Archive for March 15, 2014

Do Pwn2Own Results Suggest That Firefox Is Insecure?

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 15, 2014 by itnerd

If you think Firefox is secure, you may want to think again. At Pwn2Own this year, every major browser was exploited at least once. But Firefox was exploited the most. Why is that? I’ll let Sid Stamm, senior engineering manager of security and privacy at Mozilla tell you:

“Pwn2Own offers very large financial incentives to researchers to expose vulnerabilities, and that may have contributed in part to the researchers’ decision to wait until now to share their work and help protect Firefox users,” Stamm said. “Mozilla also offers financial rewards in our bug bounty program, and this program’s success has inspired other companies to follow suit.” 

Perhaps that’s true. Mozilla now pays researcher only $3,000 per vulnerability. Someone who finds a bug at Pwn2Own $50,000. Having said that, here’s something to consider. Could it be that Firefox is simply insecure and Mozilla really needs to step up their game? Perhaps. Mozilla is going to rapidly fix anything that was exploited at Pwn2Own, but you can bet that a whole lot of people are going to look at Firefox a whole lot closer for anything that they can exploit. And some of them will be interested in crime and not scoring a bounty from Mozilla.

So is Firefox insecure? We’ll find out soon enough.

Digia announces Qt Developer Days Asia

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 15, 2014 by itnerd

Previously I announced that Digia was having a mobile roadshow to get their development product Qt in front of as many developers as possible. Now the roadshow is coming to Asia with a stop in Tokyo, Japan on May 20th and Beijing, China on May 22nd. The full-day events will feature keynote addresses from senior members of the Digia Qt team plus two tracks of technical training and developer presentations. The technical sessions will focus on how the Qt cross-platform application and user interface (UI) development framework can be used to enhance, simplify and accelerate development for the leading desktop, embedded and mobile OS platforms.

If you’re in Tokyo or Beijing, check it out.

 

Tax Scams & Pitfalls For Consumers Filing Online

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 15, 2014 by itnerd

Plan on filing your taxes online? You might want to think twice. SIteJabber.com has just published new research on common tax scams and pitfalls. With 80% of taxpayers filing online, consumer education on safe resources for tax preparation and filing is more important than ever. They have a post on the five ways that doing taxes online can go wrong. Now not every online tax service is bad, but you really have to do your homework before you use one of these services. I’d have a look at this post before tax deadline day.