Honestly, it should come as no surprise that Facebook isn’t exactly a snuggly blanket of impenetrable security when it comes to feeling safe on the internet. Perpetually beset with accusations of compromising users’ privacy, Facebook has spent much of its time in the last several months repairing its relationship with its users. But maybe privacy isn’t all we should be worried about. According to security firm BitDefender, approximately 20% of Facebook users’ news feeds are infected with malware. Delicious. BitDefender says it gathered the data via an app called Safego, installed by 14,000…

You think your phone is a target for would-be identity thieves now? Wait until this phone-as-method-of-payment madness touches down – it’s about to get madder. As such, we’re probably gonna need more security measures, right? A password certainly isn’t enough, and besides, you don’t want to have to input your password every time anyway. Well, get a load of this. Or, half a load at least, if you’re strapped for time. Researchers have been working on using the built-in accelerometers in modern smartphones to measure a person’s gait – that is, the way he or she walks – to identify the owner of the phone….

You may have heard that Intel bought McAfee a few weeks ago. Well that decision had a lot of people scratching their heads. Personally, I thought the CEO said ‘I got a virus, we should buy a copy of McAfee’ and an intern misheard him and bought the entire company instead. Intel decided to have a big press conference and try to explain themselves. Their answer isn’t as funny and kind of leaves us scratching our heads more. I don’t have lice, I swear! Here’s the explanation: Traditionally, security companies such as McAfee would take a defensive stance on things. For example, a new virus is made…

Continuing today’s completely unintentional theme of movie technologies given flesh (er… or the lack thereof, in this case) is a riff straight outta Total Recall. In an attempt to better identify terrorists and other baddies in airports, theme parks and other public places, the Wright State Research Institute is developing a system that can scan a person’s skeleton on-the-fly for traces of … I dunno, badness? “[Terrorists] can’t disguise their bones,” says research engineer Phani Kidambi, who’s leading the project. “That’s where we thought this technology has some merit.”…

“I believe that Chatroulette was great in the first honeymoon days after it was launched,” says Andrey Ternovskiy, the founder of Chatroulette, “before it was discovered by a strange people, who started to abuse the true freedom and democratic nature of the service.” Andrey’s been feeling a bit down lately. Wouldn’t you, after the app you so lovingly hand-crafted to create “a perfect video world” had devolved into a wretched hive of scum and villainy, with more users willing to expose their unmentionables than their face? Yeah, you would. Stop giggling. Seriously, stop it. Can’t you see he’s…

Better switch back to your old, yellowed PS/2 mouse. A trio of researchers have shown that USB devices represent in and of themselves a potential security risk. Your data will never be safe again! Well, this is true and it isn’t. Would you notice if, say, your keyboard was switched out for another one? Potential data thieves would have a hard time replicating the filth patterns on my keyboard, that’s for sure. But say they did, successfully. John Clark, Sylvian Leblanc and Scott Knight of the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, Canada have discovered that there’s a rather simple exploit…

Okay, that headline is probably a little more sensationalist than is absolutely necessary, but that’s the message a UK scientist is trying to get across. Dr Mark Gasson from the University of Reading implanted a chip in his hand that contained a computer virus. The chip is similar to the kind used to monitor and tag pets, but Gasson infected the chip with a virus. Due to the sophisticated nature of ID chip scanning technology, the virus was able to jump from the chip in Gasson’s hand to the external security scanners and chip readers he interacted with. There’s little need for widespread concern at…

“Do no evil.” That was the now famous philosophy that Google portrayed to the world, claiming that a business doesn’t need to be evil to be effective and make money. It sounds great, really. But we are left wondering what Facebook’s motto would look like: “What they don’t know won’t hurt them”? We regularly accept the fact that businesses have one goal: make money. If they are not making money, then they can’t survive. That’s a given. So we typically expect to be bombarded with advertising (granted, Facebook’s advertising is horrible in more ways than one), affiliate offers, promotional material,…

Apple, always the innovator, is looking for the key to your heart. Security is a major concern in computing, particularly with smaller mobile devices becoming more capable. Apple thinks it has the answer. The patent describes a method of detecting an authorized user by the pulse in the veins and arteries in the hand holding the device. A sensor built into the device would detect your heart rhythm, apparently as unique as a fingerprint or retina. Other uses have been suggested, such as mood detection or managing user profiles. I’ve not heard much about cardiac signatures before, but this strikes…

Fed up with the tireless Gmail access attempts from continental Asia? Well, no longer! Google has implemented a new warning system that will alert you if your Gmail account is suspected of having been accessed from afar. I’m impressed, if only a little. This is the first example I’ve seen of the recent fad of geotagging being put to good use. Okay, okay, so it’s not ‘geotagging’ in the purest sense. Gmail logs the IP address of the accessing computer, and compares its general location and time to the previous IP address. For instance, if you log in in Calgary at noon, and Cairo at noon-thirty,…