$200 mn for Cyber Security infrastructure in 4 years :India Govt

New Delhi: The government Tuesday said that it will invest around USD 200 million in next four years to strengthen cyber security infrastructure.

"We have 1.2 billion people and will be largest in terms of population country in the world in years to come. This (cyber crime) affect us perhaps much more than any other country in the world," Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal said on sidelines of 3rd Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit.

The Minister added that priority for India at present is to protect its infrastructure like nuclear, aviation, banking infrastructure, among others.

"I presume multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral infrastructure will be established in different area. In the Department of Electronics and IT (DEITy) itself we must have investment of USD 200 million in next four years to create necessary infrastructure. We are working on that," DEITy Secretary J Satyanarayana said.

Kashmiri Muslim protested against Facebook posts:india

Muslims in Indian-administered Kashmir have protested against Facebook posts which they say insult Islam.

Police have arrested three people, all Hindus, from the Kishtwar district for allegedly running a "campaign" against Islam on the social networking site.

Two of the men are government teachers. Authorities said they had been dismissed from their jobs.

Police were put on alert after Muslim leaders called for a shutdown in the valley on Tuesday.

On Monday Muslim protestors clashed with relatives of the three men who allegedly put up the Facebook posts in Kishtwar, Doda and Bhaderwah districts.

Some protestors pelted a local police station with stones and damaged vehicles.

Singer Chinmayi Receive Abusive tweet from Anonymous

The recent arrest of two men in Tamil Nadu for harassing and threatening south Indian playback singer Chinmayi Sripada on Twitter and social media showed the country how even the virtual world is unsafe for women in India.

For a change, it also showed how women can hit back and smoke the abusive men out of their internet anonymity.

Reportedly, the men had relentlessly attacked the A-list singer, who is also an entrepreneur and voice artist, using racial, sexist and vulgar comments on her, and threatened her with rape and violence. The issue spilled over to Facebook and elsewhere on the web, where (mostly) men passed judgments on her.
Image courtesy: Facebook page.

From what Chinmayi wrote in her blog “Facing abuse and a backlash of rumours” it appears to be a rather long abusive pursuit by some men starting January last year. Reading her version of the story is quite distressing – that a young professional woman with public standing like her could be a target of such vicious attacks and threats.

14-year-old girl Kidnapped, through her Facebook Friend

When a 14-year-old girl received a Facebook friend request from an older man she didn't know, she accepted it out of curiosity. It's a click she will forever regret, leading to a brutal story that has repeated itself as sexual predators find new ways to exploit Indonesia's growing obsession with social media. 

The junior high student was quickly smitten by the man's smooth online flattery. They exchanged phone numbers, and his attention increased with rapid-fire texts. He convinced her to meet in a mall, and she found him just as charming in person. 

They agreed to meet again. After telling her mom she was going to visit a sick girlfriend on her way to church choir practice, she climbed into the man's minivan near her home in Depok, on the outskirts of Jakarta. The man, a 24-year-old who called himself Yogi, drove her an hour to the town of Bogor, West Java, she told The Associated Press in an interview. 

There, he locked her in a small room inside a house with at least five other girls aged 14 to 17. She was drugged and raped repeatedly, losing her virginity in the first violent session. 

Cyber criminal Exposed Taxpayer Data:South Carolina

As many as 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 387,000 credit and debit card numbers used by state taxpayers could have been exposed to a hacker in recent cyber attacks on the state Department of Revenue's computers, officials said on Friday.

The vast majority of the credit card numbers used by South Carolina taxpayers were encrypted, but about 16,000 were not, meaning the data was fully exposed, state police said.

None of the Social Security numbers were encrypted, said State Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry.

Berry said the hacker used a foreign Internet Protocol (IP) address to gain access to the data.

"This is not a good day for South Carolina," Governor Nikki Haley said at a news conference in the state capital of Columbia. "I want this person slammed against the wall," she said of the hacker.

