The developers behind CyanogenMod, a popular third-party Android system ROM has announced that they have decided to no longer enable root access by default.
Future versions of CyanogenMod starting with version 9, will have this option removed by default however users will still be able to explicitly enable it.
A study of over 100,000 applications in Google Play (formerly Android market) has found that more than half contained ad libraries with nearly 300 of which able to grab code from remote servers that could potentially give malware writers and hackers a away into your smart phone or tablet.
After slightly more than ten weeks after the release of Linux 3.2, Linus Torvalds has released Linux 3.3.
For a long time, code from the Android project has not been merged back to the Linux repositories due to disagreement between developers from both projects. Fortunately, after several years the differences are being ironed out, various Android subsystems and features have now been merged. This will make things easier for everybody, including the Android mod community, or Linux distros that want to support Android programs.
The UK Metropolitan Police will be using software from the 1980s to coordinate the command and communications of its policing operations during the London Olympic Games.
Mozilla has announced yesterday that it will start rolling out silent updates to Firefox beginning in June.
Robert Nyman, Mozilla technical Evangelist listed silent updates as one of the projects the company will finish this year in a blog post summarizing Mozilla's 2011's accomplishments on Wednesday.
Arstechnica has gone through the trouble of testing Anonymous-OS - a live bootable Linux distribution which the “official” Anonymous group has denied having any affiliation with.
Anonymous hackers have released their own operating system they're calling "Anonymous-OS". According to The Hacker News, the distribution is based off Ubuntu 11.10 and includes some pre-installed applications including:
- ParolaPass Password Generator
- Anonymous HOIC
- Ddosim
- Pyloris
- Slowloris
- TorsHammer
Datamation has put together an updated list of 65 open source security software and applications which could be used to replace popular closed source apps. They've included solutions for home and small businesses, as well as enterprises.
With the employment for security professionals at an all-time high (62% of organisations plan to hire more IT security staff this year), the associated budgets for IT security have also increased. Switching open source however, offers the possibility of off-setting some of this cost.
After the recently concluded pwn2own an pwnium contest, the security of your web browser is once again a hot topic. Vulnerabilities within browsers are certainly not new, however, it is the mitigation techniques - the methods used by folks like Microsoft, Mozilla and Google to defeat exploit writers - that has researchers more interested.
A new password manager from Trend Micro called DirectPass promises a whole lot of bells and whistles including a built in secure browser in addition to standard password management features like one-click master login and secure encrypted notes.
The secure browser is apparently designed for performing financial transaction safely as it automatically turns off things like the party plug-ins and DLLs.
