The BBC lost 195 laptops in 2012 alone at £1500 each…
BBC reports major losses of laptops and mobile devices | Popular Adult websites ‘host adverts with malware’| Pembrokeshire Council told to improve data protection BEFORE it disclosed child abuse files | Half of Justin Bieber’s Twitter followers are ‘fake’ | Hijacking airplanes with an Android phone
The BBC had 195 laptops stolen last year. Following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Veracode, it was revealed that the BBC has lost 785 tablets, laptops and mobiles in the last three years, including 399 laptop computers, 39 tablets and 347 mobile devices, which were reported either lost or stolen since 2010. The BBC response said that the average cost for each laptop is £1,500 and between £100-£300 per mobile, and approximately £1,500 per tablet device. This means that the cost of replacing the laptops for those last year alone was £292,500. Also last year, the BBC had 61 mobiles and 22 tablets stolen, and 57 mobiles, 11 laptops and four tablets lost. The BBC response said that the equipment is leased to the BBC, and therefore the cost covers the leasing service and support charges.
Top Adult websites – some of which are among the most-visited sites on the internet – are putting users’ computers at risk, according to a recent study. Researcher Conrad Longmore claims that advertisements displayed by the sites were found to contain malware programs, which install harmful files on users’ machines without their permission. Mr Longmore told the BBC that two popular sites– XHamster and PornHub – pose the greatest threat. While the sites themselves do not host any malware themselves, embedded adverts could cause problems for users. Mr Longmore said: “We call these malicious advertisements ‘malvertising’”. ”The way the ads are bought and sold across all websites is incredibly complex. ”Ads can often be repackaged and resold so that it is hard to tell where they originated from, and the criminals behind them go to great lengths to disguise what they are doing.”
A council under investigation for unlawfully disclosing child sex abuse files to a victim who was not entitled to see them was advised by the Information Commissioner’s Office to improve its data protection procedures as recently as last November, it has emerged. Last week we revealed how Pembrokeshire County Council had released highly sensitive reports about 10 child sex abuse victims to another victim. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is seeking to establish why the council gave around 400 pages of psychiatric reports about other victims to “Steven” after he sought disclosure of material relating solely to himself.
Justin Bieber’s title as “King of Twitter” has been brought into question after it was revealed almost half of his followers could be fake. In a report carried out by social media statistics company, SocialBakers, an estimated 16.7m of the singer’s 37m strong Twitter fan base was said to be composed of fake or empty accounts, with another 2.6m being inactive. The research demotes Bieber, 19, to second place after Lady Gaga in the rankings of highest number of Twitter followers. He overtook the singer earlier this year but the new statistics suggest the passing of the crown could have been premature. Lady Gaga, although having more “good” followers than Bieber, is still thought to have over 15m bogus fans herself.
An extremely well attended talk by Hugo Teso, a security consultant at n.runs AG in Germany, about the completely realistic scenario of plane hijacking via a simple Android app has galvanized the crowd attending the Hack In The Box Conference in Amsterdam today. Teso, who has been working in IT for the last eleven years and has been a trained commercial pilot for a year longer than that, has combined his two interests in order to bring to light the sorry state of security of aviation computer systems and communication protocols. By taking advantage of two new technologies for the discovery, information gathering and exploitation phases of the attack, and by creating an exploit framework (SIMON) and an Android app (PlaneSploit) that delivers attack messages to the airplanes’ Flight Management Systems (computer unit + control display unit), he demonstrated the terrifying ability to take complete control of aircrafts by making virtual planes “dance to his tune.”
Google submits formal concessions to EU in antitrust case | Reuters
Popular Adult websites ‘host adverts with malware’ – The Independent
BBC reports major losses of laptops and mobile devices – 195 laptops in 2012 alone – SC Magazine UK
Big data projects run EU data protection law risk | TechCentral.ie
BBC News – TVShack owner Richard O’Dwyer in video content project
BBC News – PC sales worldwide have tumbled, data from IDC shows
Facebook and Twitter in UK: Survey reveals social media habits – Yorkshire Evening Post
Half of Justin Bieber’s Twitter followers are ‘fake’ – Independent.ie
Hijacking airplanes with an Android phone
