by Lawrence Feldman

According to Norton.com, 113 cell phones are lost or stolen every minute in the U.S. This amounts to $7 million worth of smartphones per day. Thieves can really make a living out of this market, but you would be the one left with the bill. Luckily, new technology has made it easier to protect your cell phone, so you can prevent thieves from hacking into your personal files, and even improve your chances of ultimately tracking down your device. Some must-download apps to maximize your phone security include the following.

1. Lookout Mobile Security

No need to worry about hackers with Lookout Mobile Security, a free app that keeps your device safe from mobile threats. From insecure Wi-Fi networks to fraudulent links, Lookout ensures a little malware doesn’t equate to a major disaster. Like BlackBerry Protect, the app allows you to schedule automatic backups to keep your information safe on any device, with an easy restorative feature that reboots your phone in case of a crash or data loss. Lookout can locate your phone even if the GPS is off, and activate a loud alarm even if your phone is on silent.

2. BlackBerry Protect

A free application that keeps your information secure, BlackBerry Protect allows you to log into your own personal account from any device and lock, locate or wipe your smartphone wherever you are. This is not only helpful for days where your new cell phone from BlackBerry is left in a cab or at the bar, but even just for tracking it down if it’s left in your car or at a friend’s house. To keep your information secure, you can automatically back up everything on your phone on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This service even works wirelessly, so you can use it anytime and anywhere.

3. McAfee Mobile Security

Just like your desktop antivirus, McAfee Mobile Security continually runs in the background of your device, alerting you as frequently as viruses are detected. Although the frequent updates are mostly helpful, PC Mag claims they can get to be too aggressive at times. One of the most unique features of the app is a buddy alert system, which allows you to designate a friend to be contacted when the SIM card is changed. Unlimited cloud-based backup also makes it easy to literally save everything on your phone for a smoother recovery after crashes and losses.

4. LastPass

Instead of keeping track of all of your passwords — or worse — using the same password for every account, keep it simple by only remembering one for your LastPass account. Your sensitive data can only be accessed by your LastPass password, which only you will know. Multiple “profiles” automatically fill in your personal information for you — maximizing time and safety. You can sync your LastPass data across multiple devices, and store any text data in your vault to keep all of your information safe.

Convenience and innovation often comes at a cost of security risks, but app developers are working every day to keep your phone safer and less prone to theft. These free and effective apps can help put you at ease when taking your smartphone out into the world, so you can focus on taking advantage of the benefits, instead of worrying about protecting your device yourself.

There is a fake Blackberry messaging app in the Google Play Store created by a developer called RIM (BlackBerry phones are no longer called Research in Motion or RIM). Although the app has been pulled down by Google, the developers managed to get more than 100,000 people to download the app, leaving victims with a screen promising the app would start working on 27 June. If that wasn’t bad enough, the app followed up with an agreement to allow advertising network StartApp to install icons, bookmarks and more on your phone.

The official app from Blackberry is not out yet and we don’t have word on a date when it will be available, but we will keep you informed.

Better safe than sorry.

Source: Cnet

UPDATE: The website has been restored after a 60 minute attack. The hackers say they’ll give a 5-minute break and continue attacks.

Omojuwa forgot his iPad on an Arik flight earlier this year, went back to Arik and wasn’t given his iPad. He then gave Arik an ultimatum to return his iPad within a specific number of days or face an onslaught on social media sites. For Omojuwa’s side of the story, click here

Arik did not return his iPad within the time specified and Omojuwa went all out. #ArikWhereIsMyIpad was the top twitter trend in Nigeria at a particular time.

Due to Omojuwa’s popularity in the online media space, he’s clearly gotten a lot of sympathy from his fans and other disgruntled Arik flyers.

Arik has till date not issued an official statement on this matter although we have seen a lot of people defend Arik on social media sites.

What Omojuwa is trying to do is to make a Nigerian company accountable. We all know how customer service is almost non-existent in a lot of service providing companies.

This also shows how powerful social media has become in Nigeria. In January, we witnessed the #occupynigeria and #fuelsubsidy protests which were largely fueled by Bloggers and influential people on social media platforms.

There is currently no law prohibiting Denial of Service attacks on Nigerian websites.

Being an automobile company, we know it’s weird for Ford to do this. You know how you open up your browser and you have to login to all the multiple websites you love so dearly? Ford hopes to eliminate that with its Keyfree Login service. Basically, all you have to do is create an account, add all your favorite social networks and you never have to login again. To login to all of them, you can login once via Ford’s service or just move close to your bluetooth-enabled computer with your smartphone. Presto! Automatic login. To logout, just walk out of the room. This also solves the problem I have with so many passwords :]

Here’s a video from Ford explaining the service:

The Ford KeyFree Login app is currently an unreleased Chrome extension and a standalone app for Mac OSX. The iPhone app has also not been released as the listing is missing from Ford’s France website. We’ll update you as more details unfold

Source: Billionaire Boys Club

Image: VentureBeat

This is what it looked like[the blank part had pornographic images]

Seems like a prank by some students. The website is now back up in its original form.

