Visa and AmEx drop hacked payment processing company

Visa and American Express have dropped the payment processing company that left some 40 million credit and debit card accounts vulnerable to hackers. In one the biggest ever threats to consumer data security, CardSystems Solutions' security was breached in May this year, with some 200,000, mainly Visa and MasterCard records stolen, although the company did not inform the FBI until June. Visa spokeswoman Rosetta Jones explained that CardSystems 'has not corrected, and cannot at this point correct, the failure to provide proper data security for Visa accounts'. ...more

Orange teams up with Handspring for smarter phones

Handspring and Orange have announced they will work together to provide data-enabled phones to work out of the box. In a recent survey, research firm Canalys predicted that smart phones would outsell handhelds this year, even though both markets would increase. However, the company warned that smart phone manufacturers would have to team up with network operators to utilise their better marketing and customer relations to provide an improved out-of-the box experience for consumers. ...more

AMD to supply 26,000 processors to schools in China

AMD has signed a deal to supply 26,000 processors for PCs in schools in China. The deal with Chinese OEMs Dawning and Lenovo - the new owners of IBM's PC division - means AMD will supply Sempron chips to Lenovo Qitian M 6200M PCs and Opterons for the Dawning Tiankuo A Series i200-A servers. The eastern province of Hebei's Education Bureau is providing the demo site for the nationwide 'Long-Distance Education Project'. ...more

UK scores high for secure remote working

In a global survey of remote workers, the UK shapes up as one of the more secure nations. The Cisco-commissioned survey polled 100 or more remote workers from each of the 10 countries and discovered that while many of us proclaim an awareness of the extra security risks associated with remote working, that doesn't necessarily translate into safe working practices. Indeed the UK was placed third behind China and Australia with 72 per cent acknowledging the need to take extra precaution when remote working. ...more

Adult spam sinks to new low - Symantec

According to new research from Symantec, Spam of an adult nature is on the decrease. The 'State of Spam' report released by the IT security company found that adult spam now only makes up three per cent of all spam, which the company said was an 'all time low'. But spam in general continues to be a pain for everyone with unwanted junk making up 70 per cent of all email traffic, a slight increase on previous months. ...more