InfoWorld, Gregg Keizer - Apple on Tuesday announced it had smashed sales records of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac in the final quarter of 2011, the first reporting period after the death of former CEO Steve Jobs.

The quarter’s revenue of $46.3 billion was also a record, as was net profit. Sales rose by 73 percent over 2010, and the net profit of $13 billion was more than double the $6 billion the company booked in the final quarter of 2010.

“It was a home run,” Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research said in an interview at the conclusion of Apple’s earnings call with Wall Street analysts.

“Apple crushed even the most optimistic expectations,” added Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities in an email.

The quarter was fueled by a huge jump in sales of the iPhone, the line that accounted for nearly 53 percent of Apple’s revenue.

Apple sold 37 million iPhones, 82 percent more than the previous record of 20.3 million, and dealt out significantly more smartphones than Wall Street’s estimate, which had settled around 32 million in the days leading up to Tuesday’s earnings release.

iPhone sales were up 128 percent over the same quarter in 2010, and jumped 117 percent over the previous three-month period, when the numbers disappointed some analysts .

Demand for the iPhone 4S — which Apple said was its best-selling model — continued to outstrip supply during the quarter, said CEO Tim Cook, but he noted that things were improving, even if some countries still faced shortages.

“We made a very bold bet in the quarter about what demand would be, and we were [still] short of supply throughout the quarter,” said Cook, who took over as chief executive last August when then-CEO Steve Jobs stepped down. “The situation has improved some from the end of the quarter until now, but we are still short in some key geographic areas.”

Apple’s U.S. online store currently shows new iPhone 4S devices shipping three to five business days after ordering, much shorter than last year’s delays, which at one point were at one to two weeks.

iPad sales also set a record last quarter: Apple sold 15.4 million iPads, up 111 percent over the same quarter in 2010 and 39 percent higher than the previous quarter.

And Cook again took shots at rival tablets, dismissing them as “single-feature” devices — a clear reference to Amazon’s Fire, which at $199 is foremost a souped-up e-reader — and saying that Apple would rise to any challenge.

“People want to do multiple things with their tablets,” Cook said. “We can continue to compete with anyone currently shipping tablets or who might in the future.”
Later in the call, Cook said that the Fire, which launched in early November, “did not have an obvious effect on the iPad [sales].”

Apple sold 5.2 million Macs, beating the previous record of 4.9 million established in the third quarter of 2011.

Apple set sales records for the iPhone, iPad and Mac last quarter. (Data: Apple.)

While global PC sales as a whole contracted in the fourth quarter by between 0.6 percent and 1.4 percent, Apple sold 26 percent more Macs in the period than it did in the same stretch the year before.

Apple sold 3.7 million laptops and almost 1.5 million desktops, representing gains of 28 percent and 21 percent, respectively, over the same period of 2010.

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, again cited strong sales of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines, as well as the iMac, as the foundation of last quarter’s figures.

Both notebook and desktop sales were records for Apple.

However, Macs still account for a small percentage of total personal computer sales. Earlier this month, research firm IDC estimated that worldwide sales reached 92.7 million in the last three months of 2011.

After Oppenheimer brought up the subject of Apple’s cash-on-hand — it now has a record $98 billion — he and Cook spent significant time answering questions from analysts about what the company intended to do with it.

Neither man disclosed any concrete plans for the money.

But Gottheil read the discussion as a hint that Apple would make a move sooner than later. “They initiated the discussion of the cash pile, which they don’t do, and that makes me think they’re going to announce something soon,” Gottheil said.

He speculated that the most logical use for some of the $98 billion was to lock in exclusive content deals — or even negotiate non-exclusive rights — in preparation for launching a smart television set in 2012.

“I see the possibility of them buying something big only in the content area,” said Gottheil.

The record sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs was not unexpected: Two weeks ago, White said that his ”Apple Barometer,” an index of Asian suppliers that provide components for Apple’s products, hinted at record growth.

InfoWorld, Juan Carlos Perez - Websites that load the top of their pages with ads, forcing visitors to scroll down to view content, will take a hit on their Google rankings.

Google has concluded that its users are bothered by this type of layout so it will begin penalizing them in search results, the company said in a blog post.

“If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward,” wrote Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who is considered the company’s main authority on search engine optimization.

