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LifeHacker: Google is releasing a major update to Chrome today that will make browsing the web seem faster and also add security protections. Chrome 17 (17.0.963.46) pre-renders pages in the background when you type in the URL in the omnibox address bar so the site will appear to come up almost instantaneously. Chrome also now scans download executable-s (e.g., “.exe” and “.msi” files) and warns you if it thinks the file is malicious. ...

For all of you who’ve been asking (and patiently waiting) for a version of OneNote for your Android phones, we have great news: OneNote Mobile for Android is now available! Download it from the Android Market app store today! Mobile versions of OneNote are currently available on Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, and now Android. No matter which platform you prefer, OneNote Mobile lets you easily capture and access all of your notes and ideas on the go. ...

Mashable: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been under fire from world leaders to step down this week. He’s also under fire from hacktivist group Anonymous, who leaked hundreds of his office’s emails on Monday. While Anonymous is infamous for its hacking know-how, it doesn’t take a genius computer programmer to guess one of the passwords commonly used by Assad’s office accounts: 12345. The string of consecutive numbers is the second-weakest password according to a 2011 study. ...

Mashable: Yahoo‘s chairman of the board, Roy Bostock, is leaving the company. Bostock has been chairman since 2008. Bostock revealed the news to shareholders in a long letter describing the company’s recent re-strategizing. A far cry from a resignation letter, Bostock is upbeat about Yahoo’s future and its recent moves, saying that, since the company is in a position to “drive innovation and growth going forward,” he will not seek re-election at the next shareholders’ meeting. ...

SophosLabs: Symantec has confirmed that a file made available on the internet for anyone to download, does contain the source code for an old version of its pcAnywhere product. For a short while last month, before releasing a patch, Symantec advised customers to disable their pcAnywhere installations because of concern that hackers could exploit vulnerabilities. In addition, the firm says that in January someone claiming to be the hacker responsible for the data theft tried to extort $50,000 from the firm in exchange for not releasing Symantec’s stolen source code. ...

Sunbelt: With the U.S. currently in tax season, online criminals have, once again, sought to take advantage of this. Robert Stetson, one of Sunbelt’s malware researchers, spotted a phishing email posing as Intuit Inc., a company that “develops financial and tax preparation software”. They developed Quicken and TurboTax. Below is a screenshot of the said email: Email details are as follows: Subject: Please verify your tax information ASAP. Message body: Good afternoon, ...

H-Online: Researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany have announced that they have cracked the A5-GMR-1 and A5-GMR-2 encryption algorithms used in satellite phones. Satellite phones are mainly used in areas with insufficient mobile network coverage and in the maritime sector. The researchers obtained the proprietary, and previously undocumented, algorithms by reverse engineering phone firmware updates. Ideally this, in itself, should not compromise the security of the transmitted data. Data security should not depend on the secrecy of the encryption methods, it should only depend on the non-disclosure of the secret key that is being used. ...

v3.co.uk: The uniform infrastructure and predictable behaviors are making corporate retail and restaurant chains the choice targets for cybercriminals. A report from security firm Trustwave found that attackers favor companies with chains of outlets, such as those commonly found in the food and retail industries, when launching targeted attacks. The attackers like the uniform IT infrastructure that large chains deploy at individual sites, Nicholas Percoco, head of the Trustwave’s SpiderLabs team, told V3. ...

Google Chrome Wrote: In 2008, we launched Google Chrome to help make the web better. We’re excited that millions of people around the world use Chrome as their primary browser and we want to keep improving that experience. Today, we’re introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices. ...

The H-Online: Adobe has released a public beta of a sandboxed version of its Flash plugin for Firefox in an effort to improve its security. The new “Protected Mode” for Flash, which has been in development for at least a year according to Adobe engineer Peleus Uhley, runs with restricted privileges and, to further limit its access to the system, can only access system resources through a broker. This should help intercept attackers trying to gain access to a system through malicious Flash files. ...