Daily Archives: January 30, 2011

2 posts

New Android 2.3 Exploit Found

Technology

Android version 2.3 Gingerbread has a security hole in the OS., reports Kelly Jackson Higgins writing on Darkreading.

“Xuxian Jiang, a security researcher at NC State University, has tested and confirmed the bug on a Nexus S smartphone running Android 2.3. An attack would work like this: An Android user clicks on a malicious link in an email or in the browser, and an attacker could then read and upload any files on the phone’s SD memory card, including things like online banking information, pictures, and saved voicemails. An attacker could also root out the phone’s apps and upload them to a remote server, according to Jiang, who is an assistant professor in the computer science department”

Full article: http://www.darkreading.com/insider-threat/167801100/security/vulnerabilities/229200006/data-leak-flaw-found-in-newest-version-of-google-android.html

Google Tackles Content Copying

News

Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team has written a post announcing a specific change to Google’s search algorithm to reduce content copying and spam in search engine results.

“we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly. The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments. We’ve also radically improved our ability to detect hacked sites, which were a major source of spam in 2010. And we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”

Read more: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html