Mobile Security

As the privacy and tracking debate rages in the desktop arena, Mozilla has made a jump to the mobile world by announcing its new Boot to Gecko project, which will include an implementation of the Do Not Track technology on mobile devices. This is the first such implementation and it will give users the ability to tell mobile sites that they don’t want to be tracked persistently while using the Web from their phones.

Adobe on Monday issued two emergency fixes for critical security vulnerabilities in its Flash Player product. The vulnerabilities, if left unpatched, could allow an attacker to take control of a system running a vulnerable version of Flash Player.

Dennis Fisher talks with Paul Judge of Barracuda Labs about his new project, which uses data on the vendors and products on display at the RSA Conference to determine which topics and technologies are the hottest at the moment.

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) released the specifications for a new, super-secure smartphone for use by government officials and based on Google’s widely-used Android operating system, inviting the public to make use of its research.

SAN FRANCISCO – Companies that are hoping to catch a ride on the mobile wave should pay close attention to the application development firms they choose to work with, unless they want to be saddled with a buggy and insecure albatross bearing their corporate logo, a leading application security expert warns.

Right on cue this week, the anarchic hacking collective Anonymous stepped up and grabbed the story line away from the lions of the IT security industry.With the annual RSA Conference set to begin, the whistle blowing site Wikileaks released the first of some five million e-mail messages stolen from the security intelligence firm Stratfor. Ever sensitive to the fickle attention of the media, Anonymous inserted itself into the story, claiming responsibility for leaking the data and pointing a finger of blame at Stratfor and its media, private and public sector customers, which Anonymous accuses of spying and other dark offenses.

This has turned out to be an interesting week for privacy. Just a few days after the White House laid out is privacy agenda, the California attorney general has announced an agreement with several major mobile platform providers, including Apple and Google, that will have the companies provide privacy statements for apps before users download them.