"I want to get this person and make sure he can never do this to anybody or any state again," Haley said "I want that man just brutalized."

Officials said no public funds were accessed or put at risk. An investigation into the security breach is ongoing.

Investigators this month discovered two attempts to probe the Department of Revenue's system in early September, and later learned of an attempt made in late August, state officials said.

Most popular 25 worst password of the year 2012

Just in time for Halloween comes something that might scare anyone who spends a lot of time online: SplashData's annual list of the most common passwords used on the Internet and posted by hackers. Users of any of these passwords are the most likely to be victims in future breaches.

In a year with several high profile password hacking incidents at major sites including Yahoo, LinkedIn, eHarmony, and Last.fm, SplashData's list of frequently used passwords shows that many people continue to put themselves at risk by using weak, easily guessable passwords.

The top three passwords, "password," "123456," and "12345678," remain unchanged from last year's list.

New entries to this year's list include "welcome, " "jesus," "ninja," "mustang, " and "password1."

SplashData, provider of the SplashID Safe line of password management applications, releases its annual list in an effort to encourage the adoption of stronger passwords.

"At this time of year, people enjoy focusing on scary costumes, movies and decorations, but those who have been through it can tell you how terrifying it is to have your identity stolen because of a hacked password,” said Morgan Slain, SplashData CEO. “We're hoping that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will start taking simple steps to protect themselves by using stronger passwords and using different passwords for different websites."

Presenting SplashData’s “Worst Passwords of 2012”, including their current ranking and any changes from the 2011 list:

1. password (Unchanged)
2, 123456 (Unchanged)
3. 12345678 (Unchanged)
4. abc123 (Up 1)
5. qwerty (Down 1)
6. monkey (Unchanged)
7. letmein (Up 1)
8. dragon (Up 2)
9. 111111 (Up 3)
10. baseball (Up 1)
11. iloveyou (Up 2)
12. trustno1 (Down 3)
13. 1234567 (Down 6)
14. sunshine (Up 1)
15. master (Down 1)
16. 123123 (Up 4)
17. welcome (New)
18. shadow (Up 1)
19. ashley (Down 3)
20. football (Up 5)
21. jesus (New)
22. michael (Up 2)
23. ninja (New)
24. mustang (New)
25. password1 (New)

Beware your Credit & Debit Card Not Secure

Barnes & Noble Inc. says devices customers use to swipe credit and debit cards have been tampered with in 63 of its stores in nine states.

The New York-based company is warning customers to check for unauthorized transactions and to change their personal identification numbers, or PINs. It hasn't said how many accounts may have been compromised.

The bookseller says only one of the devices, known as PIN pads, was tampered with in each of the 63 stores. The stores are in California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

The company says it disconnected all the PIN pads in its nearly 700 stores nationwide on Sept. 14 after learning of the tampering. Federal authorities are helping in its investigation.
Source-necn

Facebook users are warned to be on their guard against unsolicited emails

 Facebook users are warned to be on their guard against unsolicited emails they might receive suggesting that someone has left an offensive comment about them on their wall.

Hi,
[REDACTED] commented on your Wall post.
[REDACTED] wrote: "you piece of shit!!!"
See the comment thread
Reply to this email to comment on this post.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Cyber Criminals Created FCI Duplicate Website

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) was reportedly targeted by cyber criminals earlier this month as unidentified persons created a fake FCI website. The corporation has approached the Delhi Police, asking it to identify those who created the fake website.

On Monday, officials from FCI’s office on Barakhamba Lane lodged a complaint at Barakhamba police station.

“FCI noticed a fake website and got it blocked. However, they need to know why the website was created. We may ask the Cyber Crime Cell to investigate the matter,” a senior police officer said.

