Windows has had it’s share of vulnerabilities in the past, so now Microsoft is offering more than $250,000 in cash and prizes for contestants who can come up with new ways to mitigate exploits. Anonymous and LulzSec are out there after all, taking companies down.

Microsoft will pay $200,000 for the best “novel runtime mitigation technology designed to prevent the exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.” Two runners up will also receive $50,000 and a MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000. I’d say that is lots of incentive to come up with some new tricks, wouldn’t you?

Twitter has just announced that they will be offering an optional “always on” HTTPS setting to its users. So if you use Twitter on unsecured internet connections like free public WiFi and are worried about people stealing your login details, you should be enabling the option on your Twitter settings page.

Enabling the HTTPS setting doesn’t force mobile browsers, so if you’re using the Twitter website on your phone, go to https://mobile.twitter.com/ for now. Also if you use a third-party client, check the settings to sure that it offers HTTPS.

It has been reported that there is a security flaw on the Amazon site that allows customers to log into their account without using their exact password. For example, if your password is PASSWORD, users can enter “password”, “passwordpassword”, “password12345″ to login to the account and it will still work.

This is apparently because the site still uses an old password encrypting technique that truncates passwords after the 8th character for some accounts that have kept the same password for many years. So users were not able to protect their accounts with passwords longer than 8 characters. However, Amazon has solved the problem – users just need to update their password, and it should automatically upgrade the password encryption.

The Password Vault stores and secures account information for website addresses, usernames, passwords, and ATM PINs, and allows immediate retrieval when you need them. Your passwords are safely stored offline in the vault’s memory, ensuring that the information can never be compromised. It can store up to 400 account records.

Sounds much safer than leaving passwords on notes around the house. The Password Vault holds all of your secret information behind its own password. And if the device is misplaced, lost, or stolen, five unsuccessful attempts to access your accounts will lock the device for 30 minutes. You can also reset it to erase all of your secret data.

Apple fanboys have long gloated about the “fact” that Apple users are safe and secure compared to PC users. It’s utter nonsense of course and here’s further proof. Owners of the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad need to be careful. Visiting a web page and loading a simple PDF file might actually set off a security bug that affects all iOS 4-powered devices.

All it requires is for the user to visit a web address using Safari, and the site will automatically load a simple PDF document that holds a font which hides a special program. When the IOS 4-powered device you are using displays the PDF file, the font will begin the stack overflow condition that allows embedded code in the font to gain full control of your device.

Blogger Bob with the TSA announced recently that electronic items smaller than the standard size laptop should not need to be removed from their bag or case when going through airport security. They didn’t say specifically what that standard size is, but did name a few items specifically that would fall below the size threshold have having to be removed, namely iPads, Kindles, Neos, Nooks, Sony Readers and Netbooks.

This certainly doesn’t mean that you don’t need to take things out of your bag if asked when going through security, but it is good news to hear since removing and donning all your gear again is sometimes tough enough.

TSA via Engadget

You spent a lot on that new iPad, so you better keep it secure. And to do just that NewPCgadgets has introduced a new Security Case for the iPad. Now you can lock up that iPad and prevent others from using it without your permission.

This is the first locking case for the iPad and makes it look all businessy rather than stylish in my opinion. It’s available in black leather for $44.95. But looking at that design, I’m not sure it will keep any determined person away from your iPad for long.

A mobile phone running Google’s Android software along with a third party security app was recently stolen in Oregon and was able to fight back against it’s captors, getting itself home again. The Motorola Droid was stolen out of a couples home late at night along with a number of other electronic items and things of values.

Shortly after stealing the device the thieves snapped a few photos of themselves with the on-board camera which, unknown to them, were then uploaded to a server as part of a backup process that runs each night. The owners were then able to download the photos from the servers website and turn them over to police which eventually led to the capture of at least one of the robbers.

The backup/security application was a free download for the Android phone called …

Brando has been busy building a more secure mouse. The Wireless Encryption Mouse makes it easy to secure sensitive data on your laptop. That’s because it features a “Folder Encryption” function, where folders can be encrypted on your PC, so that they can only be accessed when the mouse and wireless receiver is plugged in. That should keep your naughty pictures safe.

The Wireless Encryption Mouse is available in green, red, yellow and silver and works on the 2.4GHz wireless frequency with 1600dpi resolution. The Wireless Encryption Mouse will cost you $22.

You are going away on vacation and you want to make sure that your home is secure while you are away. What do you do? I’ll tell you what, you just buy a old-fashioned phone and let it do all of the work. The motion detecting telephone can detect anyone walking in the room and can be set to dial a pre-set number when motion is detected. It also has a built in microphone that records sound in the room and sends it to your mobile phone.

It connects to the telephone wall port just like any other phone and will cost you $59.95. It’s useless to those with animals though as their movement will just have them calling you at all hours while you are away.

In this weeks version of “Patch Tuesday” from Microsoft, the released security bulletin addressed a record count of 31 vulnerabilities across versions of Windows and Microsoft Office.

Of the updates a number of them were rated as “critical” and dealt with an issue of remote code execution through specifically designed web pages that were viewed through Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8. This vulnerability, before the fix, would allow strangers to take control of the PC remotely through executing code in the browser.

We are all familiar with those annoying know captchas that can be found on sites all over the web. The idea is to make sure that you are human. Well, D-Link has added it to their latest router range. Yep. Routers with Captcha-capability built-in, hoping to prevent attacks from malware and spyware.

The new firmware will also also work with current models, where the distorted letters and numbers combination are added to common router settings pages. The D-Link router models that feature CAPTCHA include the DIR-615, DIR-625, DIR-628, DIR-655, DIR-825, DIR-855, DIR-685 and DGL-4500.

If you’re paranoid about your credit card info while shopping online, (And who isn’t?) it just got a little safer thanks to the SmartSwipe credit card reader. You might think you’re safe online as long as that padlock icon is displayed in your browser. And you are pretty safe, but not completely, hackers can still access your personal information while it is being entered into your computer and while it is still in memory.

With this SmartSwipe card reader your info is safe becaue your card information is never stored on your computer. The device uses Dynamic SSL technology and the same level of encryption used in bank machines and ATMs.

If you want to make sure that your personal information is protected, check out the latest from Fujitsu. The Secure USB Memory Device makes absolutely sure your data is secure. If you transport a lot of information from computer to computer it will be very useful.

Think of it as a thumb drive with a battery and a processor built in. You can adjust the security settings on the drive so that data will be automatically deleted after a certain period of time. Whatever you decide. Or if someone else tries t use it on another computer.

The Asus Eee PC1004DN is the first Eee PC to feature a Super-Multi optical disc drive, which lets users read and write optical discs for convenient data back-ups. A power-efficient Express Card slot provides expansion capabilities, along with plug-and-play compatibility and auto-configuration access.

The Asus Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) technology will give you an extended battery life while on-the-go. The Asus Eee PC1004DN also features the Asus Data Security System (ADSM) which gives users the option of logging-on using their fingerprints. It will recognize multiple fingerprints belonging to the same user and allow you to encrypt a single folder with the same security system.