Security Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Lessons from Sandy: CrashPlan and the importance of off-site backup

by Erica Sadun (Nov 6th, 2012)

When disaster happens, you want to make sure your data is safe. The reality of Hurricane Sandy demonstrated how important it is to store copies of your most precious records, pictures and correspondences off-site. If you are a CrashPlan backup ...

Phishing email wants you to renew iCloud. Please don't!

by Steven Sande (Oct 23rd, 2012)

On occasion, I see phishing spam in my inbox, just like we all do. These emails usually look fairly realistic, and always have a link to click for me to renew an account or pay a balance -- but since I'm a moderately savvy fellow, I generally ...

Java 7 and Chrome don't play well together

by Michael Rose (Oct 22nd, 2012)

In the immortal words of Lando Calrissian, "This deal keeps getting worse all the time." Apple's recent Java update removes the Java 6-compatible web plugins from OS X, forcing users that need Java in the browser to move to Oracle's Java ...

Java 1.7 zero-day exploit unlikely to impact Mac users (Updated)

by Michael Rose (Aug 28th, 2012)

Update: In the interest of quantifying the risk to the average Mac user from this exploit (which, please note, does not currently have a Mac-attack payload), I asked for some data from CrashPlan. Since the online/peer backup service requires ...

AppleCare freezes over-the-phone password resets in wake of hacking incident

by Michael Rose (Aug 7th, 2012)

The ripples from Mat Honan's weekend security incursion keep pushing outward. Earlier today Amazon shifted policy to prevent account details from being changed via a phone call, which blocks one avenue the hackers used to get the personal info ...

Amazon responds to iCloud account hacking

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Aug 7th, 2012)

Amazon is taking action after learning of the inadvertent role it played in Wired writer Mat Honan's digital nightmare last week, when his iCloud account password was compromised and his Mac was wiped. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris told Wired ...

Mat Honan details the Amazon and Apple security flaws that let hackers wipe his MacBook

by Michael Rose (Aug 6th, 2012)

Late Friday, Wired writer Mat Honan ran into a digital buzzsaw as his iCloud, Gmail and Twitter accounts were compromised in rapid succession. The hackers did a tremendous amount of collateral damage along the way, spewing racist and homophobic ...

Compromised iCloud password leads to nightmare (updated)

by Michael Rose (Aug 4th, 2012)

Updated. Former Gizmodo writer & current Wired Gadget Lab staffer Mat Honan is having a pretty bad day. As you can read on his Tumblr post (not to mention elsewhere), hackers compromised his iCloud account. They used that access to reset his ...

Dropbox sends password change notification to some users

by Michael Rose (Aug 1st, 2012)

In a blog post today, Dropbox's VP of engineering Aditya Agarwal explained that the online storage company is addressing some key security concerns in the wake of some concerning incidents. Some Dropbox users saw a spike in spam messages to ...

DNSchanger standby servers will go dark Monday 7/9

by Michael Rose (Jul 8th, 2012)

It's pretty unlikely that your computer is among the 277,000 worldwide still affected by the DNSchanger malware (63,000 of them in the US, per the FBI and CIO Daily), but just in case you find yourself mysteriously knocked offline Monday morning, ...

Apple publishes guide to iOS security

by Steven Sande (Jun 5th, 2012)

Security on iOS devices is becoming more of a hot topic these days, what with security notables like Eugene Kaspersky warning of future malware attacks that could take down the immense monoculture operating system. Apple's not ignoring the threat; ...