According to a senior FCI official, the fake website was noticed for the first time on October 11 and its design and content was “exactly the same” as the real site. “Our address is fciweb.nic.in whereas the fake website’s address was fciweb.nicin. New content on the FCI website would automatically be uploaded to the fake site,” the official told Newsline on condition of anonymity.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Duplicate web page Found During investigation

Cyber fraudsters have duped more that 50 people through the duplicate Reserve Bank of India (RBI) web page in the past two months.
The fact came to light during the investigation of Devendra Singh con case, where the undergraduate student was dupe of Rs. 5,000. “It has come to light that at least 50 persons had fallen into the trap and deposited several lakhs of rupees in the State Bank of India (SBI) bank account that was provided by the fraudsters,” said Hazratganj circle officer (CO) Dinesh Yadav, who is also the cyber crime cell in-charge.

The CO added the bank account was opened in the bank’s Nagaland branch, while the transaction has been made from different places using ATM (automated teller machine) cards.

65 Million Active user in india on Facebook

World's largest social network Facebook Thursday announced that it has over 65 million active users in India, an eight-fold increase over last two years. 

"We are pleased to announced that over 65 million people in India are using Facebook to share and connect," said Kirthiga Reddy, director (online operations), Facebook India. 

She told reporters that these were all monthly active users or people who use their accounts at least once a month. 
Describing India as an important market for Facebook, Reddy pointed out that Facebook had just eight million users in India when they opened India office here in 2010.

With over one billion people connecting and sharing on Facebook platform, the social network has become the largest and the most engaged community of real people in the world. 

Nokia Asha 308 and 309 Dual Sim features

Mobile giant Nokia has expanded its Asha Touch series with the addition of dual-SIM Asha 308 and Asha 309.

Both Nokia Asha 308 and Nokia Asha 309 are 2G-enabled devices featuring a 3.0" WQVGA capacitive display, multiple home screens, stereo radio, loud speakers and up to 32GB microSD card support.

Nokia Asha 308 key specifications
- Nokia OS
- 3-inch WVGA capacitive touch display with 400x240 pixel resolution
- Dual-SIM
- 2MP camera
- Bluetooth 3.0connectivity
- 1110mAh
- 64MB internal storage, expandable upto 3GB via microSD
- FM Radio with RDS

Nokia Asha 309 key specifications
- Nokia OS
- 3-inch WVGA capacitive touch display with 400x240 pixel resolution
- 2MP camera
- WiFi and Bluetooth
- 1110mAh
- 64MB internal storage, expandable upto 3GB via microSD
- FM Radio with RDS

Source-Nokia

Cyberthieves steal $400,000 from Bank of America

Residents and city workers in Burlington, Wash., have been told to check their accounts after $400,000 was stolen from a city bank account.

City officials believe that the security breach resulted from the infiltration of a government account used to pay workers in the town, which is about 65 miles north of Seattle.

Although the exact amount of money stolen is not fully tallied, more than $400,000 has been transferred over the past two days, according to Seattle-based KOMO News.

The city first learned of the attack after an East Coast bank queried a number of account transfers that appeared "suspicious."

India's World No.1 in Spam Output

You can thank India for about one out of six spam messages cluttering your inbox.

SophosLabs's most recent "dirty dozen" report, which details the world's top spam-relaying countries, finds that India has topped the charts for the third quarter in a row.

That means that computers in India are passing along a whopping 16.1% of the spam spotted by Sophos experts.

The top 12 spam-relaying countries for July to September 2012:

1. India	16.1%
2. Italy	9.4%
3. USA	6.5%
4. Saudi Arabia	5.1%
5. Brazil	4.0%
6. Turkey	3.8%
7. France	3.7%
8. South Korea	3.6%
9. Vietnam	3.4%
10. China	3.1%
11. Germany	2.7%
12. United Kingdom	2.1%
Other	36.5%

Reportedly, India is home to 5.3% of the world's internet users, making it the third most connected country, after China and the US.

Amanda Todd Who Posted Video on Bullying found dead

The tragic story of B.C. teen suicide victim Amanda Todd has taken another bizarre twist as the internet hacking and activist group Anonymous has named a man the group says was the girl's primary tormentor.

