Blue Bugle: Mobile, Desktop & Web Technologies

Are you a fan of Apple Macintosh computers? Do you run Mac OS X Lion or Mountain Lion? Are you planning on upgrading to Mavericks? You should be wondering about the viruses, malware, and Internet security on Apple Macintosh systems. It is appalling to know that there are many threads online talking about antivirus on Mac, and some so-called ‘experts’ say there is no need for an antivirus on Macintosh. They couldn’t be more wrong. Although there are very few viruses affecting Mac in comparison to PC, there are. Viruses and malwares are increasing in the Mac domain as well, and Apple is getting concerned about them quite a bit. Hence, it is imperative that you install an antivirus and Internet security application on your Mac computer. Recently, NYTimes Bits posted  about widespread virus attacks on Macintosh. Here is an image showing the major malware and viruses on Mac. In this time, you very much need to get a very good antivirus and Internet security application for M...

Google protects your web browsing with its Safe Browsing technology without even your knowledge. If you are using Google as a search engine , you are automatically protected by Safe Browsing. This is the engine that warns you about a website and gives you notification as to whether or not the content is safe for browsing. All Google products, including the browser, Chrome, are already provided with Safe Browsing technology. It is also available in other major browsers including Firefox and Apple Safari. Recently, Google published this transparency report  that raises some genuine concerns over the way we browse the Internet. It seems the websites that have been hacked pose more threat to us than those which have been intentionally built to hack. In our previous interactions regarding Java  and other software products, we have mentioned quite a bit about web security. It is pretty important that you do two things—update software that you have on your system and keep a very ...

Search one of these strings in Google. Chances are that you will find the live feed of an unsecured webcam. inurl:/view.shtml inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode= inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=Refresh inurl:axis-cgi/jpg inurl:axis-cgi/mjpg (motion-JPEG) intitle:”Live View / - AXIS” | inurl:view/view.shtml^ A webcam, your webcam, may be secured unlike any of the public ones you may find. However, there are hackers out there who can easily get access to your webcam and feed it to the world. It is not at all difficult for them. With a bit of code, hackers can access any piece of hardware on your computer, and a webcam is no different. How serious are the consequences of exposing your webcam? Well, if you have children at home and you want to protect their privacy, you cannot be serious enough about this. Your webcam should be yours and you should have complete control over it. There was a recent investigation by BBC, about a Finnish hacker who hacks and sells people’s webcams for money. Here is th...

It was March 30, 2011 . Google announced its plans to build an infrastructure that will provide ultra-high-speed broadband to a few lucky users in Kansas City, Kansas. This is Google Fiber, the ultra-fast Internet service from the search giant. With this development, one has to wonder if we are there yet? In terms of the fastest speeds in broadband, the United States, despite being a giant in technology, is ranked nowhere. South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, etc., have broad band connections with an average speed around 50 Mbps. As reported by the NY Times in a recent article, South Korea already had plans to build nearly 1 Gbps speed into every home in the country; already, about 1500 homes in 5 cities have been connected to 1 Gbps Internet. We don’t know how far the program has progressed since then. In the recent analysis, South Korea already has the fastest Internet speeds in the world, with Hong Kong competing close behind. That country’s Internet is easily 200 times f...

ECPA (the Electronic Communications Privacy Act) of 1986 in the United States has enabled the US government to legally seek information from online service providers about various activities conducted by their users. It had a major amendment in the form of the Patriot Act of Oct 26, 2011 , in response to the 9/11 attacks. With this amendment, the government and agencies affiliated to the government, such as the FBI, NSA, etc., can demand information about user activities from any company. Google, in its transparency report  about user data requests, did reveal the information demanded by government agencies. Quite recently, Microsoft also outed how much data has been requested from the company by the use of this law. Through the amendment known as the Patriot act (USA PATRIOT Act), law enforcement agencies are capable of demanding information required for further investigation and evidence-gathering through what is known as National Security Letters (NSL). ECPA, Patriot Act, ...

