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55K Twitter Passwords Leaked

Rob Quinn — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:20:53 CDT

The usernames and passwords of more than 55,000 Twitter tweeters were leaked online Monday in a data dump that has puzzled experts. Twitter says that at least 20,000 of the leaked accounts were duplicates, and many more were spam accounts that had already been suspended, InformationWeek reports. Password...

4.5B Spam Texts Flooded Our Phones Last Year

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:05:15 CDT

Getting spam on your cell phone? You're not alone: Spam text messages in the US soared 45% to 4.5 billion last year, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. "I don't even get that much junk mail in my Gmail account," says a journalist in Washington, DC. "This is my phone....

NY Times Mistakenly Sends Email to 9M People

John Johnson — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:29:53 CST

Nearly 9 million people got a puzzling email from the New York Times today, but fears of a massive hack are apparently unfounded. Turns out, it was good old-fashioned human error. The newspaper meant to send the email only to a few hundred people who had recently canceled home delivery,...

Inventor of Microsoft's Spam Filter Out to Kill HIV

Kevin Spak — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:09:05 CST

David Heckerman, the man who invented the spam filter for Microsoft, is taking on another scourge against humanity: HIV. Sound like a stretch? It’s not, Heckerman insists: He’s a medical doctor, and HIV and spam are strangely similar problems. "We have an adversarial situation going on between spam filters trying...

Facebook Slammed by Massive Porn Attack

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:26:05 CST

Forbes has a warning for you: "You may not want to check Facebook at work today." Why? Because, as numerous outlets are reporting , your news feed may have been inundated with porn and disturbing images thanks to a huge spam attack. One tweet sums it up: "I saw a dead...

Spammers Actually Deliver What You Order

Rob Quinn — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:04:05 CDT

Researchers probing the world of spam were surprised to discover that the email-box-clogging lowlifes of the Internet aren't quite as scummy as one would expect. The investigators, whose study involved making numerous purchases from spammers, found that the goods ordered—including pills and fake Rolexes—were usually delivered, reports Consumerist.

Finally! Study Discovers Way to Kill Spam

Matt Cantor — Fri, 20 May 2011 09:18:27 CDT

Researchers in California think they’ve found spammers’ weak point—and say it could be used to help kill off the industry. To make their discovery, the researchers spent months trying to attract all the spam they could before buying thousands of dollars worth of products advertised in those emails. In...

Beware of Links Promising Photos of Dead bin Laden

Rob Quinn — Wed, 04 May 2011 09:43:58 CDT

Clicking on links that promise to show photos or video of a dead Osama bin Laden is a bad idea, cybersecurity experts warn. Spammers and scammers have moved even faster than usual to spread malicious links aimed at Facebook and Google users, reports the Los Angeles Times . "The bad guys...

20% of Your Facebook Friends Are Strangers

Matt Cantor — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:37:05 CST

A fifth of your Facebook friends are people you don’t even know—and three-fifths are just acquaintances, a study finds. The fact that only 20% of your friends are your actual friends may not come as a surprise to the average Facebook user, notes AllFacebook.com , but it’s a fact...