The Register - Security

Federal authorities over the past fives year have seized more than $143m worth of counterfeit Cisco hardware and labels in a coordinated operation that's netted more than 700 seizures and 30 felony convictions, the Justice Department said Thursday.…

Researchers say they've devised a way to bypass protections built in to dozens of the most popular desktop anti-virus products, including those offered by McAfee, Trend Micro, AVG, and BitDefender.…

Yesterday I got a call from a chap claiming to be from Windows Support, letting me know that my computer was dangerously infected, and that only he could help.…

A small internet service provider has been awarded nearly $2.6m in a lawsuit it filed against a company that sent just under 25,000 spam messages over an 18-month period.…

Updated Already under fire for taking liberties with users' privacy, Facebook was outed on Thursday as a distributor of unwanted applications, some of which install adware or are added to user profiles without permission.…

Scammers are hoping to hoodwink travellers who were stranded by the volcanic ash cloud last month as fresh plumes have disrupted flights once more in the UK.…

A suburban Philadelphia school district secretly captured more than 58,000 images of students and their friends and family members as a result of an "overzealous" campaign to track the whereabouts of school-issued laptops, according to an independent report.…

A proposed US congressional bill to regulate the collection of personal data is being almost universally panned, with privacy advocates arguing it's inadequate and pro-business groups saying it goes too far.…

Facebook engineers on Wednesday disabled the site's live chat function after people outside the company discovered a bug that allowed users to eavesdrop on their friends' conversations.…

Updated A recent security patch from Microsoft silently fixed two severe bugs that were never disclosed even though they posed a risk to many of its customers, a security researcher said.…

Canadian Pharmacy spammers have set up shop on Twitter, staying online for weeks despite complaints from a leading security firm that would normally prompt action.…

A USB memory stick containing personal information on patients and staff at a secure hospital near Falkirk has been found in a car park outside an Asda store in nearby Stenhousemuir.…

One in ten consumers either write down or share their ATM card PIN codes, according to a new survey by the UK's Consumer Association.…

Google has released a free online tutorial that gives developers the chance to play the role of malicious hacker by exploiting real security bugs in a mock web application.…

A North Carolina man's scheme to steal as much as $350,000 during an automatic teller machine hacking spree was thwarted by an ex-convict, who turned the man in to authorities, federal prosecutors allege.…

A civil liberties watchdog has challenged Facebook's legal claims that an unauthorized third-party site that helps users login automatically violates criminal laws.…

Two of the three suspects arrested for allegedly running the infamous Mariposa botnet in February personally applied for jobs with Spanish firm Panda Security, whose researchers helped track them down just a month earlier.…

The US Air Force - perhaps the keenest of America's armed forces to get stuck into network warfare - has unveiled the cyber "wings" which will be worn on the chests of its digital warriors.…

Tuesday marks the tenth anniversary of the infamous LoveBug worm, the prolific malware strain that proved opening "flirty" emails from acquaintances seriously endangers internet hygiene.…

Updated Apax Partners has bought a majority stake in UK-based net security firm Sophos in a deal announced on Monday valuing the company at $830m.…