Todd, 15, of Port Coquitlam, died last Wednesday, a month after posting a haunting video on YouTube that cited the sexualized attack that set her down a path of anxiety, depression and drug and alcohol abuse.

During her nine-minute video, the teen explains in hand-written notes that she was in Grade 7 when she was lured by an unidentified male to expose her breasts via webcam.

She says that a year later she received a message from a man on Facebook threatening that if she didn't give him a show, he would send the webcam picture to her friends and family. She says police later told her the man followed through with his threat.

Anonymous published the name and address of a Vancouver-area man that the group claims was bullying and preying on Todd via the internet.

The activist group, which often uses a caricature Guy Fawkes mask as its logo, claims the 32-year-old man has also made postings to child pornography sites.

The man himself has now been threatened online by others vowing to carry out vigilante justice, a development that worries Vancouver defence lawyer Eric Gottardi.

"The system isn't supposed to convict someone before charges are laid. It’s not supposed to be judge, jury and executioner, all in the public forum," Gottardi said. "We have a justice system. It’s supposed to work, it does work."

Google launched Free SMS on Gmail in India

Google has extended its free SMS chat service to India, whereby users can send text messages to mobile phones via Gmail Chat.

"You can send SMS messages to your contacts' mobile phones using Gmail Chat ... Google does not charge for using this service," according to information available with Google's website.

The SMS service is available in India and 51 other countries in Asia, Africa and North America.

The feature was activated for Indian users on October 10 and is available for regular Gmail users as well as those on Google Apps.

As per Google's website, this feature is available on all the mobile operators in the country.

The company said in order to send an SMS, users would have to add phone number to their contact list.

Naan Ee star’s Facebook ‘profile’ mocks CM

CHENNAI: On Sunday evening, actor 'Kiccha' Sudeep, who starred in the box office hit 'Naan Ee' , was shocked to find that his Facebook profile was hacked into, and photographs mocking Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa was posted online. 

"I have nothing to do with politics, but more importantly it is not my profile. Someone has created a similar profile and posted these pictures," he said. "The perpetrator is trying to create chaos, but I have nothing to do with it," the Kannada actor said in a statement to the media.

The actor will file a complaint with the cyber police on Monday.

Source-TOI

Indian Boy Found unconscious after meet his Facebook Friend

CHANDIGARH: It was a pleasant rendezvous on a social networking site that reportedly ended in a nightmare for a 28-year-old youth of Mandi Gobindgarh.

Sukhwinder Garg (name changed) was found unconscious in a Sector 18 hotel room on Thursday night. A waiter who found him in the condition raised the alarm, following which he was rushed to Government Multi-specialty Hospital (GMH), Sector 16.

Sources in police said, "Sukhwinder had come in contact with a girl on Facebook some days ago. As they became friendlier, she asked him to meet her in the city. When he reached Chandigarh, she took him to the hotel, after booking a room for six hours."

E-raksha campaign to check cyber crime:Police

BOKARO: The police department has selected Chinmaya Vidyalaya here to host e-raksha campaign after the school became a victim of cyber crime. Some months ago, cyber criminals had hacked the official website of the school, which was the first case of its kind to be lodged with Sector VI police station in the city.

On Thursday, IG, operation and special branch, S N Pradhan asked students to be smart and responsible while surfing the internet as the cyber world is fascinating but there are dangers lurking behind the internet. Pradhan along with the chief technical officer of special branch, Vineet Kumar created awareness on dangers of cyber world and precautions to be taken to safeguard themselves from becoming victims of cyber crime. Hundreds of students from 15 different schools were present at Chinmaya Vidyalaya.

Penta T-Pad WS703C tablet launched @ Rs 6,999

Pantel Technologies has announced the launch of India's first 2G SIM Slot Tablet PC, the Penta T-Pad WS703C, today.

