laptops from Fujitsu, HP and Lenovo take advantage of Microsoft Windows 7's touch-friendly infrastructure.

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