From ArsTechnica:

Here’s an important safety tip, courtesy of the Privacy Commissioner of Australia’s state of New South Wales: erasing data on a USB drive doesn’t mean it’s gone. Encrypting USB data is the only way to keep it safe.

"Flame" - complex malware has been exposed by Kaspersky Labs

Malware known as Flame could have been targeting specific countries such as Israel, and Iran, since 2010.

Kasperky Labs, a Russian outfit, thinks that this could be the work of a government, and that the malware causes no damage, but steals private data from targeted organisations, and individuals.

From TechRadar:

We recently looked at various techniques you can use to hide data in Windows, from simple filename tricks to complete encryption of the OS. Now we're going to turn the tables and discover ways to uncover hidden activity.

From ArsTechnica:

Account login services that implement applications from Google, Facebook, and other commercial providers are prone to flaws that allow adversaries unauthorized access to private user profiles on the third-party Websites that use them, a team of computer scientists has concluded.

From the Telegraph:

Our social networking pages are being policed by outsourced, unvetted moderators

From Bits:

SAN FRANCISCO — The private photos on your phone may not be as private as you think.

Developers of applications for Apple’s mobile devices, along with Apple itself, came under scrutiny this month after reports that some apps were taking people’s address book information without their knowledge.

From ArsTechnica:

Last week, friends of Kyle and Kelly Peron got a disturbing email that appeared to be from the couple, a husband-and-wife magic act. It told of trouble overseas, claiming that the two had been mugged while vacationing briefly in the Phillipines. "We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves in few hours from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills," the email pleaded. "Please, let me know if you can help us out?"

From the BBC:

HTC is investigating claims that a security flaw in several of its mobile phones means personal information is being exposed.

The Android Police blog says a file containing a user's GPS location and email addresses can be easily accessed once internet permissions are granted.

No more, ilovecats and 12345

You only have to look at lists of hacked online accounts, dumped to places like pastebin, to see that many people are using passwords which could be easily guessed, or brute forced in no time.