Present at the announcement was the Minister of HRD, Telecom and IT, Govt of India, Kapil Sibal, launching India's first Voice call based tablet PC with 3D enabled capacitive touch screen, the Penta T-Pad WS703C today. Penta T-Pad WS703C comes with TF card expansion slot, voice call feature, 7-inch 3D-enabled capacitive touch screen, front and rear cameras and HDMI ports.

The all-new Penta T-Pad WS703C is priced at Rs 6,999 and features 4GB of internal storage, 512MB of RAM. It runs on a 1.2GHz Cortex A8 processor, has an in-built 2G sim card slot and is also compatible with 3G dongles. The 'all-port' architecture on this model includes features like dual camera, HDMI port and mini-USB port.

I’m not on Facebook: Shruti Haasan

Time and again, we're seeing celebs clarifying about their presence in various social networking sites. After Tamannaah and Vamsi Paidipally elucidating that they are not on any social networking sites, it's now Shruti Haasanturn to express the same. The leggy lass has clarified that she's not on Facebook after receiving several enquiries from her fan base. Shruti Haasan posted on her Twitter "I do not have a public profile on face book tweeps! Fake profiles :( "(sic).

Pak Blocked 20,000 objectionable websites Including Youtube

Pakistani authorities have blocked about 20,000 websites, including YouTube, for hosting "objectionable" material like footage from the anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims", an official said on Monday.

"We have blocked 20,000 objectionable websites and blogs since the blasphemous film surfaced on the Internet," an official of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said.

"We are strictly following the court's orders in this regard," said the official who did not want to be named.

He was referring to a sessions court in Lahore that ordered the registration of a case against the PTA Chairman for the organisation's failure to block footage from the anti-Islam film on the Internet.

"The PTA has not only blocked websites featuring the anti-Islam film but thousands of others with objectionable material," the official said.

Scenes in film 'Innocence of Muslims' blocked on Web: Police

The Cyber Crime Investigation cell of Mumbai police's Crime Branch today informed the Bombay High Court that on police's request, video-sharing portal Youtube (a Google subsidiary), had blocked "objectionable scenes" in the controversial anti-Islam film 'The Innocence of Muslims'. However, Youtube could not provide the IP addresses from where the film was uploaded as addresses were located outside India, said inspector Ravi Sardesai in his affidavit on a petition seeking removal of the film from the Internet.

For this, the process of Letter Rogatory was being initiated (whereby assistance of foreign judicial system is sought), he said

New Aakash Tablet run on Android 4.0 at Rs-1500:Kapil Sibal

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said the new version of the low-cost Aakash tablet PC is expected to be available to students on November 11.

"Hopefully on November 11, you will see the President talking to 20,000 students across the nation (who) will have their hands on Aakash," Sibal told reporters here at the Economic Editors' Conference.

He added that Aakash, an instrument of empowerment, will feature 1 GHz processor, four-hour battery time, capacitive screen and Android 4.0 operating system under the new version.

Sibal said going forward, the price of the device is expected to come down to "$35, which will be around Rs 1,500" with setting up of manufacturing activities in India.

"At the moment, we are actually formulating a Cabinet note for the manufacturing of five million Aakash tablets without any financial burden on the Ministry of Finance," Sibal said.

The tablet 'Aakash' was launched in October last year by the government to make available computing devices to students at subsidised rates. However, the project ran into controversy following IIT Rajasthan rejecting the devices.Source-Ndtvgadget

Robert Vadra deleted his Facebook Account On Monday

NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra on Monday deleted his Facebook account after a fracas over his status message on the social networking site.

Vadra's status message "Mango people in a banana republic" was a dig at IAC membersArvind Kejriwal and senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who on Friday leveled allegations of corruption against him.

Before deleting his account, Vadra reportedly wrote on his page, "Obviously, it seems I have people on my Facebook account who do not have a sense of humour. Everything I write becomes news and further debates on television?? I have decided to delete my account."

