Articles by John P. Mello Jr

After three years of wrangling with Google over its alleged anticompetitive business practices, the European Union has suggested there may be some light at the end of the tunnel "We have reached a key moment in this case," European Commission Vice President Joaquin Almunia, who is responsible for competition policy, said at a Parliament hearing Tu...

Almost all cyberattacks these days require an element of social engineering. Spammers are always looking for that hot button to induce a click on a link or an attachment. Drive-by artists continually experiment with poisoned banner ads designed to steer the curious into an online dark alley. Spearphishers put together persuasive pitches pretending to be friends or a trusted institution...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday unveiled a plan to identify existing Park-n-Ride facilities, rest stops and parking areas on the state's highways as "Texting Zones." There's nothing now -- other than impatience -- preventing drivers from pulling off the road into those areas to read and send text messages, but with the new initiative, appropr...

Allowing workers to use personal phones and tablets to do their jobs has created security risks in the workplace, but those risks can be minimized if they're managed What should such a risk management program do? "The first step is you have to protect the device," IBM Application, Data and Mobile Security Director Caleb Barlow told TechNewsWorld....

Microsoft revealed Tuesday it was investigating a previously unknown security flaw affecting all versions of its Web browser, Internet Explorer Hackers have attempted to exploit the vulnerability in targeted attacks on users of versions 8 and 9 of the browser, the company reported in a security advisory....

Web applications have become attractive targets for hackers because they allow bad actors to maximize the reach of their mischief with a minimum of effort That's what originally attracted the Internet underworld to programs like Windows and Adobe Acrobat, and it's what continues to attract them to Java. A vulnerability in one of those programs can ...

As America crawls toward retaliation against Syria for its government's use of chemical weapons on its citizens, debate rages over what form it should take. Could cyberweapons be part of such an action? "Cyberweapons are just another piece of our military arsenal and should be considered along with every other military option," security expert and...

Sony introduced its QX10 and QX100 lens-style cameras on Wednesday. The devices, which look like very thin point-and-shoot cameras, can connect to a smartphone wirelessly and use the phone's display as a real-time viewfinder ...

The Japanese government on Tuesday announced it would be allocating US$473 million to help the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), build an ice wall to prevent water being used to cool it from poisoning the surrounding groundwater Currently, it's estimated that more than 79,000 gallons of contaminate...

If there's one attack surface that's attracting growing attention from digital marauders, it's a system's endpoints. With the proliferation of devices accessing corporate networks, securing connections can be a defender's nightmare Endpoints have an allure for attackers because they offer multiple attack vectors, such as social engineering attacks,...

Facebook on Monday released transparency reports of government requests for its users' data Privacy groups hailed the move as a positive step forward -- rare praise for the company, which has had a checkered relationship with those groups over the years.

Standards can be a way to get organizations to do things you want them to do, but oftentimes they don't get them to do much more The writers of payment-card standards appear to have been acutely aware of that phenomenon when the PCI Security Standards Council previewed their new PCI DSS 3.0 standard earlier this month....

With nearly a month to spare, startup Omate burst through its Kickstarter goal of US$100,000 this week and is on its way to shipping its TruSmart smartwatch in time for the holiday season More than $250,000 have been pledged so far toward the device, which is perhaps the closest thing yet to an Android smartphone that can be worn on a wrist....

In an abrupt about-face, Instagram has begun cracking the whip over developers using "insta" and "gram" in the titles of their apps In a letter sent to several developers earlier this week, Instagram said it had "clarified" its guidelines and determined that "use of 'INSTA' and 'GRAM' for an application that works with Instagram is harmful to the I...

Competition heated up in the OLED TV market Tuesday as Samsung announced it was shipping its first production model using the technology and that it would sell for US$8,999 ...

Content management systems like WordPress and Joombla have become popular targets for hackers in recent times because flaws in those systems can be leveraged for mischief across literally millions of websites WordPress is running on some 73 million websites and Joomla some 35 million, so if you're a cybercriminal with a fresh vulnerability to one o...

Consumers with an itch for a hybrid car can now spend less scratch for one. Chevy announced Tuesday that the 2014 models of its Volt plug-in hybrid vehicle will carry a sticker price of US$34,995, a $5,000 cut from the current model. A federal tax credit of up to $7,500 for some buyers of green vehicles could lower the price further....

DDoS attacks have long been a weapon of Internet dissidents to punish those they disagree with, while cybercriminals use them to create a digital smoke screen to hide their misdeeds DDoS attackers typically flood a website with traffic, denying legitimate users access to the server....

For the first time in more than a decade, SmugMug has given itself a major facelift The new look for the image watering hole comes a scant two months after Flickr, another picture Web oasis, overhauled its Web presence -- a move that received mixed reviews from some of its 89 million or so users....

Ransomware has made the jump from personal computers to the Android world Android.FakeAV.C, a new breed of ransomware, has been spotted in Asia -- almost half (48 percent) in India and Indonesia -- according to an alert by Bitdefender security researcher Liviu Arsene....