Symantec

According to Symantec Corp report users’ personal information at Facebook may have been accidentally leaked to third parties, in particular advertisers, over the past few years.

The security firm wrote in a blog post that third-parties would have had access to personal information such as profiles, photographs and chat, and could have had the ability to post messages.

"We estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage," the blog post said.

Supporting the prognosis made by McAfee, Symantec's MessageLabs Intelligence: 2010 Annual Security Report reveal worrying malware trends in 2010 and makes gloomy forecast for 2011.

What cyber threats businesses and consumers should expect in 2011? This question was discussed by WebProNews with Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Sr. Analyst at Symantec Hosted Services.

According to the latest research from Symantec entitled "Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact", about 65% of all web users globally have become the victims of cybercrime.

According to the research data, 58% of cybercrime victims, hurt by viruses and online credit card fraud, feel angry, while 51% responded they were annoyed and 40% admitted to feeling cheated.

Moreover, 80% of web users don't believe the cybercriminals will be caught, while only 3% believe they won't fall victim to crime online.

A new survey commissioned by Symantec revealed that about 2/3 of all Internet users have been attacked by some sort of cyber crime, and a surprisingly large percentage of them felt guilty about that.

The survey polled more than 7,000 Internet users in 14 countries and found that 65% of Internet users worldwide have already been victims. In the U.S., it's 73 percent, but things are worse in China (83 percent), Brazil (76 percent) and India (also 76 percent).

Three security firms warned that a vulnerability recently discovered in the operating system run by Apple iPad and iPhone could allow hackers to get the full control of the devices.

The bug in the Apple iOS which is also run by iPod touch could enable hackers to enslave a vulnerable device, as reported by Symantec Corp as well as privately held Lookout and Vupen.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison said the company was aware of the report and is investigating.

The Symantec report revealed that 72% of children say they would not participate in cyberbullying. The company’s Norton Cybercrime Human Impact Report (NCHIR) shows that children's behavior online is improving, as is their tendency to get help dealing with cyberbullying.

The report says that even though 55% of children admitted they had experienced negative behavior online more than ¾ of them said they would speak to their parents if they were threatened with physical harm or were sent suspicious or inappropriate material when online.

Not only footballers are gearing up for this month's World Cup extravaganza in South Africa, fraudsters are also aiming at FIFA. 

Football governing body FIFA has already warned supporters to be wary over various forms of scams that are likely to crop up in the run-up to the start of the tournament, which kicks off in ten days time.

This week Symantec and VeriSign confirmed the rumors that Symantec will acquire VeriSign’s security business. The acquisition is estimated at US$1.28 billion. The deal will allow VeriSign to focus on its more-profitable domain name business while Symantec will be able to broaden its growing portfolio of enterprise security products.

A new social networking site that allows users to share their credit card transactions online could expose consumers to unnecessary risk, warns a security expert.
Members of the site, dubbed Blippy, can broadcast their transactions and details of their purchases in the form of Facebook-like updates. Users do so by providing the site with details of their credit and debit cards, as well as accounts at online stores such as Amazon and Apple's iTunes store.

According to a new cybercrime Symantec report, tens of millions of US PCs are infected with scam security software. Moreover, software, users may have pay for, can only make computers more vulnerable.

 Symantec found 250 varieties of security malware with legitimate sounding names like Antivirus 2010 and SpywareGuard 2008. The company also found about 43 million attempted downloads in one year, however it was not made sure how many of the attempted downloads succeeded.