Week in Review: Halloween tech scares

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This week has been a busy one and there have been many stories with a Halloween-related theme.

Halloween malware

There is actually something real to be scared of in IT, and that is the threat of malware. It is always a problem but becomes more serious as seasonal events approach and scammers try and target users who might let their guard down for a Halloween message or e-card.

We saw early this week the damage that cyber criminals can cause, with the Guardian jobs website hacked and half a million accounts affected. This could become a real problem, as much of the information that you put on your CV could be gold to thieves looking to steal identities or perform social engineering attacks.

Facebook remembers the dead

Maybe Facebook was thinking of Halloween when it thought up this rather creepy feature in which the profiles of lost friends and loved ones can be ‘memorialised’ after the time of the person’s death.

Google terrifies the sat nav companies

From something traditionally creepy to something that will terrify sat nav companies like TomTom and Garmin. Google has put navigation technology into new versions of its smartphone software to provide driving directions on mobile devices.

This could be a real problem for companies that sell specific hardware devices, as it won’t be easy to see why an individual would shell out a substantial amount of money when they can get the tech on their phone for free. The sat nav companies may have a good reason to be fearful.

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