Archive for the ‘Computer Security News’ Category
NPR reporting on cyber security
For the last few days, NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten has been reporting on cyber security. It has been a three-part series that started with this:
Americans do not often hear that someone has found a way to overcome U.S. defenses, but military and intelligence officials have been sounding downright alarmist lately with their warnings that the country is ill-prepared to deal with a cyberattack.
I’m a tech guy to begin with, so some of the information being shared seemed pretty simple and basic, but there was some interesting information shared in each piece. Check it out:
Can’t Open Your E-Mailbox? Good Luck
From the New York Times:
Logging on to Gmail or other e-mail service has become a routine of daily life, completed without a thought. What would you do, however, if you woke up tomorrow, plugged in your user name and password as you always do, but then received an unfamiliar message: “User name and password do not match”?
If you’re a Gmail user, what you’ll want to do after a few more unsuccessful, increasingly frantic attempts is to speak with a Google customer support representative, post haste. But that’s not an option. Google doesn’t offer a toll-free number and a live person to resolve the ordinary user’s problems.
Discussion forums abound with tales of woe from Gmail customers who have found themselves locked out of their account for days or even weeks.
NASA finds nasty virus on space station
From The Great Beyond (a “Nature” blog):
Ok, the headline is a little misleading. But it’s still a bit worrying that NASA has found a computer virus on the space station.
Astronauts onboard the International Space Station are now running anti-virus software on their systems, following last week’s detection of an unwanted computer-guest.
According to Space.ref a ‘W32.Gammima.AG worm’ was detected on the ISS.