Privacy

Dozens of individuals from Winchester, a small Kentucky town east of Lexington have been targeted by hackers, according to a report earlier this week in the Lexington Herald-Leader. The newspaper claims between 50 and 100 diners at Puerta Grande, a small Mexican restaurant, were hit with bank fraud at some point in the last two weeks.

Instagram has patched a flaw in its photo sharing application that could have allowed anyone to add themselves as friends to accounts and view information and photos that were set to private.

The FTC is nearing completion of its investigation into allegations that Google used a special technique to circumvent the privacy settings on Safari to enable better tracking of users, even when tracking was disabled by the user. The decision may cost Google millions of dollars in fines, but it’s not clear whether that will serve as any kind of deterrent for a company that brings in tens of billions of dollars in revenue each year.

The security firm Trusteer reports that new Web-based attacks are targeting Android smartphone users in a campaign to circumvent two-factor sign-on features used by many banks to protect account holders.

Here’s the good news on America’s birthday: the last year has seen the U.S. emerge as an undisputed global leader in the use of offensive cyber operations. Averting another “Sputnik” moment, the nation’s longest running and most successful democracy blazed new trails in non-kinetic warfare, effectively ending speculation that the world’s lone superpower was asleep at the wheel as nations like China and Russia dashed ahead in the cyber realm. Now for the bad news: we’re screwed.

Cisco appears to have retracted a controversial addition to its privacy policy that allowed the company to track data, including complete Internet histories, for users of its Linksys E2700, E3500 and E4500 routers.

The policy revisions were part of an automatic firmware update that outraged users last week, who tried to log in and found they must instead install the new Cisco Cloud Connect service. The automatic upgrade came without notice and with forced acceptance of a less-private user agreement.

Privacy advocates and security experts often warn users about the consequences of handing over so much of their personal data to Web sites or social networks, saying that they never know how it’s going to be used or sold. But it’s rare that users ever see examples of that in action. Twitter is giving people that chance with its decision to begin releasing reports on law enforcement requests for user data and content takedowns.