Software Engineer arrested For create his female colleague Fake Profile On Social Networking sites

HYDERABAD: Cyber crime sleuths of the CID have arrested a 27-year-old US-based software engineer for harassing his female colleague by creating fake profiles on social networking sites and sending abusive content to her friends.

Police on Monday morning arrested Sai Kumarof Ram Nagar, a software engineer with an MNC at Hi-Tec City in Madhapur and based in the US, when he landed at the RGI Airport.

On June 20, the 27-year-old victim, who is a colleague of Sai Kumar, lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police alleging that someone had hacked her email account and sent mails with obscene content to all her friends and family members. She also alleged that her fake profiles were created on social networking sites and abusive and obscene content was circulated through them.

Based on her complaint, police registered a case (Crime No 56/2012) under sections 66 A, D and 67 of the IT Act, 2000.

1 GB Broadband Speed plan available in India for residential Consumers

Retail broadband users may have access to ultra-fast download speeds of one gigabit per second plan by mid-2013 in nine Indian cities, according telecom infrastructure firm Radius Infratel.

"In the next 6-9 months, world class 1,000 Mbps or 1 Gbps (Gigabits per second) plans will be available in India to residential consumers. On connections like these, the same two hour HD movie will download in 30 seconds," Radius Infra tel CEO Rajnish Wahi said.

A two-hour movie in high definition version will be about 2.2 GB (Giga Bytes) size, he added.

At average broadband speeds, the same movie takes over an hour for full download, experts said.

Whil Wahi declined to disclose the names of service providers or the cities where these plans will be first available, he said that discussions are underway and network

deployment is already complete to enable this in Gurgaon

No Pornography Access in Cyber Cafes,New rules

Fresh guidelines, which are part of Information Technology (guidelines for cyber cafe) Rules 2011, will require cyber cafe owners to "tell users" not to surf websites that contain "pornographic or obscene material". Experts termed the rule arbitrary, saying that watching pornography is not an offence in India.

According to the rules notified on April 11, all cyber cafes in the country will have to register with an "agency as notified" by the government. While some of the guidelines deal with the security threat posed by "anonymous internet users", most aim to make sure that people don't use cyber cafes to access pornographic material.
Pawan Duggal, a lawyer who specializes in IT laws, said the new guidelines were arbitrary. "Watching pornography is not illegal in India," he said. "It's absurd to ask cyber cafe owners to tell their customers not to access pornographic material even as law allows individuals to access adult websites unless it's not child pornography. The new rules require a second look."

Hacking group activist’s posts land him in trouble

DALLAS — Barrett Brown has, at times, called himself an author, a freedom fighter and a spokesman for the movement of hacker-activists known as Anonymous.
In tweets and videos, Brown praises Anonymous’ work, rips his opponents and repeatedly lashes out at his biggest nemesis: the FBI.
Now, his online postings have landed him in federal prison.
The 31-year-old Brown is charged with making Internet threats and retaliating against law enforcement in a three-count federal indictment that quotes dozens of his tweets and YouTube videos. One of those videos, posted just before his arrest last month, includes a promise to ruin an FBI agent’s life and “look into his (expletive) kids.”
Brown is in custody in a Fort Worth prison. He is scheduled to have an Oct. 18 hearing to determine his mental competency. Both the FBI’s Dallas office and Brown’s attorney, Doug Morris, declined to comment about the case.

Govt directs cyber cafes to install CCTV cameras: Meghalaya

Meghalaya government today directed all cyber cafes to install CCTV cameras in their shops besides taking clients IDs and details in a bit to tackle cyber crimes emanating from these cafes, officials said.

In an official notification of the Meghalaya Cyber Cafe Rules 2012, all cyber cafes are directed to install cameras besides taking all details of their clients including ID cards, officials said.

"Today we will notify the Cyber Cafe Rules 2012 under the Meghalaya Information Technology Act," state Information Technology Commissioner and Secretary D P Wahlang said, while inaugurating a seminar – Cyber World and its challenges – organized by Lady Keane College here.

