PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
This week we take a look at Dropbox’s syncing issue, a Facebook scam targeting Emma Watson fans, and the largest ever study of European data privacy breaches.
Dropbox has confirmed that a bug in some older versions of its desktop apps can delete files from the cloud belonging to those users who turned on Selective Sync, which limits cloud syncing to certain folders.
Dropbox says it is restoring files where it can as well as releasing fixed versions of its apps and putting extra safeguards in place to prevent this kind of error happening again.
Affected users are receiving emails informing them of the issue and offering them a year’s worth of Dropbox Pro.
Meanwhile, Bitdefender is warning of a new scam that takes advantage of Emma Watson’s growing popularity and using the Harry Potter star as bait to spread malware on Facebook.
The scam promises sexy videos of the actress, but instead redirects users to a Trojan site.
Catalin Cosoi, chief security strategist at Bitdefender, explains, “When users click on the malicious links, they are redirected to a salacious YouTube copycat. Future victims are then asked to update their Flash Player to the latest secured version of Video Player, as an error allegedly prevents them from watching the leaked videos of Emma Watson.”
In other news, the CEU has released the largest ever study of European data privacy breaches. The findings from the report indicate that the personal data of millions of Europeans have been compromised with 89 per cent of the breaches the fault of corporations, rather than governments or other kinds of organisations.
“This is the largest investigation of privacy breaches in Europe ever undertaken,” said Philip Howard, CEU Professor of global media and communication and director of CMDS (Center for Media, Data and Society). “We looked at 350 incidents over a 10-year period, with a very focused look at the 229 incidents that directly involved the privacy of people living in Europe.
“In the news we hear a lot of news stories about hackers who break into systems and steal our personal information. But that was the minority of incidents – far and away, most of the cases reveal organisational errors, insider abuse, or other internal mismanagement.”
