A number of Facebook apps have been providing advertisers with information that make social networking users easily identifiable, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal.
All 10 of Facebook’s most popular apps, including Farmville and Texas HoldEm Poker, are among those leaking the unique ‘Facebook ID’ number to outside firms. Every Facebook number is individual and assigned to every profile. Searching for the number will provide access to the Facebook user’s profile and anyone can view the information a user has chosen to share with ‘everyone’. This can include their name, date of birth and even photos.
Farmville, which has 59 million users, also passes this information about a user’s friends. The WSJ said at least 25 firms were being sent the Facebook IDs, which they were using to build profiles of web users, and in some cases, even track their web browsing. It’s not known if the developers knew their apps were leaking data.

Millions of Facebook users have been affected, even those that use the social network’s strongest privacy settings. It also breaks Facebook’s rules concerning privacy, which state app developers can not pass on users’ data to outside firms, even if the user has given permission.
Facebook admitted a user’s ID “may be inadvertently shared by a user’s internet browser or by an application” but it “does not permit access to anyone’s private information on Facebook”.
Third-party developers are usually responsible for developing the apps. Facebook stopped users accessing several apps thought to have been leaking personal data.
“We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms,” Facebook said. The WSJ named RapLeaf as one of the developers using the Facebook IDs in its own database as well as passing them onto to several other firms.

How the Google car works?

• The car has a video camera which reads traffic lights and helps the car’s computer recognize traffic on the road.
• A radars which help decide positions of faraway objects.
• Another radar like device at the top which creates a 3D map of the car’s surroundings.
• This information is crunched by computers on-board the car and help it navigate around on the roads without the need of a driver.

What is driving Google?

• Genuine concerns of safety. Imagine cars which just did not allow people to drive rashly or over the speed limit. It will obviously make car travel safer. Most road safety research statistics show that rise in number of accidents are due to human errors.
• The other thing that could be this is a great way for Google to showcase their technology (android, google maps).

Firebug Lite is a Java Script that enables us to use Firebug like features in other browsers. It gives the same look and feel like Firebug. If you wish to use Firebug Lite for IE6 or other browsers like Chrome,Safari then here’s the way how to do that.

Just add the following code at the top of the of your page inside script tag :

New cyber threats bypass most network security systems,


Cybercriminals are using new, advanced evasion techniques that can pose a serious threat to existing network security systems worldwide, says security firm Stonesoft.

Companies may suffer a significant data breach including the loss of confidential corporate information, the firm warned.

According to the Stonesoft's Helsinki research labs, the threats significantly extend what was previously known about evasion techniques.

The researchers found that the new techniques provide cybercriminals with a master key to any vulnerable system such as ERP by bypassing network security systems.

"It does not matter what intrusion prevention systems are in place, because these master keys can bypass most of them," said Ilkka Hiidenheimo, chief executive at Stonesoft.
200 evasion techniques

Cybercriminals are now using 200 different evasion techniques in combination to create an almost infinite number of different attack methods, he told Computer Weekly.

A range of content inspection technologies are affected, said researchers, which means cybercriminals can use them to evade many network security systems.

Field tests and experimental data show many of the existing network security solutions fail to detect these techniques and thus fail to block the attack inside.

The details of this discovery have been shared with CERT-FI in Finland for vulnerability co-ordination purposes and validated by ICSA Labs.

CERT-FI said it would work with Stonesoft and other network security suppliers to remediate the vulnerabilities exposed by the new evasion techniques.

ICSA Labs said the advanced evasion techniques could result in lost corporate assets with potentially serious consequences for breached organisations.

The dynamic and undetectable nature of these advanced evasion techniques could have a direct effect on the network security landscape, said Juha Kivikoski, chief operating officer at Stonesoft.

"The industry is facing a non-stop race against this type of advanced threats and we believe only dynamic solutions can address this vulnerability," he said.
Defence

The best defence against these evasion techniques is through flexible, software-based security systems with remote update and centralised management capabilities, said Ash Patel, country manager for UK and Ireland at Stonesoft

However, most organisations today use static hardware-based solutions, which can be difficult or even impossible to update against rapidly evolving and dynamic threats, he said.

"By working at different layers in the TCP/IP stack, cybercriminals can set up invisible communication channels in which they can embed attacks," he said.

According to Patel, 99% of network security systems are vulnerable to these techniques, and it is therefore important for all organisations to identify all their critical data assets and find out as much as they can about the threat to ensure they are protected.

Stonesoft has published detailed information and a video on the advanced evasion techniques, and called on the network security industry to collaborate on combating them.