Weekly Roundup of the Latest Security News and Updates
Pune Cops Shut Down 25 Suspicious Bank Accounts
The infamous Nigerian scam is yet again making the headlines, and this time in the city of Pune. Reportedly, many people have been duped by miscreants running this scam. The fraudsters used text messages, emails, and websites to trick their targets. Fortunately, city cops have been quite proactive about the whole matter. Reportedly, they have shut down 25 bank accounts that were involved in cheating rackets. Read more about this news here.
Take that NSA! – Says Pirate Bay founder with his New Surveillance-Proof Messaging App
The arrival of the cyber snooping program PRISM, designed by National Security Agency, ruffled quite a few feathers in public. But it looks like someone is up for returning the favor. Peter Sunde, co-founder of popular torrent site, Pirate Bay, has teamed up with some developers to come up with a spy-proof messaging app. It will be available for both iOS and Android platforms. Sunde has also announced that the app, christened Hemlis, will be free of any advertisements.
WhatsApp, Priyanka and its Funny Business!
After its hoax incident, WhatsApp seems to have appeared in the news again. And this time, it is linked to “Priyanka”. Discovered by a blogger, when a victim receives a contact file called “Priyanka”, their WhatsApp contact names change to “Priyanka”. Given the way it spreads, the problem could be a worm. And it relies on the victim to accept and install the contact file mentioned above. So far, the worm has not shown any signs of being a critical security danger, and it only seems to affect the Android versions of WhatsApp. But wait! Before going into a oh-my-god-what-is-wrong-with-WhatsApp fits, know that WhatsApp has not given any confirmation about this so called “Priyanka” worm, neither we or any of the IT security players have been able to find any samples of the same. So, for now let’s not treat this news anything more than an unconfirmed piece of info.
First Ubisoft, Now Nintendo
Looks like websites of video game companies have become the new favorite for hackers. Nintendo recently announced that its Japanese fan site Club Nintendo was hacked between 9th and 11th July. The company stated that over 23,000 user accounts were compromised in the attack, exposing details such as names, email ids, home addresses, and phone numbers. Around 23,926 incidents of unauthorized logins were performed during this security incident. Any misuse of the data breach has not been reported yet. Read more about this news here.
Indian Government wants to Encroach Privacy and BlackBerry Obliges!
BlackBerry consumer messaging service has been brought under the radar of the Indian government’s surveillance program. Now, data on BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) email can be lawfully intercepted by security officials. However, the company has stated that customers of BlackBerry Enterprise Server will not be affected. To read what BlackBerry has officially said about this development, follow this link.
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