Google will not punish websites that place ads at the top of their pages to what the company considers “a normal degree” but rather those with an “excessive” amount of ads that make it hard for users to find the site’s original content.

“This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads,” Cutts wrote. Google forecasts that this particular algorithmic tweak will impact the order of results in less than 1 percent of searches.

As often happens whenever Google introduces search algorithm changes, webmasters are already chiming in, and some aren’t very happy, as evidenced by some of the comments left on Cutts’ blog post.

Several commenters argue that it’s hypocritical of Google to punish sites for something that they believe Google itself is often guilty of, while others suggest that it shouldn’t be Google’s business how sites decide to lay out their ads, especially when the Google policy could impact how effective the ads are.

Help Net Security – Facebook ‘free mobile recharge’ scam hijacks accounts. A phishing and survey scam rolled into one is currently targeting Facebook users and ends up hijacking their accounts and makes it difficult for users to get them back, warns a McAfee researcher. The victims are lured with messages seemingly posted by friends claiming they received a “100rs free recharge.” Following the offered link, users connect to a page asking them to enter Facebook log-in credentials to receive it. Once the account details are entered and the “Log In” button is pressed, the page redirects users to a page mimicking a Facebook one, which asks the user to complete a survey to unlock the recharge option. In the background, the page sends the recorded log-in credentials — in clear text via a HTTP POST request — to a remote server operated by the scammers. The scammers then use the credentials to access the victims’ Facebook accounts, change information contained in them (including the password and the e-mail address), and post the same message that lured in the victims in the first place. The affected users are unable to immediately do anything about it. “Even if the victims try to reset their passwords, they will never get the password reset email from Facebook,” said the researcher.

eWeek.com,  Don Reisinger - For years, computer users have had to worry mainly about the biggest security threats hitting their desktop computers and applications. But cyber-criminals increasingly have been turning their sites on mobile devices and Web applications as fertile new ground for lucrative for cyber-attacks.

It won’t happen overnight, of course, and there will still be more than enough security flaws impacting Windows and other desktop platforms to keep companies like Symantec and McAfee in business for years to come. But mobile device users should start believing security applications are as much a requirement for them as they are for desktop computer users.

Cybercriminals have spent the past several years developing new attack strategies for mobile applications and devices. And this year, they’re going to try to break in every chance they get.

Read on to find out why security threats are increasingly going mobile this year.

1. Windows 8’s security

According to Microsoft and the security researchers that have tried out Windows 8, the operating system will be the best yet at protecting users. In fact, some say that all users will need is Microsoft’s own security suite to safeguard their computers. That’s a major development in the Windows ecosystem. If Microsoft can actually deliver on those lofty promises it might shift cyber-criminals attention from the desktop to online target. But a really secure Windows 8 could go a long way toward showing the industry at large how to build security into mobile and Web applications as well as desktop applications.

2. Cloud services are a cash cow

Cloud services are a potential cash cow for cybercriminals. In enterprise-focused applications, they can include everything from bank information and social security numbers to just about anything else. What’s worse, enterprises and consumers accessing cloud applications are placing all their hope in the service provider to protect their data when there is a serious risk that cloud services can be penetrated by cyber criminals who could reap boatloads of cash from stolen information.

3. Social networks are too

As the Koobface worm has proven, there’s an inordinate amount of money in targeting social networking users. A new report from the New York Times claims the people allegedly behind Koobface generated millions of dollars just by taking aim at social network users. Security experts say that the cybercriminals behind Koobface are still active and it’s likely that they or copycat hackers will launch new Koobface variants or Koobface-like attacks this year.

4. Android use is exploding

Unfortunately, Android has quickly become an easy target for malicious hackersaround the world. The operating system is the most popular mobile OS for cybercriminals, and in 2012, most security researchers believe that trend will only continue. So, why is that happening? For one thing, the operating system doesn’t have all the safeguards found in, say, BlackBerry OS. What’s more, a tremendous number of people are adopting the software each day. That presents an ever larger and highly-lucrative target  for cybercriminals. Keep that in mind.

5. Apps are easy entryways

After Apple launched the App Store and other companies followed suit, smartphone owners around the world assumed that they could download any program to their mobile devices with complete confidence and safety. But as last year’s Android Market infiltrations showed, that’s simply not the case. Even so, users don’t realize the threats associated with apps, and how easily they can be used against them. Even text-messaging applications can deliver malicious payloads. Apps are a unique and hugely profitable opportunity for cybercriminals, and this year, they’re not going to let that slip by.

