Copy Machines Can Store Your Private Info

The dangers of identity theft are well-publicized. We've all been warned to shred our documents, be on the lookout for fishing scams and check our credit report regularly.

But there is a new potential threat to our identity lurking in warehouses across the country. We're talking about copy machines.

"Copy machines today are just like computers," explained Boston security expert Robert Siciliano. "They have hard drives and can store data that can be extracted." .. More >>

Hack Turns Application Code Against Itself ... New attack uses application flaws to force good code to go rogue

Turns out you don't need malware to exploit a security flaw in an application: A pair of researchers has found a way to automatically make good code do bad things.

Researchers from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) have devised a technique that basically lets an attacker bypass built-in system defenses aimed at blocking malware, and then execute instructions from inside the application. The process uses an application's vulnerability to turn it against the system on which it runs.

An attacker could take advantage of a flaw in a Web browser, for instance, to force the browser to spam the user's address book using only the browser's own code, according to the researchers. .. More >>