Privacy, Hacking and Virus Alerts

After July 9, infected users won’t be able to connect to the Internet.

More than 600,000 Mac computers were affected by a hacking attack, a sign that the once rarely targeted company is becoming a bigger focus for people intent on spreading malware, a security-research firm said.

The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he’ll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.

This is when you should hang up the phone. It’s a scam.

Officials from all the partnering consumer protection organizations will be on hand to assist members of the public in shredding documents and share tips and resources to guard against fraudulent schemes, deceptive practices, ID theft and scams of all types – including the most notorious ones going on today. All shredding services are free of charge. Up to two boxes of documents are allowed.

With these downloads, your data can remain safe until you are able–hopefully–to track your device down and have it safely back in your possession.

"There’s a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental system."

"We are connecting equipment that has never been connected before to these global networks," Schaffer said. Disgruntled employees, hackers and perhaps foreign governments "are knocking on the doors of these systems, and there have been intrusions."

I have often been asked by our worldwide customers if they should worry about such sophisticated penetrations themselves or if that is a concern only for government agencies, defense contractors, and perhaps Google. My answer in almost all cases has been unequivocal: absolutely.

It’s been 25 years since the first PC virus (Brain A) hit the net, and what was once an annoyance has become a sophisticated tool for crime and espionage. Computer security expert Mikko Hyppönen tells us how we can stop these new viruses from threatening the internet as we know it.

In an interview with WSJ’s Kevin Delaney he says he’s very concerned about recent disclosures of hacking incidents at major companies.