Apple

L33tdawg: I'm excitedly awaiting the Dream Team at #HITB2012AMS - It's going to be epic! :) 

The cyber criminals who hit on the wizard wheeze of targeting the faith based security system of Apple into a botnet are coining in $10,000 a day, according to anti-virus experts at Symantec. 

The money is created by picking Google's pocket by hijacking advertising "clicks". Symantec said a component of the widespread Flashback virus targets Google search queries made using Chrome, Safari, or Firefox browsers and directs people to pages dictated by the hackers.

To help protect iTunes accounts from hackers, Apple recently required users to set up a few security questions and provide a backup email address. But some users aren't happy with the questions Apple asks.

According to The Register, members of Apple's support forums have been complaining that some of the questions are too difficult for the user to answer, while others are too easy for strangers to guess.

The Russian security firm that originally acknowledged the Flashback botnet spread across 650,000 Macs continues to analyze the behavior of the Trojan, as “Files downloaded by the Trojan horse from servers controlled by criminals have become one of the main subjects for analysis.”

“Doctor Web virus analysts continue to study the first-ever large-scale botnet created by means of BackDoor.Flashback and comprised of computers running Mac OS X,” says the firm.

News emerged yesterday that AT&T is planning a major new marketing assault, to widen its promotion of the Nokia Lumia 900. The carrier has already been hard at work in promoting the device, with its in-store sales staff being widely praised for their knowledgeable recommendations of the product, and those efforts seem to be paying off so far, with the company reporting that sales have so far exceed its expectations.

Is Apple cutting the MacBook's throat with the iPad? 

The question -- whether the company's tablet cannibalizes sales of its own portable computing line -- is ultimately impossible to answer, or at least quantify: One can't look into a counter-factual crystal ball to view an alternate universe without the iPad. But Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, believes that the iPad does block sales of at least some Apple personal computers. 

Australia's Parliament is planning to investigate why it costs more to download software and other content in Australia than it does in other countries. 

The probe comes after a report on the situation released last year by the government Productivity Commission found significant price disparity between prices charged in Australia and in overseas markets. The controversy flared up again last week when Adobe Systems announced that Australians would be paying several hundred dollars more for its Creative Suite software than their American counterparts.

It should come as no surprise that Apple has removed the wonderful Bluetooth OnOff app from the App Store.

The wonderful, single-purpose $0.99 app allowed you to turn Bluetooth on and off with one touch, something users have been clamoring for since the iPhone came out in 2007. I hope that you grabbed it while you could!

Welcome to Microsoft's world, Eugene Kaspersky tells Apple The recent Flashback/Flashfake malware outbreak targeting Apple's Mac computers is likely to be just the start of a new wave of attacks aimed at the system, according to Kaspersky founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky.

Speaking to CBR at Info Security 2012, Kaspersky told us that Apple is a long way behind Microsoft when it comes to security and will have to change the ways it approaches updates following the recent malware attacks.

Researchers from the Vulnerability Lab have found high severity HTML Inject and File Include security holes in TreasonSMS, an iPhone application that allows users to send text messages from their desktop computers by turning the phone into a SMS webserver.

According to the experts, the vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely, allowing an attacker to “include malicious persistent script codes on the application-side of the iPhone.”