Though its free, users should learn to behave protective while using any open source platform. Recently, it happened with Google Android. Android Police first reported about the 21 apps containing malware.

But by the time alarming news reached Google, over 50,000 users downloaded it. These remained available for downloads for 4 days. These apps have now been removed by Google from Android Market.

According to reports, these apps caused severe harm to phones of users. Their malicious activities left end user frustrated with the security concern of Google for Android apps.

US National Security Agency (NSA) is all geared up for release of its 'Perfect Citizen' programme that is aimed to look out for supposed threats and at the same time offer shield towards web attacks on American organisations, reports the Wall Street Journal.

It is a $100 million contract for the programme that is offered to defence contractor Raytheon.

In regard of this matter Raytheon via e-mail stated: "Our Government... feel that they need to ensure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure infrastructure critical to our national security."

According to a new study the Facebook members aren’t doing enough to ensure their personal data on the social network.

The consumer report study states that 23 per cent of users either don't know what privacy measures the site offers, or have failed to enable them. The important findings also highlight that, 42 per cent of respondents put their accurate date of birth in their profile, while close to a 26 per cent uploaded pictures of their family and friends with other details.

Approximately seven percent are amongst those who fill in their complete address on their profile, a further three percent update their current updates on their presence at home.

A group of scientists from Israel have developed a security system based on laser technology which they claim can protect against present and future hackers.

The team from the Tel Aviv University's School of Electrical Engineering said that the existing fibre optic and computer technology can used in the new security system which involves transmitting binary lock-and-key information in the form of light pulses.

One out of every four British teenagers revealed that they have tried to hack their friends’ Facebook accounts just for fun. This blustering information came in a survey conducted by Tufin Software Technologies, a security company, and Cumbria Constabulary. The survey was conducted on 1150 children below the age of 19 years.

The survey revealed that the most common way of access among the teenagers is to crack each other's passwords. According to the survey, 18% teens said that they had tried to access a friend's email while 6% of them admitted that they had tried to access the email accounts of their parents.

FBI Director Robert Mueller has expressed his concerns over the growing number of cyber threats in the country.

He informed that the US security system is now dealing with some serious cyber threats from a number of militant groups, foreign states and criminal organizations. Cyber criminals are now trying to target government and private computer networks, said Muller. He was addressing an Internet Security Conference in San Francisco.

In a fresh instance of rising number of cyber crimes, India's biggest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) failed to remain insulated from cyber attacks.

Hackers hacked the website of the company which claims to have high internet security mechanism for protecting its data. Going yet another step, the hackers also put its domain name on sale by taking advantage from the loopholes in the security system.

It has appeared that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will be asking his Chinese counterpart for clarifications on Beijing's issue with US Internet giant Google during talks this week.

Mr. Kouchner is supposed to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Paris on Wednesday.

"This is a very important event, it is a way of showing the extent to which information traveling around the world is under surveillance, which is quite troubling," said Kouchner, while referring to the issue.

Despite the heavy talks regarding cyber crime including hacking, vulgar e-mails and online frauds by cyber experts in Karnataka, not even a single person has been convicted for the cyber since the setting of IT Act in 2000.

This piece of news was forwarded by DG of Corps of Detectives (CoD) D V Guruprasad at the 3rd anniversary celebrations of the cyber lab at the CoD headquarters in Bangalore.

"The cyber police station was inaugurated in 2001, a few months after the IT Act 2000 were passed, yet only 307 cases have been registered in the past nine years. The annual average of cases is 37," said Guruprasad.

As the authorities are busy reviewing the possible ways in which the alleged terrorist, who had tried to bomb the Amsterdam-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, could have brought explosives with him aboard the plane, the Transportation Security Administration is targeting bloggers who have written about a directive to step up the security measures at airports after the attempted attack.

Karsten Nohl, a security expert from Germany, has claimed that he has been able to successfully crack the GSM encryption algorithm, a development which can make call through GSM operators vulnerable to snooping.

The hacker has shared that he has been able to listen in on people's conversations with increased ease with the use of equipment which has cost him a few thousand dollars and a set of cracking tables, which have been compiled by him in association with his team over the past 6 months.

In another serious incident of a major data breach, hackers recently targeted the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), and stole emails from the system, which appeared all over the internet on Thursday. The police have been informed and a full investigation is being undertaken.

Firefox has found a big security hole in the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant and Windows Presentation Foundation add-ons and decided to block Microsoft's add-on and plug-in to avoid any possible threat of attack.

Microsoft automatically installed a pair of components for Windows users of the Firefox Web browser without their permission few months earlier.

3Com has been working to streamline secure network solution making them cost effective and power efficient. The company has now decided to integrate its interruption technology by introducing appliances and switch modules based on VPN (virtual private network) technology from H3C.

The company will introduce blades with the TippingPoint IPS from the first quarter of 2010 besides starting a single management platform from TippingPoint's Security Management System (SMS)

In a clear instance of rise in cyber crimes, some unidentified hackers hacked web site of open source organization, the Apache Software Foundation, compromising the SSH key of the web server widely used for remote administration.

The incident, which brought down the company's operations for several hours, was first reported by Trend Micro senior security advisor Rik Ferguson.

Ferguson wrote in his technical blog: "It is worth remembering however that a compromised SSH key led to in-the-wild exploitation of Linux based systems exactly this time last year, for the purposes of installing rootkits."

McAfee Inc, one of the leading security software makers, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately owned MX Logic, Inc. for approximately US$140mn.

MX Logic is a leading global provider of cloud-based email and Web security and email archiving and continuity services. The firm has 40,000 customers and 4 million end users.

Following acquisition, McAfee will offer the most comprehensive and dedicated security portfolio in the market with the broadest set of delivery options including appliances, software, in the cloud or hybrid deployments.

Tata Communications, a leading telecom and Internet services provider, today announced their partnership with F-Secure, the global leading provider of security as a service through ISPs and mobile operators, to offer mobile phone security services in India.

With this latest alliance, Tata Communications will be the first to offer F-Secure's award wining complete Mobile Security package, which includes virus protection, malware protection and an integrated firewall, to over 50 million smart phone users in India.

Symantec, a global provider of security solutions, has entered into an agreement with a diversified technology company Hewlett Packard (HP) for providing online backup to latter's consumer desktop and notebook PCs globally.

Under the arrangement, Symantec will distribute Norton Online Backup on HP consumer desktop and notebook PCs worldwide. The 30-day trial offer of Norton Online Backup would be pre-installed in the consumer desktop and notebooks and will provide five gigabytes (5GB) of secured online storage.

Cranes Software has informed that its subsidiary Proland Software, an IT security company which owns the Protector Plus range of Anti-virus software products, has entered into a strategic partnership with VirusBuster, a Hungary-based security solutions provider to provide anti-virus solutions.

The partnership is considered as an important step for VirusBuster to further strengthen its position in international markets, and to increase Proland's existing product portfolio.

As per the researchers at security firm Symantec, the Conficker malware infection continues to spread, even after media had stopped covering the virus.

The recent report confirmed that the botnet is still claiming victims at a rate of 50,000 a day, with US, Brazil, India, China, Mexico and Italy having highest number of infections.

The researchers said in a blog post that though media hype seems to have died down around Conficker/Downadup, but it is still out there spreading far and wide.