Thanks @Mowahlay and @TheRollngstoner

Image: @AbiolaAllison

Members of the hacking group, Anonymous, have posted a document on Pastebin, detailing and discussing plans to conduct Denial of Service attacks on the 6 DNS Servers that the internet runs on. Anonymous says the shutdown will be in response to SOPA, Wall Street and the US’s plans to retaliate cyber-attacks with military force. Here are snippets of the post

The Pentagon has concluded that cyber-attacks from another country can be constituted as an act of war and that opens a door for the US to respond with military force. Anonymous claims the US is looking for an excuse for war and calls its leaders irresponsible. Another question has been raised; if your country’s cyber-space properties get attacked by a foreign entity and you wish to respond with physical military force, what exactly do you attack? Data centres? Houses of hackers?

If this happens, the fear of Anonymous will be up by another level. The FBI has continually stated that stopping terrorism is its number one priority. Considering the fact that Anonymous members are spread around the world, another question has been raised. If the internet goes down, what country will war be declared on?

What do you think about Anonymous’ announcement? Please leave us a comment.

Source: Terry Zink’s Cyber Securty Blog

This infographic takes a look at the statistics behind January 18th’s protest, making it the largest protest in history.

Source: Holy Kaw via Frugal Dad

Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi

Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, founders of The Pirate Bay, the world’s most resillient file sharing site have been convicted in a final appeal at the Swedish SUpreme Court and have been sentenced to different prison terms.

They were earlier convicted in 2010 and had appealed to have their 12-month sentence reduced by between two and eight months. Their final attempts at an exemption from prison terms were blocked today with a dismissal from the court. Their fines and prison terms remain the same.

The prison terms for the founders are ten months for Neij, eight months for Sunde and four months for Lundström. A fourth co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, who has been absent at the court proceedings will also get jail time. Today’s court ruling also means the founders will have to pay a total of $6.8 million in damages. Since the case has dragged on for a really long time, there’s a chance that their sentences could be reduced by 12 months which might bring their prison terms to zero. This is not uncommon in the Swedish legal system.

One of the founders Peter Sunde says he’s disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision but he’s not surprised. He says Sweden spends a lot of money helping internet activists around the world but Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for Freedom of Speech, anti-corruption and anti-censorship campaigns.

The website, The Pirate Bay remains online as the website was not part of the court proceedings. Due to fear that the domain might be seized by US authorities, The Pirate Bay has begun redirecting traffic to a .se domain.

Source: Engadget via TorrentFreak

Image: The Guardian

Reports have emerged that Google has fired its Kenyan country manager over Google’s theft of Mocality’s database. Nairobitech says Olga Arara-Kimani, a former Safaricom employee has been let off. They also say a technical person in Zurich has been fired.

Yesterday, Nelson Mattos who had released an earlier statement apologising to Mocality released another statement:

“We’ve concluded our investigation into the serious allegations about our use of data from Mocality’s website in Kenya. We’re very sorry this happened. We’ve taken appropriate action with the people involved and made changes in our operations to ensure this doesn’t occur again.”

Earlier in 2011, Mocality also been accused by its rivals of scraping their data. No actions have been taking concerning those allegations.

Arara-Kimani was listed on Forbes’ 20 Youngest Power Women In Africa last year. There is still no official statement from Google confirming or denying the sack of Olga Arara-Kimani. We’ll keep you posted as more details emerge.

Source: ReadWriteWeb, TechMtaa
Image: Bantudaily

UPDATE: Anonymous via its Twitter account says the Facebook shutdown plans are fake.

Last year, people claiming to be members of the hacking group Anonymous planned to take down Facebook on November 5 but the operation was dropped. They’re at it again this year. After last week’s attack on various Music Distribution and US Government websites in response to Megaupload’s shutdown, Anonymous’ next target is Facebook. Anonymous hopes to do this through its LOIC software. The same software used in earlier attacks.

Basically the software sends random targets to a domain and can send as many as 10,000 hits per click. The more people click the target button, the more visits a website gets thereby crashing its servers. It’s important to remember that Anonymous denied the last Facebook attempt and claimed it was organised by people outside its group.

The video says Facebook has over 60,000 servers and it is possible to bring them down with the help of the multitude. The planned attack is scheduled for 12AM, January 28 at EST. We’ll be waiting and watching. Here’s the video explaining the planned Denial Of Service attack:

Source: VentureBeat