The zombie attack alert issued on a handful of US TV stations this week is more serious than a mischievous hacker prank say cyber experts, who warn the incident exposes lax security practices in a critical public safety system.
While broadcasters said poor password security paved the way for the bogus warning, security experts said the equipment used by the Emergency Alert System remained vulnerable when stations allow it be accessed via the public Internet.
Adobe on Saturday said it would release an emergency patch for two Reader zero-day vulnerabilities this week.
Hackers have already been exploiting the bugs using rigged PDF documents sent as email attachments. "Adobe plans to make available updates for Adobe Reader and Acrobat ... during the week of February 18, 2013," the company said in its security incident response team's blog Saturday.
Indonesian police expressed optimism about their investigation into the recent hacking of email accounts belonging to publicly-listed coal miner PT Bumi Resources, saying they were making further probes into the coal miner’s stolen data and any links with its business partners.
Police chief spokesman Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said here on Friday that with further investigation the police would be able to identify the hackers and bring them to the courts.
Singaporean police have warned men in the city state of a five-fold increase in extortion cases in which they are coaxed into a state of undress, secretly filmed and then asked to hand over cash to prevent release of the resulting video.
Cops in the island nation said the number of such incidents has shot up from 11 in 2011 to over 50 last year.
Online privacy advocate Kim Dotcom has plans to expand Mega, his new file-sharing site, to include secure email, chat, voice, video and mobile services.
Dotcom made the announcement Saturday via Twitter, saying the updates will arrive "in the coming years."
This tweet, along with several others, seems to position Mega as a stronghold for Internet privacy and freedom. Dotcom cautioned against using U.S.-based servers and email providers — calling out Gmail, iCloud and Skype, in particular — because the American government can demand access to user data, he said.