6. Where are all the security apps?

Interestingly, security companies have been somewhat slow to deliver mobile anti-malware applications to safeguard  mobile devices. The big firms, like McAfee, offer some apps, of course, but as with early Windows software, they don’t appear to be keeping up as well as they could with all the threats out there. Even cloud  security solutions are sub-par. It’s about time the security community gets far more serious about protecting people both online and on the Web.

7. User ignorance is a factor

It’s no secret that one of the main reasons Windows became such a security hole was that its users let it happen. Too often, PC owners don’t update security software, go to malicious sites, and trust sources that they shouldn’t. In the mobile and online world, things are even worse. Unfortunately, people have been conditioned to believe that the real threats are on Windows, when in reality, they’re also present on the Web and in mobile operating systems. Study after study has shown that people are especially not diligent when using a smartphone. This year, cybercriminals will capitalize on that in a big way—and we’ll all rue the day we failed to acknowledge the importance of security no matter where we are.

8. The enterprise is moving there

If history is to be our guide, it will show that whenever the enterprise goes to a new technology or service, cybercriminals will follow. Now, the enterprise is shifting to mobile products, like the iPhone and iPad, and cloud services. Seeing a potential cash windfall, cybercriminals are pouncing. Make no mistake, the enterprise’s shift to the Web and mobile is having a profound impact on cybercriminals doing the same.

9. Solutions are few and far between

Just about everywhere one turns, they’ll find a security company or analyst talking about the increased threats we’ll be facing in the coming months. But at what point do all those analysts and researchers deliver a solution to safeguard users? Sure, there’s security software and other online safeguard mechanisms, but it’s not enough. Solutions are needed to identify cybercriminals, anticipate their actions and respond with a way to stop it.

10. The opportunities are endless

The move to mobile and cloud computing has given an endless universe of inviting targets, No computing device connected to the Internet is immune. New opportunities for cybercriminals to target users are nearly endless. Should they go after us via e-mail or hacked Web sites, SMS messaging or with malware-tainted apps? How about social networks? Mobile devices and the Web provide an endless array of opportunities to hit us. The challenge is for the technology industry to find innovative and broad solutions to the ever-expanding array of cyber-threats.

Dark Reading, Ericka Chickowski - Even though the splashy headlines around mobile security revolve around mobile malware, some security and privacy advocates warn that it might actually be the mundane apps people willingly download that introduce the most risk to their devices. That’s because many otherwise well-intentioned apps are asking for so much access to so many phone features that they’re impinging the privacy of users — and potentially putting enterprise data at risk.

“We’re not seeing a lot of malware so much … but we are seeing a lot of privacy concerns from apps that are sharing information that people aren’t aware of, or apps that have not been built securely,” says Michael Sutton, vice president of security research at Zscaler ThreatLabZ.

For example, he says that several months back when his researchers were doing work in the mobile space, they ran into certain iOS apps that would ask for passwords to popular services, like GoogleDocs.

“They would communicate with services, like GoogleDocs or Dropbox, and upload things and store backups,” Sutton says. “All of those authentication credentials were just stored in clear text on the backup of the file, and so anybody who got a back-up of your phone could go through that in plain text.”

According to Sutton, the mobile space is such a “land grab” right now that businesses are desperate to have mobile apps and are willing to outsource to developers who might not be very competent at their jobs, or who just aren’t given enough time to do a security review.

“I think the worst part is people think, ‘I downloaded it from the store. It’s safe,’” he says. “But that’s not necessarily the case, and the end users mistakenly think that the gatekeepers are watching their backs.”

In fact, in many cases it might not even be in the developer’s best interest to keep users’ privacy intact.

“One of the big reasons that there’s a privacy issue is that mobile apps are monetized differently than traditional software,” says Chris Wysopal, CTO of Veracode. “Usually they’re low-cost, or they’re free and ad-supported. What that means is they’re going to need to market efficiently to the people who are using these ad-supported apps, so one aspect is getting the individual’s profile, finding out things like sex, age, where they live, and so on. All those things are hugely important for targeting advertising.”

The way that these ad-supported apps work is that the developer receives money from an advertising company that supplies a library the developer will link to within the application.

