LastPass Hacked and Best of Technology and Security This Week

Anybody who relied on using LastPass as the central archive for your passwords might be alarmed to find out that the system was hacked this week. Specifically, some Master Passwords and E-mail addresses were breached, which means if you used this service, you should at least go and change your Master Password. The official statement from LastPass was:

We want to notify our community that on Friday, our team discovered and blocked suspicious activity on our network. In our investigation, we have found no evidence that encrypted user vault data was taken, nor that LastPass user accounts were accessed. The investigation has shown, however, that LastPass account email addresses, password reminders, server per user salts, and authentication hashes were compromised.

Non Lastpass Security News

How safe is that app you are using on your “Smartphone”? Evidently, not very, as there are billions of records at risk from mobile app data flow, I think the world of mobile apps really needs to tighten up its security (in general). Do you like to look at pictures online? I know I do, however, Dell Secureworks has uncovered a trojan that hides in image files, guess I shouldn’t look at too many photos. I have never been very fond of the trickery Ask did to get their toolbars installed and evidently, neither does Microsoft, as now the ‘Ask’ Toolbar is Considered ‘high threat’ Malware by the Microsoft Security Package. Can’t be good news for the folks at ‘Ask’.

Have you ever received a call from “Microsoft Tech Support” about how your computer has been infiltrated? I know my family has. Have you ever played along with them? I did once, and it ended quite rudely, but this article is even more interesting. Speaking of infiltration the Canadian Government seems to have caught the ire of Anonymous and many Government sites were subjected to a Denial of Service attack this past week. Worrisome how easy it is to shut sites down this way.

Everyone seems to think that credit card terminals are safe, well this code hacks nearly every credit card machine in America, seems to imply they are really not that safe after all.

Technology

How have things changed in technology over the past 20 years? KPCB has in their 2015 Internet Trends an amazing table (for old folks like me) that highlights who are the biggest “Internet Companies” by market capitalization, in comparison to 1995.

Do you like using your “smartphone” as a method to pay for things? This past week there were two interesting articles posted about that technology with Google Goes Contactless with Android Pay, allowing your Android phone to pay for things with Android Pay ( a new Google Product). Do you say you like your iPhone more? If you live in the UK Apple Pay is coming your way (in July), so you will be able to quickly “tap and pay” with your iPhone. I like the convenience of these technologies, but they do worry me somewhat (on the security side of things).

An interesting poll suggests Most Brits Would Sacrifice Chocolate, Alcohol and Sex before Broadband. My ancestors have changed. If you are waiting for your Free Windows 10 Update it is due 29 July.  Oh and it seems Twitter has now become a messaging app, with the extending of the length of DM’s from 140 characters to 10,000.