Major Webmail Systems Targeted By Phishing 

Over this past weekend the credentials for several thousand Microsoft Hotmail accounts were posted online. Microsoft has confirmed the list was authentic, worked to get it taken down and deactivated the accounts. If your account was affected you can fill out this form to reclaim account access.

Then today Google told the BBC that GMail had been similarly targeted. The BBC reported that they had seen a list with more than 30,000 names and passwords.

Microsoft says that the Hotmail accounts appear to have been compromised through "a likely phishing scheme," not through any problem in Hotmail. Google's response was similar: "We recently became aware of an industry-wide phishing scheme through which hackers gained user credentials for web-based mail accounts including GMail accounts...As soon as we learned of the attack, we forced password resets on the affected accounts. We will continue to force password resets on additional accounts when we become aware of them."

What more is there to say about such problems? Users need to be able to recognize illicit attempts to elicit their account information. The Microsoft blog linked to above has some good, general advice on recognizing phishing scams.

It's also possible for attackers to steal account access if the passwords through other attacks, such as dictionary attacks which attempt to use common words (such as "password") as the password. Brian Krebs of the Washington Post has some good general guidelines on password selection in his report on this attack.

Pastebin, the site on which the Hotmail accounts were posted, is designed for programmers to share source code. Since the news broke of this disclosure, the owner, a completely innocent bystander in this business, has had to take the site down and work, undoubtedly for free, on measures to secure his site against such abuse in the future. I feel sorry for him, at least as sorry as I feel for people who gave up their e-mail passwords unwittingly.

Izvor: PC Magazine

YouTube je ovih dana objavio značajnu novinu kada je u pitanju prikaz video materijala. Od sada je moguće postavljanje i pregled sadržaja koji su snimljeni u rezoluciji od 1080p.

To praktično znači da će svaki video moći da se pregleda u originalnoj rezoluciji kako je i snimljen kamerom.

"YouTube samo pokušava da se postavi tako da ide u korak sa vremenom. Kako se rezolucija kamera korisnika poboljšava i mi pokušavamo da im omogućimo najbolje mesto gde mogu sadržaj koji su snimili najkvalitetnije da prikažu", istakao je Bili Bigs, inženjer za softver u YouTube-u.

Naravno, ovo ne znači da svi aploadovani video fajlovi moraju biti u rezoliciji 1080p. S druge strane, ovo će otežati posao onima koji nemaju "zveri" od kompjutera. Postavljanje fajlova ovakve rezolucije zahteva jak PC uređaj, kao i dobru Internet konekciju.

Deo korisnika koji će sigurno imati najveću korist od novog formata prikaza videa jesu filmski studiji u Holivudu. Kao što je poznato u aprilu je YouTube sklopio sporazum sa kućama kao što su BBC, CBS, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sony i korisnici već mogu da uživaju u povlasticama koje ovaj sporazum donosi.

Izvor: MTS-Mondo