Kiran Upadhyay

An identity theft service that prosecutors say illegally sold social security numbers, birth dates, driver license numbers, and other sensitive data for more than 500,000 people purchased much of the information from credit service Experian, according to a report published Sunday night. The revelation, reported by KrebsOnSecurity journalist Brian Krebs , is striking because Experian is one of the three major credit services. Experian also sells its own line of services for preventing identity theft. That means the company was in a position to profit not only from the data it reportedly sold to underground service Superget.info but also from the demand the underground site created for Experian's credit-monitoring and other identity theft protection services. Sunday's report comes four weeks after Krebs reported that members of a different identity theft ring hacked into LexisNexis and two other data brokers and obtained personal information belonging to at least

I recently wrote an article about why you should use a VPS instead of shared hosting. Those who read the article have obviously now upgraded to a VPS, because my argument was so compelling. Right? Of course you have. But all joking aside, if you do have your own web server, it’s very important to keep a close eye on what resources are being consumed. Maybe your server is under-powered, or maybe it’s too powerful and you’re wasting money when you are not utilizing it optimally. Monitoring your web server will not only tell you this kind of useful information, but also help you in troubleshooting problems if and when they arise. There are a number of paid systems that allow you to monitor both your web server and web sites, but using one or more of the tools listed in this article will not only save you some money, but give you similar functionality to those services that cost a lot of money. Monitor.Us Monitor.us is a simple to use, no frills monitoring tool that allo

In a move to protect freedom of expression on the internet, Google is launching a new tool to help websites protect themselves from attacks by hacker groups and other elements. Project Shield leverages Google’s infrastructure to ward off DDoS attacks. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the favoured tools of hacker and activist groups. What’s a DDoS attack? Basically, several computers across the world start pinging one website incessantly, until its servers can no longer handle the load and the site crashes or is unavailable for viewing. It’s a crude attack, but effective and used often because it is cheap to execute. In fact, if done right, it can even make huge websites like Twitter go offline. “For small, independent media or human rights organizations, a website might be the only voice they have. These types of websites have increasingly become the target for DDoS attacks, preventing access to important information,” Google says. Project Sh

Google Hangouts has got a new update on iOS that has brought a couple of really cool features. The top of the list is the ability to make phone calls and Google Voice support. And animated GIFs will now play in-line in chats. Phone calling was introduced to the Web app a few months ago, but this is the first time it’s coming to mobile. And since you can now make phone calls and it integrates with Google Voice, you can pretty much turn your iPod or iPad into a phone, as long as there’s Wi-Fi around. Outgoing calls will come from your Google Voice number, and incoming Voice calls can be answered from Google+ Hangouts. What’s more, calls made to the US and Canada are absolutely free, while international calls come with the same low rates as Google Voice. All you need is some calling credit and you’re good to go. On the messages front, animated GIFs will now play in-line, and you know what that means: time to keep these 5 reaction GIF sites bookmarked for easy reference! Als

In a move that left many gamers scratching their heads, Nintendo released the 2DS , a portable gaming system that removes the glasses-free 3D screen and clamshell design for which the console is known. It’s a big change, as all but one of Nintendo’s recent handheld consoles have featured a hinge (the one exception being the GameBoy Micro ). Gamers were left wondering who this console is for and why Nintendo made a non-3D console which is obviously a hassle to bring around? We’ve had the chance to play with the Nintendo 2DS for about a week now, and we have the answer to all of these questions and more. Best of all, we’re giving this Nintendo 2DS with a copy of Pokemon X away to one lucky reader! Keep reading to the bottom of the page to find out exactly how to enter for a chance to take this portable gaming system home for yourself. Introducing The Nintendo 2DS The new Nintendo 2DS is a portable handheld gaming console clearly aimed towards younger gamers, as remo

Wolfram Alpha is one of the best alternative search engines for finding answers to computational queries. Now, Wolfram Alpha has taken the same computational power and turned it into a solution for one of learning’s most “nightmarish” problems – learning mathematics. The Wolfram Problem Generator helps students solve practice problems with clear step-by-step directions. To use Wolfram Problem Generator you need to have a Wolfram Alpha Pro account. You can take it for a free trial before going in for a pro subscription. Students can pick from six main topics — arithmetic, number theory, algebra, calculus, linear algebra, and statistics. The topics follow the guidelines of Common Core Standards and can be customized according to the grade level. Lessons are available in varying difficulty levels for all ages…from elementary to college. Using the tool is easy. Teachers and students can pick a topic to study and the difficulty level and the tool automatically generates a

Click….wait. Click….wait. Click….ARG! Sound familiar? That’s the sound of someone running out of Internet bandwidth. A lot of things can drain away the capacity of that pipe that connects your computer to the Internet. It could be other people or devices on your network, or it could even be malicious applications or services running on the PC itself. The problem can get so bad that some people will toss out their computer and buy a new one. It doesn’t have to be that way. While the problem could be coming from anywhere, it isn’t impossible to troubleshoot if you know where to look, what tools to use, and what to do when you find the culprit. In this article, I’m going to give you a hand and walk you through the process of tracking down that bandwidth hog and shutting him down. Track Down The Bandwidth Bandit Via Your Router You could start just about anywhere when it comes to isolating the bandwidth hog on your network or inside your computer, but in order to grab at