Stories by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

I want out of Windows patch hell

You’d think that when it made patches pretty much inescapable, Microsoft would have made darn sure those patches were problem-free. But you’d be wrong.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 06 Oct | Read more

Malware is getting nastier, but that shouldn’t matter

Sure, cybercriminals are always improving their wares, but nothing has changed about how our machines actually get infected.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 11 Apr | Read more

Living the CES security farce

The new ‘enhanced’ security promised for CES turned out to be a joke, but the illusion of safety provided by security theater really fell away on the way home.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 13 Jan | Read more

Adobe Flash: Kill it now

It’s time to put Flash out of our misery once and for all. And, thanks to Google, it may finally happen.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 01 Sep | Read more

Oracle, still clueless about security

Oracle Chief Security Officer Mary Ann Davidson let loose a long rant about people who dare to look into the security of the company’s products. Oracle quickly backed away from those remarks, but has it faced up to the fact that its CSO has some wrongheaded notions about her own area of expertise?

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 25 Aug | Read more

OPM: The worst hack of all time

Hi, my name is Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and I had a security clearance in the 1980s. Because of that, my personal records are likely to have been revealed by the <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2931976/cybercrime-hacking/us-govt-reports-massive-breach-of-personnel-data.html">Office of Personnel Management hack</a>.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 30 Jun | Read more

2015: The year the Internet crashes. Hard.

An Internet joke that goes back at least to the early 1980s consists entirely of the phrase: "<a href="http://catb.org/jargon/html/I/Imminent-Death-Of-The-Net-Predicted-.html">Imminent Death of the Net Predicted</a>!" Every year, even more often than you'd hear "This will be the year of the Linux desktop!" someone would predict that the Internet was going to go to hell in a handbasket -- and nothing happened. This year it's my turn, but I fear I'm going to be proved right.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 09 Jan | Read more

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Here comes the black market for XP patches

"Hey buddy."

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 25 Apr | Read more

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: You can keep using XP for another year, but do you really want to?

While clinging to the 11-year-old OS after Microsoft issues its last security patch in April is defensible, the security risks are going to keep mounting.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 18 Feb | Read more

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Does Windows 8 help the government to spy on us?

TPM has always sounded like a good idea. But the problem with 'trusted computing' has alwasy been knowing how trustworthy it is.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 09 Sep | Read more

All about Prism, Internet privacy and -- wait! -- squirrel!

Some people are deeply upset about the latest incursions into our privacy. But as a society, we don't seem to care all that much.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 01 Jul | Read more

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Google Glass will be a big deal, so deal with it

Some people are having fits about Google Glass. True, it will change how we think about privacy in public places, but such rethinking started years ago.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 20 May | Read more

Opinion: The CIA and the Cloud

Get this: The CIA sees the Cloud as being more secure than conventional IT.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 22 Apr | Read more

How CAPTCHA got trashed

CAPTCHA used to be an easy and useful way for Web administrators to authenticate users. Now it's an easy and useful way for malware authors and spammers to do their dirty work.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | 15 Jul | Read more

Stories by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

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