Hackers tried to hold a Detroit city database hostage

Online criminals aren’t just trying to extract ransoms from unsuspecting individuals; they’re targeting whole cities, too. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has revealed that hackers tried to hold a city database hostage in April, demanding 2,000 Bitcoins…

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Firing Range — Open Source Web App Vulnerability Scanning Tool From Google

Google on Tuesday launched a Security testing tool "Firing Range", which aimed at improving the efficiency of automated Web application security scanners by evaluating them with a wide range of cross-site scripting (XSS) and a few other web vulnerabilities seen in the wild.
Firing Range basically provides a synthetic testing environment mostly for cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities

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Detekt, a free tool for Windows to detect surveillance spyware

Detekt is a free tool for computers and devices running Windows operating systems that scans for traces of surveillance spyware on the system. Designed to provide journalists and human rights activists with a program to detect potential surveillance spyware on computer systems, it can be downloaded and used by anyone running Windows computers. The program, […]

The post Detekt, a free tool for Windows to detect surveillance spyware appeared first on gHacks Technology News.

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Microsoft Visual Studio Now Free For Non-Commercial Use!

If you like programming, one of the major frustrations with Windows has always been the cost of obtaining development tools. While there are admittedly many companies offering products at good value, the "gold standard" in this area has always been Microsoft, and their products are expensive. Visual Studio 2013, for example, which is the ultimate development suite containing everything you need in order to write Windows programs, retails for upwards of $500.

Until now, at least.

Microsoft has now announced Visual Studio Community 2013. It’s pretty much a full copy of Visual Studio, as available in the shops for $500 or so. You can use it to create programs for Windows, Android and iOS. The deal is that it’s available for use by individuals, non-profit companies, and teams of fewer than 5 developers. Which pretty much means every amateur programmer on the planet.

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Snapchat Now Lets You Send Money Too

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Snapchat has long promised to make your online messages disappear. And now it can help make your money disappear, too.

On Monday, the mobile messaging company announced a partnership with payments startup Square, saying you can now use the Snapchat app to send money much as you would one its ephemeral text messages. The app now recognizes a dollar sign typed in to the messaging field and serves up a green button for sending the money from a connected debit card. Behind the scenes, Square will store the card’s number and handle the transaction.

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Two Dudes Prove How Easy It Is to Hack ATMs for Free Cash

Two Dudes Prove How Easy It Is to Hack ATMs for Free Cash

When a small-time Tennessee restaurateur named Khaled Abdel Fattah was running short of cash he went to an ATM. Actually, according to federal prosecutors, he went to a lot of them. Over 18 months, he visited a slew of small kiosk ATMs around Nashville and withdrew a total of more than $400,000 in 20-dollar bills. The only problem: It wasn’t his money.

The post Two Dudes Prove How Easy It Is to Hack ATMs for Free Cash appeared first on WIRED.



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Square’s Plan to Exploit the Big Switch to Next-Gen Credit Cards

Square’s Plan to Exploit the Big Switch to Next-Gen Credit Cards

By next October, every checkout counter in the U.S. is supposed to look a little bit different. That’s the deadline set by the credit card industry for merchants to upgrade their point-of-sale systems to accept chip-based credit cards, a more secure upgrade to the magnetic-stripe version that much of the rest of the world has already dropped. Whether U.S. merchants balk remains an open question. But the ones who do plan to get on board represent a huge, time-sensitive market for new hardware—a market that Square is hoping to exploit.

The post Square’s Plan to Exploit the Big Switch to Next-Gen Credit Cards appeared first on WIRED.



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