10 Nations Demand Online Privacy – Or Else Google was the main target of a group of privacy commissioners from 10 nations who held a press event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to air their grievances. They castigated the company over its botched Buzz rollout and criticized its Street View operations. However, other online companies — such as Facebook and other social networks — should also take notice, the commissioners warned.

Tool Automates Targeted Attacks On Social Network Users A researcher here today released a free tool that impersonates a Twitter user’s account in order to execute automated targeted attacks on the person’s followers. Pedro Varangot, a security researcher with Core Security Labs, says the group wrote the tool as a way to demonstrate and test for how social networks can be used for spear phishing. The initial version executes attacks on Twitter, but Varangot says it can be extended to work against Facebook and other social networks.

Google.com Adds Facebook Updates To Live Search Friday, February 26, 2010, 10:27:48 AM Google (GOOG) search results will now include Facebook updates in real-time. Google has deals with Twitter and MySpace, which will send real-time updates from social network users that relate to search queries. Facebook updates will now also be included, but this will only be from 3 million Facebook pages.

Attack Unmasks User Behind The Browser A group of researchers have discovered a simple way to reveal the identity of a user based on his interactions with social networks. The ‘deanonymization’ attack uses social network groups as well as some traditional browser history-stealing tactics to narrow down and find the user behind the browser. The researchers were able to deanonymize more than half of the users in their initial test using their attack method, which entailed their joining and crawling groups within social networks, such as Germany’s Xing business social network and Facebook, using a fake profile.

Awareness: Four Signs of an Easy Victim on Social Networks Earlier this month, CSO reported that cybercrime attacks on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have exploded, according to a recent survey conducted by security firm Sophos(See: Facebook, Twitter, Social Network Attacks Tripled in 2009).Reports of malware and spam rose 70 percent on social networks in the last 12 months and 57 percent of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites. Another 36 percent reveal they have been sent malware via social networking sites (See also: Social Medial Risks: The Basics). The “Social Security” survey is part of Sophos’ 2010 Security Threat Report, which looks at current and emerging computer security trends and found that social networks are opening up new opportunities for cyber criminals to locate so-called “soft” targets and pull of precise and targeted attacks

SiteGround, a web hosting provider, today announced that its web hosting plan now includes free advertising credits worth $70. The company says that its hosting customer can use $50 ad credits for social network MySpace and $20 for …

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Free Web Hosting Services: SiteGround Partners with BidVertiser