Security News

Happy Friday, everyone! It’s time for another roundup from your friendly folks at Intego. Last week’s snow seems like it was months ago, as it’s now sunny and warm leading into a weekend full of college basketball, chocolate bunnies, and April Fool’s Day pranks. We hope you enjoy this week’s batch of interesting links.

Security News

• A hospital in Mississippi is in hot water after losing a laptop containing patient data such as “[names], addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, diagnoses, medications, treatments and other clinical information.” The laptop was password protected but someone could still easily be able to access all that personal information. Even worse, the hospital can’t notify the specific patients whose information has been breached because they don’t know exactly who has been affected. This is both a security and PR nightmare, and definitely a lesson to businesses to tighten up your security measures on company devices.
• Palo Alto Networks has conducted a study called “The Modern Malware Review” and found that 90% of unknown malware is delivered via web browsing.
• You may have heard rumors of the “biggest online attack in history” happening soon. Or now. Or something. Anyway, Gizmodo reports that the “Internet war apocalypse” everyone’s been talking about lately is actually a lie.
• Some hackers broke into nearly half a million devices all over the world just so they could map a portrait of the Internet. Very illegal, but also very cool.
• Ars Technica has an insightful article from Nate Anderson about how he became a password cracker.
• An interesting debate about online privacy has emerged. First Bruce Schneier laments “our Internet surveillance state” and the death of online privacy, but then Tom Brewster from Tech Week Europe counters that there is hope for Internet privacy and that it’s not dead yet.

From the Intego Blog

• Apple updated their iForgot page to fix a security hole.
• Lysa provides a walkthrough of OS X’s built-in security features and assesses their protection levels.
• Google released Chrome 26 and fixed some flaws and security issues.
• Worried you won’t know what to do if your iPhone gets lost or stolen? Here’s a handy guide offering actions to take before you lose it as well as what to do if some jerk steals your device.
• Computer security isn’t about “anti-virus” any more. Threats have become more sophisticated beyond old-school viruses, as Lysa explains in the post published earlier today.

Apple News

• Apple recently added to their arsenal, acquiring indoor GPS company WiFiSLAM for $20 million.
• Apple’s developer community is frustrated with iCloud and have spoken up about it.
• Apple has patented a new iPhone design with a wraparound 3D display. Are we looking at an early-stage iPhone 6?
• Want your new iPhone as soon as possible? Apple has announced free next-day shipping for all current iPhones (limit two per customer).
• Apple’s “outdated” security has gotten a lot of flak from security experts, and now The Verge calls upon Apple to finally get serious about it.

Notable Tech News

• Three Egyptian divers have been arrested for trying to sever an undersea cable that provides Internet to Europe and Asia.
• According to an AT&T survey, adults are more guilty of texting while driving than teenagers are.
• Google has announced an Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge, where they promise not to sue developers, distributors, and users of open source software utilizing their patents “unless first attacked.”
• Speaking of Google, they will reportedly manufacture their highly-anticipated Google Glass in the United States.
• Will the U.S. government soon have to get a warrant before being able to read your email? Lawmakers are trying to better protect your email from a nosy government.
• T Mobile has gotten rid of cell phone contracts. Will other carriers soon follow suit?
• Twitter has been sued for $50 million after they refused a French court’s ruling to hand over the details of some users who had been tweeting racist and anti-semitic comments.
• Yahoo raised eyebrows when they acquired a 17-year old’s news app called Summly for an outstanding $30 million. NY Mag has an interesting editorial about how this surprising move was all about PR and hiring. A $30 million PR move is pretty…interesting, to say the least.

Random Awesomeness

• Check out this cool live map of the London Underground transit system.
• Researchers have created a fiber network that operates at 99.7% the speed of light. This network has “[smashed] speed and latency records” (though I bet YouTube still buffers).
• According to an astute reddit user who was reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, the iconic Apple founder seemed to “get furious” a lot.
• We shared this on our Facebook page and Twitter account, but in case you missed it, here’s an interesting chart depicting Apple’s money flow coming in and going out.

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to keep your Macs safe and secure!