He said the cyber rules are specifically meant to tackle cyber crimes emanating from the cyber cafes operating in the state and preventing them for propagating ideologies which are not in consonant with the state.
According to the IT Commissioner, the rules have been framed as such to give access to the police the details of anyone using the cyber cafes at any given time
Source-Business Standard

New technique for data theft can run across web

Researchers have detected a "new man-in-the-browser" (MITB) attack method that uses malware capable of stealing users bank or other sensitive information entered on websites.

As opposed to traditional MITB scams – where malware sitting on victims' computers is used to monitor a list of targeted websites and then pounces when users visit those sites – this technique allows criminals to draw victims' data from an unlimited pool of sites.

Trusteer discovered the threat in late August and posted a blog this week that details the scam.

George Tubin, senior security strategist at Trusteer, told SCMagazine.com on Wednesday that malware used in what the company dubbed "universal" MITB attacks pinpoints desired information, like credit card numbers, entered on any website -- and processes it immediately, rather than afterward, as in a traditional MITB scenario.

When using this new attack method, fraudsters don't have to parse through huge amounts of data or text collected over time, which leaves victims less opportunity to change their credit card details, passwords or other captured information.

“It doesn't matter what websites [victims] go to, it only matters if they use their credit card,” Tubin said. “The likelihood of success is significantly higher using this type of technique versus the traditional man-in-the-browser. When they get the card information, it's going to be fresher information.”

Man sends sexual Facebook msgs to girl

HARTFORD, Mich. (WOOD) - A Van Buren County man has been charged after police said he sent sexual messages to a 12-year-old girl via Facebook.

Dustin Ryan-Nicholas Carlisle, 27, from Hartford was arraigned on charges of using a computer to commit a crime (seven-year felony and/or $5,000 fine), and accosting children for immoral purposes (a four-year felony and/or $4,000 fine).

Deputies were dispatched Monday to a residence in the 56000 block of County Road 681 in Hartford to speak to the mother of the girl.

Deputies talked with the woman who said her daughter had been using a family member's phone to log into her Facebook account. The family member noticed messages on the account that were sexual in nature.

Upon further review, police said Carlisle was chatting with the 12-year-old on Facebook and had made numerous comments toward her that were extremely sexual in nature, according to a news release.

The 12-year-old had been talking with Carlisle for several months, police said.

An investigation led to Carlisle becoming a suspect. Deputies executed a search warrant and Carlisle was arrested on the felony warrants authorized by the prosecutor's office.

A bond of $7,500, and several conditions, were set at Carlisle's arraignment.

Several pieces of electronics were confiscated and will be examined by the Computer Forensic Unit at the Van Buren County Sheriff's Office.

If you have any information related to this investigation you are asked to call police at 269.657.3101, Crime Stoppers 1.800.342.7867 or Silent Observer at 269.343.2100. Source-Woodtv

Facebook selling user account access to advertisers

LONDON: Social networking giant Facebook is embroiled in a new privacy row after it emerged that the firm began selling access to users accounts to business companies in a bid to bolster its profits.

Facebook is allowing companies to trawl through its 900 million users looking for email addresses and phone numbers so it can better target adverts.

According to the Daily Mail, the new move will affect consumers who have handed over personal data when they buy something, which is the majority of people given the rise of Internet shopping

Retailers will then be allowed to compare their own databases with the information on Facebook.

Android Based Smart Box launched by AKAI for India at Rs 6,590

New Delhi: Japanese consumer electronics firm Akai launched a 'Smart Box', which allows users to surf Internet on their television sets, at a price of Rs 6,590 in the country.

The company, which is targeting revenues of Rs 250 crore this fiscal, expects sales of one lakh devices in the next 3-4 months.

