Social proof is an individual influencer or group clout that gives "proof" to a product. It is based on the principle that people tend to follow and conform to an influential person or a majority. They do this to be validated -- a result of a need for safety. Here are 10 kinds of social proof strategies -- and how and why they work...
China has a new censorship tool that is causing alarm. It's known as the "Great Cannon." The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab identified the tool in a report released last week. The Great Cannon was first used in March, to launch a large-scale DDoS attack on GitHub and GreatFire.org, Citizen Lab ...
A week-old squabble between two Dutch groups -- the spamfighting Spamhaus Project and Web hosting service Cyberbunker -- has resulted in what has been called the largest distributed denial of service attack in Web history. The cyberfight reportedly has spilled over onto the global Internet and slowe...
An analysis of more than 400,000 apps in the Google Play store has revealed that more than 100,000 of them pose a potential security risk to their users. The analysis of the Android apps released last week by cyber security vendor Bit9 examined the security permissions requested by the programs. It ...
What would happen if you paid taxes or protection money but didn't get protected because your protectors themselves were getting clobbered? Worse still, what if they didn't tell you they had been compromised and that you might not be safe? That situation played out recently after yet another company...
Malware that appears to be similar to the highly toxic Stuxnet worm was made public Tuesday by security firm Symantec. Duqu, named for the "~DQ" file names it creates, appears to work as a remote access data-collecting program that uses some of the same infecting techniques as Stuxnet, the malware d...
The end of Thanksgiving means the beginning of holiday shopping season, and as usual, a great deal of that shopping will be done online. But while online shopping is easy and convenient, it's also fraught with dangers. Sure, it's easy to search the Web for the best price on that laptop or video gami...
The Stuxnet worm is one of the most sophisticated bits of digital malware security researchers have come across in a long time. Now, those researchers want to know where it came from. Was Stuxnet the product of a den of hackers working on their own accord, or did a national government somewhere in t...
Microsoft Windows doesn't have a good way to handle digital certificates that have been tampered with, Roel Schouwenberg, senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said Tuesday at the company's North American Virus Analyst Summit in San Francisco. One problem is that it doesn't clearly indicate ...
Many consumers are still afraid of shopping online, and it's not hard to see why, with reports of fraud, identity theft, data loss and other security breaches regularly making the news. The fact is, though, online shopping is safer than ever before, and new and emerging security technologies, method...
Yes - I'm more likely to buy with flexible payment options.
Sometimes - It depends on the item and terms.
Rarely - I typically prefer paying upfront to avoid debt.
Not at All - My purchase decisions are based on need and budget.
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