The high profile attacks of Anonymous and other malicious hackers have recently raised the eyebrows of many business owners and private computer users in terms of their own internet security. In order to make sure that your business or personal safety is never compromised it may be useful to review the recent trends in internet security.

First of all, in the future the emphasis of internet security is going to focus on protecting the information contained in systems instead of just on the systems themselves. As more people and businesses take advantage of cloud services and online storage there is a growing amount of information floating online as well. herefore, data needs to be properly guarded by antivirus software and controlled by companies and users in order to make sure that it remains private.

At the same time, the cloud itself is raising new issues about internet security as there is a general lack of understanding about what the cloud is and how to secure it. For this reason it is important to tackle the myths that surround the cloud and customers need to learn what security basics they need to know about the cloud and which services are really going to help them.

A new security concern for the modern age is the fact that viruses and malware are now attacking internet browsers on mobile phones as well as computers. The same is going to be true of tablets and whilst most people have being convinced into thinking that their mobile platforms are safe, this is simply not the truth anymore.

Therefore, proper measures need to be taken to make sure every device that you access the internet with is secure, and not just the computer that you use at home, otherwise you will be closing the front door while unlocking the back door of your safe house.

The claimants have said that Google designed a new code that secretly installed the small tracking files commonly known as cookies on the Safari browser platform. Cookies are widely used by advertisers to target prospective customers based on the kind of website that a user browses.

The law firm who are handling the case, Oslwang, has given an example of somebody who is looking for a wedding ring for their partner, and when they go back onto the computer they see advertisements for wedding rings on other sites as they browse. The claimants have all said that they thought they had cookies blocked on their devices due to assurances given by both Google and the default privacy settings on Safari.

It has been estimated that approximately 10m people could have the grounds to make a similar claim given the fact that that was how many Apple users there were at the time in question which is the period between the summer of 2011 to the spring of 2012. There is no suggestion at all at this stage that Apple is in any way to blame for this.

There is now an ‘information’ group on Facebook called ‘Safari Users Against Google’s Secret Tracking’ that has been set up by campaigners. Dan Tench is a partner at Olswang, and he has said that Google have a responsibility to all their users and should be accountable for these actions.

What was intended to be a short cut for Facebook users so they could log in quicker proved to quite the opposite and ended up not only exposing their email addresses to all and sundry but also potentially giving outsiders access to their accounts. On Friday, a spokesman from Facebook said that the company created the ‘auto login’ short cut to enable some users to go directly into their pages by clicking a web link that was sent to their email addresses.

Once they clicked on it, they were taken straight to their account instead of having to log in on Facebook.com. The company also said that while some links asked users for their passwords, others did not. On the technology discussion forum Website Hacker News Matt Jones, a Facebook engineer, said that the company had created the service to give their users ease of use, and never made the email addresses available publicly.

The problem was that they did become available to the public, as the Hacker New discussion revealed on Friday. Frederic Wolens, a spokesman for Facebook, said that some users could have posted the links on the internet meaning that anyone could search for them, and thus giving strangers access to their accounts and the information saved there, such as email addresses, phone numbers etc. Many feel that short cuts are inherently dangerous as the can make life easier for hackers.

Mr Wolens then went onto say that he could think of no viable reason why anyone would post the links as each one is individual to the user, but he added that people did things for strange reasons, and a lot of content on the web is testament to that. The thread on Hacker News said that more than 1m Facebook accounts were affected, but as of Friday afternoon Facebook couldn’t confirm the figure.

Judges in London have ordered electronics giant Apple to post a brand new statement which acknowledges that they had lost an earlier legal battle against Samsung. The Silicon Valley company had already told the court of appeal that it needed 2 weeks to replace its current posting, but Samsung said this didn’t comply with a previous court order.

Lord Justice Longmore agreed with Samsung, and said that we amazed that it could take Apple so long to publish a new statement. He said that there was no reason why they couldn’t post the new one at the same time as they took the old one down. This action comes in the wake of the ruling which found that the Samsung Galaxy tablet had not infringed Apple’s copyright.

Sir Robin Jacob then added that he would like to see the head of Apple create an affidavit explaining why something so simple was so technically difficult for a company who were at the top of the field where technology was concerned. He added that he couldn’t believe the instructions they had been given, and was this really Apple who were saying they needed two weeks to post something on their own website?

The judges proceeded to order Apple to post the new notice within 48 hours. This court hearing was the latest instalment in the long running legal wrangle over the tablet computers produced by both companies.