"Our Smart box is set to change the way people watch television in India. TVs, irrespective of whether it's a colour TV or LCDs and LEDs, are compatible with the device and using Smart Box can be converted into a smart television," Akai Managing Director Pranay Dhabhai told PTI.

The Android-based device, powered by a 1.25-Ghz processor, comes with a wireless mouse for navigation. It is equipped with 4GB internal memory, expandable upto 32GB through SD card slot

Cyber crime costs India 8 billion USD :Great Indian financial loss

Kolkata: Cyber criminals are out on the prowl!

The mushrooming cyber crime cases in India are to be blamed for financial losses. More than 42 million people in India have been victimized by cyber criminals since the last 12 months, with approximately 8 billion US dollars in direct financial losses, a recent report said.

These findings form part of the Norton Cyber Crime Report 2012 based on experiences of over 13,000 adult internet users across 24 countries globally, including 1,000 from India. The global cost to cyber crime was estimated at $110 billion, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

According to the report, 66 per cent of adults in India have been victims of cyber crime in their lifetime. In the last 12 months, 56 per cent of adults online in India have experienced cyber crime, translating to more than 1,15,000 victims of cyber crime every day or 80 victims a minute and more than 1 a second.

Web security protocol HSTS wins Standard Status

A Web security protocol designed to protect Internet users from Internet hijackings due to unencrypted Web sites has won approval as a proposed standard.

A steering group for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) gave its blessing to a draft of HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), an opt-in security enhancement in which Web sites prompt browsers accessing it to always interact with it over a secure connection.

Web browsers complying with the policy will automatically switch insecure links to site to a secure version of the site, using "https," without the Web surfer having to remember to type that in the URL bar.

HSTS is designed to deflect HTTP session hijacking, in which limited encryption used on many popular Web sites put user accounts at risk of compromise by someone snooping on session traffic between the user's computer and the site's server. Sites typically encrypt the username and password as they are transmitted, but unless the entire Web session is encrypted with "https," or secure hypertext transfer protocol, someone sniffing the network could capture the cookie information and use that to access the accounts.

Whether the proposal is accepted as a standard depends on its degree of technical maturity and whether there is a general consensus that the protocol provides significant benefit to the Internet community.

The technology is already supported by sites and services such as PayPal, Blogspot, and Etsy. It's also included in the Chrome, Firefox 4, and Opera 12 Web browsers. However, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari have not yet embraced HSTS.  Source-Cnet

Pen Drives main threat to Cyber Security: Army

New Delhi, Sep 30: Despite a ban, use of pen drives has emerged as the main threat to cyber security in defence forces as it is responsible for over 70 per cent of such breaches in the three Services.

The use of pen drives as an easy-to-carry storage device has increased in the recent past and internal reports have confirmed that over 70 per cent cyber security breaches in the armed forces are due to their unauthorised use, Army officials told PTI here.

"These pen drives, which are mostly manufactured in China, have emerged as a big threat to our cyber security systems," they said.

Fresh cyber security guidelines have been issued by the Army headquarters to protect sensitive military networks from hacker attacks, sources said.

Measures have been taken by the other two services also to tighten their cyber security as IAF also recently issued instructions to its personnel warning them against having any official data on their personal computers and pen drives.

Facebook, YouTube blocked in Kashmir

Internet users in Kashmir are unable to access Facebook and YouTube. The government had issued orders to Internet service providers to restrict access to the websites. This move is believed to be in response to the protests against the anti-Islam video on YouTube.

It was previously reported that the certain URLs with offensive content had been blocked, but it now seems that access to the entire websites have been restricted. Last month the Government of Jammu & Kashmir had directed service providers to ensure that the controversial YouTube video was not accessible from the state.

The order was issued by the state Home Department, invoking the powers conferred under section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act 1885.

"In the interest of public safety and for maintaining public order, the government directed all licensed Telecom Service Providers and Internet Service Providers to make arrangements to ensure that their subscribers in Jammu and Kashmir should not be able to download or upload the contents" with regard to the video, the order said.