Over 25 Million Payment Cards in Nigeria At Risk

Unless quick measures are put in place, your digital wallet, particularly the payment cards which you so much treasure, may sadly be like the proverbial basket used to store water. If recent developments are anything to go by, only God will prevent hackers from being smarter than you.

Do you know why? Microsoft server 2003 and 2003 R2, which supports the platform, will come to the end of their life circles by July 2015. This is a normal support life cycle policy for Microsoft.

The implication of this expected development is that over 25 million electronic payment cards issued by 23 Nigerian banks could be at risk of malicious and targeted attacks by cyber criminals.

Smartphones to replace room keys at Hilton hotels

The idea moves around the ability to use a mobile device to check in and choose a specific room based on a hotel's digital floor plan.

This will also help guests who may lose key cards or leave them in the room.

"Hilton Worldwide will begin installing the technology required to let phones unlock doors, letting guests skip the usual line-waiting and check-in process and head straight for their rooms," an announcement read.

"We have spent the past few years testing a number of different options to make this vision a reality. Now we are developing technology that is safe and reliable for our guests to use and cost-effective for our hotels to install," Christopher J. Nassetta, president and chief executive officer of Hilton Worldwide, was quoted as saying.

The technology will work through the Hilton "HHonors" app for iOS and Android.

Information on how the smartphone keys will work is vague at best.

Hilton expects to have the smartphone room keys in the US by the end of 2015 and globally by end of 2016, the announcement added.

BlackBerry buys Secusmart a German anti-eavesdropping firm :To add more security to mobile technology

Blackberry a Canadian smartphone manufacturer has bought over Secusmart a Germain Voice and data encryption and eavesdropping firm whose major clients includes NATO  and German government. The purchase has been announced though the financial details of the transaction regarding the regulatory approval has not been disclosed

The two companies had already partnered to offer Secusmart-equipped BlackBerry handsets to most German government ministries and to the chancellor herself following allegations last year of the United States spying on its ally.

The deal firms BlackBerry's reputation for secure mobile communications, chief executive John Chen said in a statement.

He said the security needs of smartphone users continue to increase "with the growing complexity of enterprise mobility, with devices being used for more critical tasks and to store more critical information, and security attacks becoming more sophisticated."

The acquisition of Secusmart, he said, addresses "growing security costs and threats ranging from individual privacy to national security."

It comes as the White House tries to patch up a serious rift with Germany over the disclosures that the US National Security Agency (NSA) tapped Merkel's mobile phone.

Nissan recalls 439,000 cars for air bag defects

Nissan is the latest company to recall thousands of cars because of air bag defects.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that Nissan is recalling certain lines of its Infiniti, Maxima, Pathfinder and Sentra cars for the model years 2002 to 2004.

They had previously announced a recall of more than 438,000 vehicles.

This new alert is prompted by faulty air bags that have been blamed for the recall of millions of cars recently, including those made by BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Mazda and Toyota.

The air bags systems were made by Tokyo-based Takata Corporation.

The air bag inflators can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the air bags are deployed and potentially cause serious injuries. So far no one's been hurt.