Apple originally claimed that the Galaxy Tab has infringed their copyright, but the Court of Appeal upheld the original ruling that stated the Galaxy was simply not cool enough to be confused with the iPad in any way. It was in October that the 2 judges agreed that the Galaxy tablets didn’t infringe Apple’s registered design, and Apple’s appeal had failed. All eyes are now on the Apple website to see what their response is.

Chat programmes and apps are nothing new; there are numerous ways of chatting over the internet on both computers and smartphones. Samsung, however, already with the reputation of being one of the world’s top mobile phone manufacturers, wanted to take this concept one step further, and created their Samsung ChatON app.

This takes a totally different approach to how you can communicate with people around the world, and it is no surprise that it has taken off in a very big way. Free to download from the ChatON site, the app integrates chat with the best social media platforms to bring you the complete product. Powered by Android, there is nothing you cannot do with ChatON, and your days of flicking between apps has long gone.

In just a few swipes you can create special messages for your friends that include animation, your hand written message, text, photos, music and background images. Your messages are works of art only restricted by your own imagination. Boring texts are a thing of the past and a message from ChatON will be read and the information absorbed, not discarded like a boring SMS.

Fancy a catch up with a few mates at the same time? That’s no problem with the ChatON group buddies feature, or if you are arranging an event or a night out you can send a message to several friends at the same time. There is even a feature called buddy interaction which automatically selects the top three people you chat you most and makes them a priority.

All the video and images posted in the chat rooms can easily be viewed through a multimedia sharing box known as the Trunk. You can leave comments on items that you particularly like and even share them. ChatON can never be considered to be simply a messenger service, and a dynamic mobile community is a much better description of something that has brought mobile messaging well and truly into the 21st century.

You create a profile page for yourself, just as you would on a social media site, and can make is an eye catching or as minimalist as you like as you call the shots with ChatON. This one app will take the place of all the other chat apps and social media site you have in your phone and being completely in control of what you see and do is a big plus. With no third party interaction, ChatON is the ultimate social site for the smartphone user.

The Optimus G is the latest member of the LG Optimus range of smartphones, and the Snapdragon S4 pro-equipped device looks as if it will be a very impressive specimen. After the confirmation on Thursday from Qualcomm about the collaboration between the chip maker ad the Korean handset manufacturer on their latest smartphone, LG launched a video series and website in Korea that seem to be tasty teasers.

The Optimus range has been somewhat of a mixed bag so far; the LG Optimus 4X HD received a glowing review from TechRadar, but the LG Optimus L3 was only given 2 stars out of 5. The Optimus G, of which rumours have been flying around for quite a while, is set to be the most powerful device that LG have produced yet, as it runs on the latest Snapdragon 4 Pro quad processor.

The site refers to the new Snapdragon S4 Pro from Qualcomm as the second generation of quad core chips, and it promises there will be a significant power boost over the quad cores that are currently on the market. The video, which appears to be the first in a series of 6, seems to feature the brand leader in Korea bragging about this new quad core, but unless you speak Korean the message is lost.

The video gives is a glimpse of some very realistic looking games, and Adreno 320 graphics are mentioned, as well as what seems to be a reference to the battery life of the handset. If this new Snapdragon S4 Pro really is as powerful as they are claiming it is, then quite frankly both Qualcomm and LG have every right to boast about it.

The new Snapdragon will make the Optimus G twice as powerful as Samsung’s Galaxy S3, which is no mean feat, and benchmark tests have also corroborated that this chip is indeed way more powerful that any other that is currently on the market.

Jeremy Hunt, the UK culture secretary, has outlined his plans to give Britain the fastest broadband in Europe by the year 2015. He reaffirmed the Government’s ambitious plan to be at the top of the European broadband league within a few years at an event that was held on Monday in the London Office of Google, according to a report in The Guardian. These offices are near the Silicon Roundabout, the city area that houses many technology start-ups.

Hunt said at the event that to be the best you have to be the fastest, and that he was officially announcing the ambition to not just be the best overall, but to have the fastest broadband of any major country in Europe. He added that getting the sums rights as far as the country’s digital economy was concerned would not only benefit consumers, but was also essential to the future of the creative and digital industries as reliable, high speed connection was vital.

Hunt highlighted the animation, music, television and music industries as being prime examples of the sectors that rely on broadband to succeed. His speech, however, drew criticism from the opposition party. Helen Goodman, the Labour culture spokesperson, said that this plan meant that millions of people would now have to wait at least 3 years for a broadband connection, and that country wide access should be the immediate priority.

