The security firm that disclosed a security hole in a Facebook feature that allows users to download their own data file says the social network giant still has questions to answer about the extent of the data breach. Writing on their blog, researchers at Packet Storm Security said that Facebook has underestimated the extent of the breach, which affected around six million users of the social networking site and an unknown number of non-Facebook users. Packet Storm says that Facebook’s analysis of the breach failed to account for ways in which it could be exploited, in an iterative fashion, to glean information on Facebook users beyond the individual pieces of data that may have been viewed by users who used the Download Your Information (DYI) feature. The firm also called Facebook to task for failing to notify non-users whose information was exposed in the incident. On Monday, Security Ledger wrote […]
Facebook Mum On Future Of Ghost User Accounts
Facebook acknowledged on Friday that a flaw in a feature that lets users download their own profile information exposed personal information on approximately six million users, including phone numbers and e-mail addresses that were not shared with the site, but is staying mum on the future of wide ranging information harvesting practices revealed by the bug. In a blog post, the social networking giant said the security hole was disclosed by an independent security researcher and forced the company to disable the Download Your Information (DYI) feature until it could be fixed. Despite the large number of people affected, Facebook said individual pieces of private data like an e-mail address or telephone number were only exposed to one or two other Facebook users. However, Facebook has not said whether it will cease using non-public data from users’ contacts to fill out dossiers on other Facebook users, a practice that has […]
Late To The Party, Microsoft Offers Mega Bounties For Software Bugs
Microsoft on Wednesday announced its first ever formal program to pay security researchers for finding software vulnerabilities in its newest products. The bug bounty program will launch on June 26 and be formally unveiled at the upcoming Black Hat Briefings hacker conference in Las Vegas at the end of July. And, though late to the party, Microsoft is making up for lost time by going large. The Redmond, Washington software maker will pay researchers up to $100,000 for “truly novel” exploitation techniques that defeat protections built into the very latest version of Windows, 8.1 Preview. It will additionally pay $50,000 for ideas for defensive strategies that accompany a bypass, raising the total potential purse for an exploit and accompanying remediation to $150,000. Additionally, Microsoft announced a short-term bounty program for its Internet Explorer 11 Preview, with the company paying up to $11,000 USD for critical vulnerabilities that affect Internet Explorer […]
Podcast: Project Prism – Has Uncle Sam Gone Rogue?
It was hard to escape the big news this week: revelations from The Guardian and The Washington Post about a program of widespread surveillance of online social networks and mobile phone use. The news, both the result of high-level leaks of classified information, has embroiled the Obama Administration in the most serious questions about domestic spying since the Nixon administration. To discuss the week’s events, Paul sat down with Ron Gula, the CEO of Tenable Network Security (and a former NSA security ninja) and Rick Forno, director of the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Graduate Cybersecurity Program and a Junior Affiliate Scholar at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society (CIS). While neither guest was surprised to read about the government’s monitoring of cell phone activity or data from social networks, the latest reports lay bare the dimensions of the U.S. government’s domestic spying post 9/11, and raise serious […]
Privacy Bombshell: NSA Given Access To Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Others
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Washington Post story on The National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) and FBI’s widespread program of wire tapping, which leads directly into the servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Apple. The classified program, dubbed PRISM, dates to 2007 and the administration of George W. Bush and authorizes the nation’s top spy agency to peer deep into the servers of popular social networking sites, compiling audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs. Together the information could enable intelligence operators to track an individual’s communications, movements relationships over time. The classified program came to light following the leak of a classified presentation for NSA staff, dated April 2013, that describes the program as critical and a leading contributor of intelligence to President Obama’s daily briefing. While a small cadre of members of Congress were briefed on the program […]