“The application developers might not really even be aware of what the ad libraries they’re linking to are doing; they don’t have the source code of what that ad library is doing. It is just a black box to them,” Wysopal says. “It’s just given as a requirement to install, but it turns out that the ad libraries piggyback on the permissions that the apps ask for and try to exploit whatever permission they have.”

Further exacerbating the problem is the fact that most developers tend to ask for more permissions than they need. According to Wysopal’s colleague at Veracode, Chris Eng, vice president of research, they’ll frequently see simple games of tic tac toe asking for every permission under the sun. Obviously a game like that doesn’t need access to the phone’s microphone, but it’s still asking for it. And many times the users don’t even realize what permissions they’re granting upon installation.

According to Chet Wisniewski, senior security adviser at Sophos, users usually operate either under the Apple model, where the company’s app store overseers determine for the user whether permissions are appropriate, or the Android model, where there’s an open-door policy, but the user is asked whether they wish to grant certain permissions. The verbiage for this is so obscure, and there’s no way to tick or untick policies and still run the app, so more than likely the user is going to just say “yes” to everything.

“Trying to determine what the heck it means when it asks for permissions is tough when you don’t know what it means,” Wisniewski says.

Wysopal agrees, saying that if someone sees that an an app wants to communicate over the Internet, they’re instinct is to say, ‘OK, fine.’

“They don’t realize that that means your flashlight app could be communicating with some server somewhere,” he says.

Where all of these unchecked permissions become scary is when they get to the point where an app could not only profile you, but potentially put together your real identity.

“When you sign up for something, you give an email address or your Facebook login, and you can tie all of this profile information to a real individual, now you have databases that can be created of this individual,” Wysopal says. “We know where they live because of their GPS information, where they sleep at night, where they work, and where and when they go shopping. It can start to build a pretty detailed view of your life because you always have your phone with you, and if you’re always interacting with social networking and messaging and email on the phone. So basically your whole life is out there.”

What’s more, when enterprise data mingles with personal data, that information is at risk, as well. Wisniewski says that with Android, it is possible to hook into the Google API and create rules that deny or allow app downloads based on the permissions. But iPhones are a harder nut to crack.

“If I were an IT manager, I would like to be able to say, ‘Sure, allow things that can tell what the phone state is, but don’t allow things that can record from the microphone or don’t allow things that can read from this particular partition where sensitive data is stored,” he says. “But Apple doesn’t allow that today. There’s a lot of power there, and if Apple were to embrace it, that could be one of the best roads forward.”

InfoWorld, Joab Jackson - Sales of personal computers slowed in the last three months of 2011, thanks to a sluggish economy, scarce hard drives, and the proliferation of other device types such as tablets, according to a report released today by IDC.

Overall, worldwide PC shipments totaled 92.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, down 0.1 percent compared with the same quarter in 2010, when 92.8 million computers were shipped. For all of 2011, about 352.4 million PCs were shipped, a 1.6 percent increase over 2010, when almost 346.8 million PCs were shipped. The U.S. was particularly hard hit: Sales dropped nearly 5 percent from 2010, from 75 million units to 71 million units. Sales in Europe and Japan also slowed, though sales improved in China.

Sluggish sales were due to several factors, according to the analyst firm. Last year’s shortage of hard disks, caused by flooding in Thailand, caused some smaller providers to scramble to find enough drives for PCs. The global economy also continues to be sluggish, discouraging people from purchasing new computers. In addition, people spent money on consumer electronics such as tablets, smartphones, and e-readers that took over some of the duties previously handled by the PC.

IDC expects sluggish sales to continue through the first three months of 2012 as the hard drive shortage continues. By the end of the year, sales should recover, growing 15 percent in the last quarter of the year. Overall, IDC expects 371 million PCs to be shipped in 2012, an increase of 5.4 percent.

Some vendors fared better than others in this slow season. Hewlett-Packard, still reeling from an announcement earlier this year that it would spin off its PC division (a decision reversed later), saw its shipments fall by 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 as customers wondered about the company’s future. The decline persisted even after the company stated it would not spin out the hardware division after all. HP, still the world’s biggest PC maker, sold about 15 million PCs worldwide in the past three months. Lenovo, the second largest, saw an sales increase of more than 36 percent, selling more than 13 million PCs. Dell saw a small uptick in sales and sold about 11.9 million units.