All Blog Posts from Tech Talk

It's the worm that just won't die. In fact, quite the opposite -- it's come back to life. The "Conficker" computer worm has baffled security experts for months and spread to millions of machines worldwide. On April 1 -- because of clues found in the coding -- some people thought it would spring to action after lying dormant for so long. It did not, and the internet survived. But that didn't mean "Conficker" was a dud. Rather, the clever creators appeared to be biding their time. This week the infected computers began receiving new instructions, and it seems this digital assault is far from over. Tune in tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric to see the latest chapter in this case of cyber thievery.

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It borders on "tin foil hat" territory but the vulnerablility is real. Many credit cards these days have an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip or "tag" embedded inside. It contains your credit card number and other personal details. The chips are "passive" meaning not powered, and in order to send a signal it must be placed in front of a reader at close range like a few inches. Plus the information is encrypted. But if a hacker got close enough to your wallet and was equipped with a special scanning device, the number COULD be stolen and read later. It got a couple of companies thinking about how to solve the problem, however unlikely or minor.

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Botnets. You may not have heard of them, but their invisible nature makes them all the more dangerous. And you may already be both a victim and an accomplice in a botnet operation. Because everything in the high-tech world needs an acronym or abbreviation, a botnet is actually short for a robot network. Think of it as a massive super-computer army with your computer one of the many conscripted ranks.

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