Latest news updates from the last week

Facebook offers new privacy setting indicators for new users
In a move that suggests Facebook has begun to marginally accept that it is responsible for user privacy, the social network has revised the manner in which it informs new users about privacy settings. This includes little indicators like ‘light bulbs’ that highlight default privacy settings when certain actions are carried out. Unfortunately, these indicators are only available for new users as Facebook expects its current users to be well informed about all relevant settings by now.

New Facebook flaw scarily gives access to accounts
Quite contrary to the account privacy initiatives that Facebook has been taking off late, around 1.32 million Facebook accounts were exposed on a search string over a Google search. The string contained links which when clicked, gave login access to the account without the need of a password. The flaw is related to the links that Facebook sends to email accounts to allow quick login. It seems like every time Facebook takes a step forward regarding privacy, it takes two steps backwards.

Anonymous issues warning to Zynga
Hacktivist group Anonymous have issued a warning against Zynga, the social gaming company behind several popular Facebook games. The warning appeared on YouTube but was subsequently taken down. Anonymous claimed that the cause of this was the layoff of 150 Zynga employees for cost saving measures. It seems there are more layoffs to follow but Anonymous intends to launch an attack against Zynga on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day.

United States linked to more undiscovered cyber espionage malware
Major cyber espionage threats like Stuxnet and Flame have been known to originate in the United States. It now appears that there are at least 3 more major viruses that have not yet been discovered. With a little help from Israel, the US seems to have set the ball rolling for major cyber espionage software and this could have major repercussions for them in the future. We will add subsequent updates to this piece of news.

Japanese banks hit by phishing cases
Several major banks in Japan were hit by a large scale phishing attack. The attack only affected machines that had certain viruses present on them. When these machines visited the websites of one of these banks, they were shown fake phishing pages. It is still not known if there was any serious loss of data or personal information.

Rahul Thadani