Group used 30,000-node botnet in MasterCard, PayPal attacks

IDG News Service - PayPal's website was hit late Wednesday by two botnets as online activists continued their Web attacks on companies that have severed their relationships with WikiLeaks.

The activists have recruited volunteers, who have banded their computers into a distributed denial of service (DDoS) botnet, but they are also using hacked machines to carry out these attacks, said Sean-Paul Correll of threat researcher Panda Security. "Today we observed over 3,000 computers in the voluntary botnet, but we also have knowledge of a 30k node botnet," he said.

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Android Will Give NFC a Boost, but Challenges Remain

Android-based smartphones with NFC (Near Field Communication) will help turn mobile phones into wallets, but there are issues that have to be solved before that happens, according to analysts.

On Monday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced at the Web. 2.0 Summit that the next version of Android, code-named Gingerbread, will support mobile payments and he also showed an upcoming Android-based smartphone with an integrated NFC chipset.

“We think actually that Android devices should support [NFC],” said Schmidt.

NFC is a short-range wireless technology that, for example, can be used to make contactless payments.

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Guide for teen-proofing Facebook released

If you are a parent and you want your teen to be able to use Facebook without either of you having to worry that your child is sharing too much personal information, there's a new resource that can help.

A "Parents' Guide to Facebook," being unveiled today, offers hands-on, step-by-step instructions and illustrations, as well as information on safety, privacy, and reputation protection; and it covers the use of Facebook on computers and cell phones. It also offers specific recommendations for configuring privacy settings, noting that the default Facebook settings are not as privacy protective as they should be, even for adults.
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