The current targets of the Government are for 90% of the UK to be able to connect to a minimum speed of 24Mbps by the year 2015, and the entire population being able to access speeds of at least 2Mbps. Despite trailing a long way behind in the broadband league tables, speed in the UK are getting better, as the recent Ofcom report showed that speeds have increased by 22% in a year, from 6.2Mbps to 7.6Mbps

The new smartphone app from PayPal will allow shoppers in Britain to pay for goods on the high street using the same electronic wallet that they use to pay for items online. The firm is claiming that their technology will do away with the need for those Near Field Communication chips which are being built into the latest generation smartphones. The app is called inStore and is the latest salvo aimed at making smartphones the easiest way to pay.

It is effectively pitching firms such as Google and PayPal against firms offering financial services, as well as both mobile manufacturers and operators. The PayPal app, which is available for both the iPhone and Android handsets, allows users to pay for goods using their PayPal account in the 230 stores that are owned by the Aurora Fashions group. These include Oasis, Coast, Karen Millen and Warehouse.

When a shopper goes to the checkout to make their purchase, they simply open the inStore app by entering a PIN number. This then generates a barcode for the shop assistant to scan, thus allowing the store to withdraw the correct amount from the customer’s PayPal account.

Cameron McLean is the managing director of PayPal UK, and he says that soon the lines between the high street and the online world will disappear altogether, and that research the company carried out last year among major British retailers strongly suggests that the year 2016 will bring about the time when you no longer need to have a purse or a wallet to go shopping on the high streets of the UK and will only need your phone.

Unlike the many previous attempts to effectively make smartphones into electronic wallets, the PayPal app doesn’t rely on NFC. Credit card firms, Google and mobile operators, which rumour says includes Apple, are all behind the wave and pay technology, and it is being built into such new devices as the Samsung Galaxy SIII and works similarly to the Oyster Card system in London.

Although many have been avidly watching Facebook’s share prices since it floated on the stock market on the 28th May, more interestingly for the majority of us is the rumour that they are planning a mobile phone. Over the past 2 weeks, around 170,000 Brits have joined Facebook, according to Socialbakers, the marketing firm. This is the equivalent of the entire population of Swansea signing up to the social network.

The share price has fallen to less than $30, leading to experts describing it at the worst major flotation in over a decade. There have been constant items in the news about this, obsessing over the stock price, asking what the future holds for Facebook etc etc. Behind all these column inches and news reports however are the plain facts that the site is constantly growing and their 900m users keep coming back.

A report appeared in the New York Times this week saying that Facebook was planning its own mobile phone, and it came as no great surprise to anyone as they have attempted this twice before. According to an anonymous source, Facebook have been recruiting engineers who worked on Apple’s iPhone in an attempt to make it third time lucky.

Facebook wouldn’t necessarily have to build their own phone and OS from scratch either as it could easily partner up with another company to create the hardware, is the same way that Google has for such handsets as the HTC Nexus One and Samsung’s Nexus S. Alternatively, they could follow Amazon’s example with the Kindle Fire and use the Android system as the base and overlay it with their own interface, creating a Facebook phone.

Whichever approach it takes, if indeed the rumour turns out to be true, Facebook face a difficult task. At a time when previously successful brands such as RIM, the makers of Blackberry, and Nokia are struggling, is there any real point in entering an already hugely overcrowded market where very few handsets are being sold at a profit?

Internet usage is not the only concern however, as results of a broadband speed test overall are also a significant concern. When compared to other European countries, the overall average speeds of UK broadband is actually quite slow; which begs the question, what will be the future for broadband in the UK? Most likely, the largest change is going to have to do with speed, given the fact that right now there is already a massive fibre optic rollout underway by many of the broadband providers in the UK including Virgin Media and BT.

According to experts, once the rollout is complete speeds could increase by as much as 50% once the system goes officially live. This is due to the higher speeds that fibre optics can offer on a whole, and due to the fact that providers are adding much more extensive coverage as they lay down their lines. The global average of mobile broadband speeds is currently 5.9mbps, and in the UK the average speed is about 6.4mbps. Once the rollout is complete speeds could easily jump up to about 12mpbs which would be a pretty impressive feat is the providers are able to meet the deadline set for 2015.

Of course, the main issue at heart will be coverage, as many people in rural areas make up the group of those who do not have home access to the internet. The goal of the UK is to offer coverage to all citizens by the year 2013, but it is thought that the country is behind at the moment.  It also has pledged to offer broadband speeds of up to 200mbps by the year 2020 although there is a lot of work that will have to be done as part of ADSL2+ and fibre optics before this can become a reality.