Security

The U.S. Federal Communication Commission may have settled for a gentle slap to Google's wrist after investigating alleged violations of the federal Wiretrap Act via its Street View program, but Google's legal woes stemming from that issue are far from over. Europe reportedly is preparing to look at...

The hacker group Anonymous and other so-called hacktivists are the biggest concern for IT security professionals, according to a survey by Bit9. Its 2012 Cyber Security Survey queried nearly 2,000 IT security experts to gauge the current state of enterprise security and otherwise identify what keeps...

Visa has dropped Global Payments from the list of companies that it deems compliant with its security policies following news that the third-party vendor experienced a security breach that could have compromised some 1.5 million Visa and MasterCard accounts. The breach first came to light at the end...

Yahoo has been at work developing a header solution that will implement Do Not Track compliance across its global network by early this summer. The news follows the final report released by the Federal Trade Commission this week that, among other points, calls on companies to make privacy options si...

The Federal Trade Commission this week urged Congress to impose new regulations on companies that collect consumer data related to Internet browsing habits. Under the policy the FTC suggests, data brokers, or the holders of personal consumer information, must allow consumers access to that informati...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission released a report Monday calling for greater privacy protections for online users, including increased transparency regarding the data companies collect from consumers. The report also addressed Do Not Track systems, which allow consumers to opt out of online behavi...

Microsoft, together with partners from the financial services industry, has hit the operators of a botnet running the Zeus Trojan. Escorted by U.S. Marshals, staff of the companies seized command and control servers in two hosting locations -- Scranton, Pa. and Lombard, Ill. -- and took down two IP ...

The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against telecommunications giant AT&T, claiming that the carrier allowed scammers to use a calling service for the hearing-impaired and then stuck U.S. taxpayers with the bill. While many Internet scams have originated from Nigeria, this case reporte...

Cyberattacks carried out by hacktivists -- hackers motivated by political reasons -- shot up in 2011, accounting for 58 percent of the data stolen in cyberbreaches, according to Verizon. The company's 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report also stated that 79 percent of the attacks were opportunisti...

The Court of Appeal for Ontario recently considered whether there was a cause of action for the invasion of personal privacy in Jones v.Tsige. The case involved two bank employees, Sandra Jones and Winne Tsige, who worked at two different branches of the same bank. The respondent, Tsige, was in a r...

Dell is acquiring network-security and data-protection tool provider SonicWall for an estimated $1 billion to $1.5 billion. This is the latest in a series of acquisitions Dell has made in recent months. It has acquired Force 10, Perot Systems and SecureWorks. All of these companies focus on differen...

Even before Google launched its new privacy policy earlier this month, consolidating separate privacy policies for more than 60 applications, legal issues had surfaced. Now, attorneys general from more than 31 States have accused Google of violating privacy laws because of complaints from users that...

There is no question that Google is the dominant player in the search engine arena, and a new survey released Friday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 83 percent of U.S. search engine users rated Google as their preferred search engine, despite concerns about the company's d...

I recently read an article about the escalating concerns within a widening array of organizations over the growing security risks associated with today's social networks. Corporate concerns about potential Internet security risks have skyrocketed, not only because of Facebook, Twitter and other pop...

Authorities in the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, have arrested five suspected hackers affiliated with Lulz Security, more commonly known as "LulzSec," a group of so-called hacktivists. Among those arrested is Hector Xavier Monsegur, the suspected leader of the group...