When a porn site masquerades as the Apple App Store

The next time you think you’re buying an iOS app from Apple’s online store, be warned: it could be a lookalike site. Recently I was redirected via an ad to an Apple-spoofing site at Badoink.

Apple finally turns HTTPS on for the App Store, fixing a lot of vulnerabilities

Early July 2012, I reported to Apple numerous vulnerabilities related to their App Store iOS app. Last week Apple finally issued a fix for it and turned on HTTPS for the App Store. I am really happy that my spare-time work pushed Apple to finally enabled HTTPS to protect users. This post discuss the vulnerabilities I found. As a bonus, I made several video demos of the attacks described in this post so you can see by yourself how dangerous not having full HTTPS is.

18.4% of US Internet users got at least one of their account compromised

Almost one in five US Internet users report that one of their online accounts had been comprised at some point. That is the result of the study I conducted using Google Consumer Surveys.  This a much higher percentage than I imagined and it emphasizes how pervasive account compromises are.

Survey: Internet Explorer users are older, Chrome seduces youth

Teens and college-age kids like Chrome. Their grandparents would rather use Internet Explorer.

That’s an exaggeration, but not much of one: a survey I recently conducted shows that approximately half of Americans 45 years or older prefer Internet Explorer, with the remainder of senior citizens opting for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera, in that order.

45% of the users found their email accounts more valuable than their bank accounts

When asked what type of online account is the most valuable to you, 45% of the population choose their email accounts over their banking, social network and gaming accounts. Younger generations start favoring social network over email. Women seem more into social networks, men into gaming.