We all know that, to online marketers, we’re just the sum of our Facebook Wall posts and “Likes” – the ubiquitous, virtual “thumbs up” that we attach to all manner of online ephemera. But all those ironic comments and votes of approval may be revealing a lot more about us than we’re willing to share, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Cambridge and Microsoft Research in the UK. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), the researchers demonstrated that it is possible to use knowledge of an individual user’s “Likes” on Facebook to “automatically and accurately predict a range of highly sensitive personal attributes including: your age, and gender, you sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious and political views. The list of guessabl`e information goes on to include other less quantifiable characteristics like your personality traits, intelligence, happiness, your preference (or not) […]
Privacy
Evernote Denies Java Exploit Used In Hack
The online storage and productivity service Evernote said that it does not believe that the hack of its network that exposed information on 50 million users relied on an exploit of a Java vulnerability, as did recent attacks on Twitter and Facebook. In an e-mail response to questions from The Security Ledger about the hack, Ronda Scott, an Evernote spokeswoman, said that the firm does not believe that the hack used the Java exploit attributed to the other attacks, but said it was still investigating the incident. “It’s premature for us to comment on the methods used, the specific systems affected and/or origin and motivation,” she wrote. She said the company first became aware of the “unusual and potentially malicious” activity within its online service on February 28 and began notifying Evernote users of the need to reset their password the next day, March 1st. Scott maintained that Evernote hasn’t […]
EverNote Latest Site Hacked In Coordinated Attack
The online personal and business productivity service Evernote.com said on Saturday that it is the victim of a hack that exposed encrypted user password information, forcing password resets across a broad swath of the service’s 50 million registered users. The Redwood City, California-based firm revealed in a blog post that its internal security team discovered “suspicious activity on the Evernote network” that “appears to have been a coordinated attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service.” The company said it sent password reset messages to its users as a “precaution” but didn’t believe that stored information in users’ accounts or payment information had been exposed. The hack is just the latest of a prominent online firm. In recent weeks, Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have all reported compromises of their internal networks. Those intrusions were linked to attacks aimed at developers and relied on exploits of previously unknown “zero day” […]
Friday Night Massacre: Twitter Hacked, Info on 250k Exposed
What better time to drop some really bad and embarrassing news than late on a Friday afternoon, as everyone is heading out the door? So it was with social media giant Twitter, which dropped a bombshell late Friday: revealing that it had been compromised in an “extremely sophisticated” attack that yielded the account credentials for around 250,000 users. A blog post by Twitter Security Team member Bob Lord on Friday said that the company has been investigating the breach all week long, after detecting unusual patterns of account access across its network. After stopping an attack that was in progress, the company’s investigation revealed that the attackers “may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/saltedversions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users,” Lord wrote. Twitter did not discuss the circumstances of the breach, but reiterated guidance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for users to disable Java […]
Weekend Security Reads – Our Picks
This was another eventful news week in the security world – stories about hacks on two, prominent newspapers, and a widespread hole in UPnP, a technology that all of us use, but never pay much attention to. (Always a dangerous combination.) Let’s face it, Friday is a time for decamping from the office, not taking on some weighty new mental project or thought provoking issue. But, come Sunday morning over coffee, you might just be ready to switch your higher cognitive functions on again. If so, here are some Security Ledger picks for good weekend reads: Hacking the Old Gray Lady – Slate.com The top security story this week was the string of revelations about sophisticated, targeted attacks against leading U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post may also have been infiltrated, according to a report on Krebsonsecurity.com. The attacks by so-called […]
