Does Linkedin Share User Data?

Linkedin has upset many of its 100 million users by opting them into a programme that reveals their personal details to advertisers without telling anyone about it.

Linkedin changed its privacy policy to allow it to display the names and pictures of users with ads. The system works by showing friends and colleagues who’ve followed a brand name, effectively making them an unwitting salesperson for that brand, since people are more likely to click such advertisements on the basis that it looks like someone they know is recommending them. In reality, the other person has no idea that their photo and name are being used to sell things.

It’s a clever approach to advertising, but an absolutely abyssmal approach to privacy, as Linkedin has decided to automatically opt-in all of its users without informing them of the change.

Users can opt out if they want, but the option is buried in the Settings page, a ploy similar to that used by Facebook to hide its privacy settings. The big problem here is that if users don’t know that their name and photo are being used in this way, then how can they opt out of it?

Linkedin could face legal trouble for this decision. Digital Trends reports it is likely that Linkedin broke Dutch privacy law, which requires user consent for employing user images with advertisements. It could also be brought up before the European Commission and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

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‘Ransomware’ Malware Threats Increasing

A particularly nasty type of attack named”ransomware” is on the rise, with antivirus vendor Symantec seeing at least three new variants appearing in recent months. Such attacks often use viruses to not only steal a person’s sensitive or financial information, but also to disable hard drives and demand money to restore them.

“Threats that use extortion can be some of the most aggressive and, in some cases, offensive viruses encountered,” said Symantec security researcher Gavin O Gorman in a blog post.

Unfortunately for computer owners, attackers continue increase the sophistication levels of their ransomware. For example, GPCoder.G, which first appeared in November 2010, is a small (only 11 kilobytes ) piece of malware which, if executed, searches a hard drive for files with specific extensions, relating to everything from videos and Microsoft Office files to images and music. It then encrypts the first half of all files found, using a symmetric RSA encryption algorithm and a random key. The random, private key is then encrypted using a public key. “Without the private key from this key pair, it is not possible to obtain the symmetric key in order to decrypt the files,” said O Gorman.

To get the private key, the ransomware victim must forward the encrypted symmetric key to attackers, who decrypt and return it. Unfortunately, aside from restoring the encrypted files from a backup, “there is no way to bypass this technique,” he said.   Read More….

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