Security news updates from the last week

Indian power grids are vulnerable to cyber-attackers
The recent power outage in North India caused mayhem and now officials have said that it is possible for cyber-attackers to hack into the Indian power grid. There is a surprising lack of defense protocols in this sector and this is the cause for tremendous alarm. CERT-IN (Computer Emergency Response Teams) have been set up for various sectors in the country and we all hope that they can prove to be effective when required.

8.7% of Facebook accounts found to be fake
According to industry estimates, around 83 million of Facebook accounts are fake. This amounts to about 8.7% of Facebook’s 950 million + accounts. Only 1.5% of total accounts are used for spamming purposes but this is not reassuring, as it still counts up to a large number. Duplicate accounts or fake accounts add up to 4.8% whereas misclassified accounts add up to 2.4% of total accounts.

Outlook mail users face password restrictions
Hotmail users have been graced with a modernized revamp of the mail service under the ‘Outlook’ brand name. While this is just a preview version right now, people can visit Outlook.com and create a new email address. Unfortunately, Outlook limits permissible passwords to 16 characters. In contrast, Yahoo allows 32 characters while gmail allows a massive 200. Additionally, Outlook passwords cannot contain spaces. With the recent spate of leaked passwords across various web services, this is rather unsettling news.

Reuters blogpost hacked into in Syria
The Reuters blogpost in Syria was hacked and several false blogs were published in the name of several Reuters journalists, in the midst of the Syrian civil war. This just goes to show the extent to which cyberwar is spreading. It also shows us that such activities will not be restricted to compromising state agencies. Media channels can also be exploited by attackers to serve their ulterior motives.

Rahul Thadani