Tag: Security

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Epsilon Data Management Security Breach and Best Buy’s Subliminal Geek Squad Advertisement.

Epsilon Data Management, an email marketing firm used by companies such as Barclays Bank, Capital One Financial, JP Morgan Chase, TiVo, Best Buy and HSN had a security breach on March 30th, 2011.

According to Epsilon:

On March 30th, an incident was detected where a subset of Epsilon clients’ customer data were exposed by an unauthorized entry into Epsilon’s email system. The information that was obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only.

On April 3rd, 2011 Best Buy notified its customers through email:

Dear Valued Best Buy Customer,

On March 31, we were informed by Epsilon, a company we use to send emails to our customers, that files containing the email addresses of some Best Buy customers were accessed without authorization.

Unfortunately, Best Buy took the opportunity to advertise its own Geek Squad Service on the email.

For your security, however, we wanted to call this matter to your attention. We ask that you remain alert to any unusual or suspicious emails. As our experts at Geek Squad would tell you, be very cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown senders.

Seriously, Best Buy? Can you advertise your Geek Squad service some other time?

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iOS 4.3.1 is now available.

Apple releases iOS 4.3.1 for iPhone 4 GSM, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3rd & 4th generation, iPad and iPad 2. The update is said to include the fix for 2011 Pwn2Own Safari bug and some others. iPhone 4 for Verizon/CDMA is still on iOS 4.2.6.

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AT&T vs. Unsanctioned Tethering.

On Thursday a Reddit user posted a screenshot of an email from AT&T regarding the use of tethering on the iPhone. Numbers of MyWi users have spoken out that they have received such notice from AT&T through SMS followed by email.

One of the SMS reads:

“AT&T Free Msg: Did you know tethering your Smartphone to a computer requires a tethering plan? Pls call 888-860-6789 for details or visit att.com/dataplans.”

Photo Illustration by Very G.

 

The email from AT&T clearly pin-point user for using unsanctioned tethering method on their network:

Dear [Customer],

We’ve noticed your service plan may need updating.

Many AT&T customers use their smartphones as a broadband connection for other devices, like laptops, netbooks or other smartphones– a practice commonly known as tethering. Tethering can be an efficient way for our customers to enjoy the benefits of AT&T’s mobile broadband network and use more than one device to stay in touch with important people and information. To take advantage of this feature, we require that in addition to a data plan, you also have a tethering plan.

Our records show that you use this capability, but are not subscribed to our tethering plan.

If you would like to continue tethering, please log into
your account online at Cell Phones and Cell Phone Plans – Wireless from AT&T, or call us
at 1-888-860-6789 Monday – Friday, 7 a.m. – 9 p.m. CST
or Saturday, 8 a.m. – 7 p.m. CST, by March 27, 2011
to sign up for DataPro 4GB for Smartphone Tethering.

…….

The story was submitted to Hacker New and numerous other sites. There are many theories on how AT&T identifies users using the unsanctioned tethering method. It is still unclear if AT&T is targeting MyWi users only. Some speculate that AT&T is targeting users who clearly use incredible amount of data on their grandfathered unlimited data plan. Based on comments in modmyi.com forums, some users got the message even though they do not use tethering.

AT&T currently offers a specific tethering plan to smartphone users:

DataPro 4GB for Smartphone Tethering

  • $45 per month (this gives you 4GB in total, combining both your smartphone data plan for $25 and the tethering feature, $20)
  • $10 per each additional GB thereafter, added automatically as needed
  • Mobile Hotspot capabilities are included for compatible Smartphones

The story has since been picked up and re-reported by numerous sites:

One can only wonder if AT&T really analyzes the data use or primarily goes after those who use unbelievable amount of data on their smartphone plan.

Have Nexus One and Palme Pre 2 users been notified by AT&T? Those two phones do not require any jailbreaking or rooting to use the tethering feature without signing up for the tethering plan on AT&T.