BrickHouse Security Blog

Full-Body Scanners: From Airport Security to Your Local Shopping Mall

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scan 300x225 Full Body Scanners: From Airport Security to Your Local Shopping Mall By now we have all seen or heard about the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) x-ray scanners in airports. If you plan on traveling and prefer not to receive the intensive full-body pat-down, you must go through the scanners in order to pass security. But regardless of all the controversy surrounding the invasion of privacy associated with these scanners, the question has been raised: can this technology be used for more consumer friendly purposes? [...]

How to Avoid Bin Laden Cyber-Scams

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With the news of Osama Bin Laden’s demise, everyone has been searching the Internet for information on what really happened, seeking photos of the notorious terrorist’s body. Beware, however – whenever there’s a hot topic or something that a large mass of people are searching the web for, cyber criminals are always right around the corner with viruses and spyware. [...]

Sony Online Entertainment Users: Time to Change Your Credit Cards

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Adding insult to injury, the hacker community has once again successfully attacked the Sony online gaming service, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). This attack resulted in hackers stealing data from 24.6 million customer accounts, which is part of an ongoing cyber war against Sony that has now compromised more than 100 million accounts total. [...]

Death of Osama Bin Laden Triggers Twitter Exploits

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Sunday night the world, and America in particular, rejoiced at the death of Osama Bin Laden, founder and figurehead of the jihadist organization al-Qaeda. While it’s a bit bittersweet and seemingly insensitive to celebrate the death of a human being, it marks a major milestone in America’s War on Terror. [...]

Affluent N.Y. Town to Run a Background Check on Every Visitor

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Imagine getting lost on a road and pulling into a random town to ask for directions. But the moment you pull in you’re instantly pulled over by police officers for a crime you committed years ago, or just because someone with whom you had an altercation years ago lives there; either way, you didn’t do anything wrong. How can this be possible? [...]

PlayStation Breach Compromised Millions of Users’ Personal Information

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Sony’s PlayStation Network, which allows more than 75 million gamers worldwide to play interactively with one another, was breached last Wednesday, causing the network to crash completely. This Tuesday, it was revealed that personal information may have been compromised. Today, more information is surfacing to the vast scope and severity of what Sony is describing as a “network intrusion.” [...]

Your Unsecured Wi-Fi Network Might Get You Arrested

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It is always best policy to secure your wireless network, but whenever you scan for a Wi-Fi connection in a public place you usually find at least one open network. So why do people choose to leave their networks unsecured? Likely, they’re thinking that, “It won’t bother me if someone uses my connection,” or they’re just too lazy to set it up, seeing unsecured connections as harmless, or even benevolent to others. [...]

Should a Speeding Ticket Require Forfeiting Your Smartphone Data?

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Whatever ever happened to the good ol’ days where getting pulled over just meant you would get a speeding ticket, or if you’re lucky, just a warning? Well, if it’s up to the Michigan State Police, those days are not only long gone, but a speeding ticket is now reason enough to harvest all the information possible on you, including all of your e-mail, social networking, texting, personal photos, and virtually anything else you might have on your cell phone, or in many cases, your smartphone. [...]

Apple is Secretly Tracking Your Every Move

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Most smartphones, like the iPhone for example, use a built-in GPS antenna to offer you travel directions, make the localized search more accurate, and enable location-based apps like Foursquare to function. However, many people believe that when those location-enabled apps are disabled, or when the GPS function is turned off, that the phone is at rest, and is not recording their every move. [...]

Online Dating Sites About to Become Much Safer

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We all know that the Internet is populated with every walk of life: the types that you’d want to meet and possibly date, the type that you should avoid at all costs, and everything in between. But how can you tell the two apart, especially when you find them on online dating sites like Match.com, where everyone wants to portray a favorable image? [...]

Is Your Computer for Rent?

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In this capitalist society, almost anything and everything can be bought, or at the very least temporarily rented. Whether it be a home, car, or even a forehead, there is a price on almost everything. But unlike the few rent-able aforementioned objects, the topic of this story is renting something that the owner is unaware of—a personal computer for the purpose of committing cyber crime. [...]

RoboCop Glasses Soon to be a Reality

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If you thought technology couldn’t get any faster or smaller, think again. The latest supercomputer to hit the streets isn’t an iPad, tablet, or even a smart phone. Instead, it is built right into the glasses of police officers who will soon be scouting out large crowds, scanning for criminals without ever even having to go near them. What we’re talking about here are the (seriosuly named) “RoboCop” glasses, which are named after the 1987 action film. [...]

GPS Jammers are Now More Dangerous than Ever

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GPS technology is increasingly becoming crucial to our everyday lives. No longer is this tracking technology only used for getting driving directions or tracking a specific package; instead it’s now used in everything from landing aircraft, guiding ships, synchronizing data on communication networks, and even helping keep power grids running. Combine this growing dependency on GPS technology with the fact that almost anyone can purchase a professional GPS jammer online, and you have the perfect ingredients for lots of chaos and damage. [...]

Zebras: Nature’s Barcodes

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GPS tracking has been used to chart animal migratory patterns and other behaviors for years. This method of tracking, and the even more invasive method of implanting RFID chips, however, could be a thing of the past with increased technological breakthroughs in cameras and digital algorithms. Learning an animal’s location could now be as simple as snapping a photograph. [...]