On the first of this month, Twitter reported  a hacking attempt on the social network that compromised over 250,000 accounts. Within hours after the attack pattern emerged, we were experiencing Twitter downtime for some time. Twitter had shut down itself to recover from the attack. Now, everything is under control, as per the latest update. However, if you are one of the 250,000 that got hacked, you should take immediate action. Here, we have a complete security guide to the social network. How to Know If Your Twitter Account Is Hacked? There are two types of account hacks—implicit and explicit. Explicit hacks are the ones that you can immediately identify. For instance, you will see unusual activity on your account—direct messages that you never initiated, an increase in the number of people you follow, unknown new people in your ‘following’ list, tweets and retweets that you did not initiate, etc. In the worst case, your hacker changes your password and you will no lon...

Do you have an Android smartphone? Within the Google Play store, you can and should get a very good security app. The app should have the following features—antivirus, antimalware, antispyware, internet security component, and optionally an anti-theft component. The internet security apps may cost you some money, but they are well worth it. Here, we have a list of apps that you can try. You should also check out our article about worst security apps in Android that you should avoid. 5. McAfee Antivirus and Security As you know McAfee is one of the premier providers of virus protection among PCs and laptops, it is quite safe to assume the quality of the product. Within AV-Test antivirus tests conducted a few months ago, McAfee was one of the apps that have passed all of the antivirus tests. I can hear people raising complaints about its slightly uninspiring interface though. However, you should understand that it is a highly effective virus killer. Also, McAfee does provide ...

In 2011, an Android malware known as DroidDream appeared on over fifty Android apps. This was reported by Aaron Gingrich of Android Police  back then. On a more recent note, last year in October, a few researchers from German universities, Leibniz and Philipps, have identified forty-one insecure apps in the Google Play store that could compromise sensitive information on your Android device—things like your bank account number, credit card number, and more. Here is the detailed PDF of the study. The important thing about this study is that these forty-one apps have been downloaded over 185 million times, and they are among the top rated free apps available in the Android market. The apps have since been pulled. As of yesterday, Android market, the Google Play store, has 618,751 apps in total. Over 77 per cent of them are free apps, and they enjoy enormous number of downloads. Google has its store secured with proper security measures. It was in February last year that Googl...

Are you careful about the security of your smartphone? For your Android device, Google Play store offers a number of antivirus apps. There are paid and free apps from professional companies like Avast!, Kaspersky, and Lookout, as well as free antivirus apps that install and work relatively faster. Among the security apps found on the Play Store, there are a number of free, lightweight ones, most of which enjoy a great number of downloads and high ratings. Most of the ratings are done by people who find the interface easy to use, but have no idea whether the app actually works or not. Many of us feel the app is great if the interface is cool, don’t we? It is painful to note that most of these free apps not only fail at most antivirus tests, but experts regard them to be incapable of detecting any threat. Last year, the latest mobile antivirus test report was published by AV-Test.org , in which they tested and rated the best and the worst antivirus programs among multiple platforms. ...

Thousands of smartphones get hacked every day. It has actually become sort of a problem today, and there are a number of apps that have been released to protect smartphones from theft. Here is an infographic I created that details the various methods the smartphone hackers are using to attack your device. The graphic is based on data found at Lookout.com . In order to embed the infographic on your blog, use the following code: <iframe src="http://infogr.am/How-are-they-attacking-you/" width="680" height="4130" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none;"></iframe><br/>As found at: <a href="http://www.bluebugle.org/2013/01/smartphone-hacking-infographic.html"> Smartphone hacking | Blue Bugle</a> and <a href="https://www.lookout.com/resources/reports/state-of-mobile-security-2012">Lookout.com</a>

Lost your mobile phone? Got it stolen? If it is an Android phone , you could get it back easily if you installed one of the following apps. In the smartphone world, getting a phone stolen happens pretty often. In the UK, the Telegraph reported last year that about 264 mobile phones got stolen every day, and this is only the official count of stolen smartphones. In the US, CF News 13 reported by the end of last year that 113 smartphones get stolen every minute, and that could mean tens of thousands of phones are stolen every day. There has also been a report on the HuffPost of a chef being killed for his iPhone. If you have an Android phone, one of the following apps can get you your smartphone back pretty quickly. 1. Lookout Security & Antivirus Lookout app, available for free from the Android market, features a number of smart methods to locate your smartphone. The app can sound an alarm even in the silent mode to find the phone if you just misplaced it in your ap...