The premium rate regulator has uncovered two cases of smartphone apps charging users without their knowledge or consent.

Now the regulator, Phonepayplus, has issued plans for more protection for consumers from rogue traders in the industry.

In one case an app automatically sent and received text messages that could cost the user £4.50 each.

It was shut down by the regulator.

Now Phonepayplus has started consultation on proposals that consumers’ consent to charge is clearer, password requirements are strengthened to prevent children buying items, and there is more explanation of the cost of virtual credit.

“We need to be nimble and flexible in our approach. We know that the best regulation is one that works collaboratively with industry to pre-empt problems that harm consumers and damage markets,” said Paul Whiteing, Phonepayplus chief executive.

“We will not hesitate to use our robust sanctioning powers to drive out rogue providers who could damage a vital part of the UK’s growing and innovative digital and creative economies.

Source: BBCNews

Hague said that the conference, which will be held on November 1 and 2 in London, will be attended by more than 80 governments and international organisations.

The announcement follows a commitment made by the foreign secretary at the 2011 Munich Security Conference. During his speech at the conference, Hague had said that the UK will host a global conference to ‘discuss norms of acceptable behaviour in cyberspace’.

“We have a shared responsibility to address the challenges presented by the networked world including cyber crime that threatens individuals, companies, and governments. It is vital that cyberspace remains a safe and trusted environment in which to operate,” Hague said in a statement.

“This can only be done effectively through international cooperation, engaging both the public and private sectors,” he added.

The conference will be held at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London and will be organised by the International Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Institute of International Affairs along with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Members of the public will be allowed to announce their opinion via online forum before and during the conference.

Source: ITProPortal

The Flash player 10.1 beta will be released later this year and will be compatible with Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and desktop OS’ including Windows, Mac and Linux.

Betas compatible with Google Android and Symbian OS are expected to be available in early 2010.

The company has also announced a project to bring Flash to BlackBerry smartphones.

David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the platform business unit at Adobe, said in a statement: “With Flash Player moving to new mobile platforms, users will be able to experience virtually all Flash technology based Web content and applications wherever they are.”

He added: “It will be great to see first devices ship with full Flash Player in the first half of next year.”

The company is also heading up the Open Screen Project, which plans to offer a consistent runtime environment for electronic mobile devices.

“We are excited about the broad collaboration of close to 50 industry leaders in the Open Screen Project and the ongoing collaboration with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide,” added Wadhwani.

Source: Jennifer Scott October 2009

At the annual Pwn2Own at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, Charlie Miller hacked Apple’s Safari browser in seconds (below), but the others didn’t last significantly longer. As Ryan Naraine says at ZD Net:

A security researcher named “Nils” (he declined to provide his full name) performed a clean drive-by download attack against the world’s most widely used browser to take full control of a Sony Vaio machine running Windows 7.
He won a cash prize and got to keep the hardware. Details of the vulnerability, which was described by contest sponsor TippingPoint ZDI as a “brilliant IE8 bug!” are being kept under wraps.

Nils also pwned Safari and, later, Firefox, winning a total of $15,000 plus two computers. Not a bad day’s work.

Heise Online says Nils is “a 25 year old computer science student at the University of Oldenburg in Germany”.

Apple’s Safari was first to fall because Charlie Miller’s name was first out of the hat. If Nils had gone first, he might well have hit Safari first, but that would have been down to the MacBook being more attractive than the Sony Viao: he could have pwned whichever he liked, but the MacBook had already gone.

So, this year, nobody really gets any bragging rights — you can be pwned whichever browser and operating system you use — except maybe Google Chrome.

And as the DVLabs report says: “Will Nils produce a Chrome exploit tomorrow, turning his trifecta into a clean sweap of all browsers? Stay tuned!”

Source: Jack Schofield The Guardian March 2009

At this year’s competiton, some of the world’s top computer security experts squared off against Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome. When the hacking stopped, only Chrome was left standing. In order to win, competitors must trick a web browser into running an arbitrary program.
Safari was the earliest victim, with Charlie Miller cracking it just seconds after the starting gun.

Before the competion, Miller told reporters that Safari running on Mac OS X was the easiest browser to exploit and would be the first to fall. All in all, Pwn2Own competitors revealed 4 new security weaknesses in the newest versions of IE, Safari and Firefox. No mobile devices were compromised at the competition.

Pwn2Own is sponsored by the Zero Day Initiative, a project that rewards security professionals for responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities. ZDI provides full disclosure to vendors, giving them a chance to plug holes in their software before the bad guys find them.