The UK’s National Grid is looking into implementing sensor chips in new white goods such as freezers, refrigerators, washing machines, and air-conditioners and electric ovens, to shut them down “Big brother-style” to balance spikes in the national energy demand. UK home appliances could be remotely switched off if British power generators can't meet electricity demand. The intervention wouldn’t need the own...

A new provision in Google’s developer content policy will prevent developers from delivering application updates directly via their web-servers. This will protect users from cleared Store apps that go rogue once installed.  According to the latest revision of the Play Developer Program Policies, developers are forbidden to rig Play apps with mechanisms that "modify, replace or update its own APK binary code...

A Skype user by the handle Ximer had his account stolen six times in a single day by a group of cyber-crooks. According to a post by the victim on the Skype Community forum, the attackers repeatedly conned the Skype support team into handing them control over Ximer’s account. To restore access to a lost account, the Skype support team asks the user to provide three to five contacts on Skype, one e-mail addr...

The FBI’s petition to plant spyware on suspects’ computers to harvest information helpful for an investigation has been dismissed by a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The petition was sent in March, when the FBI sought a warrant to search a computer of an unknown suspect at an unknown location, in relation to e-banking fraud. According to Computerworld, the software woul...

“Hello mom. I know I haven’t called you in a while, but here I was, at the office, and got an e-mail with a major discount for Mother’s Day. When can I stop by to drop off the public toilet survival kit I got for you?” If you find yourself having this implausible conversation with your mom, check your inbox – you’re probably infected with the latest Mother’s day spam. Scammers mostly pull out the same old t...

An improperly implemented feature in popular voice-over-IP application Viber can help cyber-criminals to bypass the locking mechanism of smartphones. UPDATE: Viber has contacted us to announce an update that fixes the issue. Please make sure that you install the update from Google Play or from the company's product page. According to a report by BKAV, Android-based smartphones running Viber can be unlocked ...

A Facebook group that offered fraud ‘services’ was recently shut down after the social network found its members published credit card details, networks of hacked computers and other illegal information, according to The Guardian. The group identified by RSA security researchers included a list of stolen identities apparently obtained by a member. The fake profile, launched on 28 February, gathered 163 “lik...

Hackers may breach stoplights and gas pumps through vulnerable serial port systems, according to Rapid7. The security company warns thousands of systems are exposed to cyber-attacks because they connect to the Internet through insecure terminal servers. More than 114,000 serial port systems are vulnerable, most belonging to Digi International or Lantronix, according to the company. Most of the servers acces...

Point of sale terminals are the most common target in breaches in the health care system, even as health care professionals focus more on protecting data privacy than payment systems, according to Verizon's 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). Some 64 percent of such breaches in the health care system focus on point of sale terminals while only 38 percent target desktops or workstations, according...

The Associated Press Twitter account was hacked and a false tweet informing followers of a bombing attempt at the White House was posted on The AP’s behalf. The attack was claimed by the Syrian Electronic Army. Saying President Obama was hurt during the incident, the tweet caused a seven-minute stock price plunge that recovered after The AP reported the hack and confirmed the tweet was bogus. "The @AP Twitt...