Marketers of a software app for mobile devices and PCs that claimed the Ultimeyes video game app would improve a user’s vision agreed to stop making deceptive claims about the app, in a settlement with the FTC, the agency said in a news release Thursday. Carrot Neurotechnology and co-owners “also agreed to disgorge $150,000,” the release said. Health-related apps can be beneficial, “but the FTC will not hesitate to act when health-related claims are not based on sound science,” said Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich. Ads for the app, which cost between $5.99 and $9.99, said using the app would “Turn Back The Clock On Your Vision,” would improve vision for uses like sports, reading and driving, and would reduce a need for glasses and contact lenses, the release said. Ads claimed scientific research proved the success of the app, but failed to mention that the app's creator was among those who did the studies, it said. “If you’re looking for health-related apps -- or other products or services -- keep in mind that some companies may overstate claims in their advertising,” FTC Consumer Education Specialist Aditi Jhaveri wrote in a blog post on the settlement Thursday. The commission vote to issue the administrative complaint and accept the proposed consent order was unanimous, the release said. Comments are due Oct. 19, then the commission will decide whether to make the consent order final.

Tech companies took to social media to show support for and offer jobs to Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texan who was arrested at his high school after bringing in what his teacher thought was a bomb but actually was an electronic clock he made as part of an engineering project. Twitter tweeted support for Ahmed and offered him an internship. Mark Zuckerberg said he would love to meet Ahmed and give him a tour of Facebook. Foursquare tweeted support for Ahmed, as did several other tech companies including Google, which invited him to its online global science competition this weekend. President Barack Obama tweeted “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?” The president’s top science adviser, John Holdren, personally invited the teen to the White House Astronomy Night Oct. 19, U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil wrote in a White House email.

Cisco released security updates to address vulnerabilities in Prime Collaboration Assurance, Prime Collaboration Provisioning and TelePresence Server software that may have allowed a remote attacker to escalate privileges, obtain sensitive information or cause a denial-of-service condition, said an alert from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team Thursday.

WordPress released security updates Tuesday to address cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and a potential privilege escalation in WordPress 4.3 and prior versions that may have allowed a remote attacker to take control of an affected website, said an alert from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team.

As the amount of personal information shared on social media increases, so does the chance a cybercriminal can use that information to commit fraud, identity theft or social engineering, said an e-bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security Wednesday. “The less information you put online about yourself and your family, the more you can minimize the chances that you will be a victim of online crime.” To protect oneself online, DHS recommends individuals remember there isn’t a delete button and even if an individual uses the strictest privacy settings available, assume everyone can see every post; not to use location or geotagging features; connect only with those an individual knows in real life and trusts; and to keep certain information completely off social networks, such as birth date, full name and address.

There aren’t any inherent obstacles in the Internet infrastructure to limit the accessibility of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), but systems changes may be needed to completely open up the possibilities that gTLDs provide, said ICANN’s Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) Monday in the results of a study. The Asia Pacific Network Information Centre’s APNIC Labs division did the study June 9-July 10 via an online advertisement using Google Ads, ICANN said. The study included more than 184 million automated tests involving more than 36 million end-users, the nonprofit said. There was a 5 percent failure rate of tested unique URL queries, ICANN said. The most common problems involved Adobe’s Flash product being used in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser and Mozilla’s Firefox browser when accessing Internationalized Domain Name TLDs, ICANN said. The problems the UASG report identified “resulted in a larger than expected number of IDN TLDs being unresolvable, clearly an issue for Universal Acceptance,” UASG Chairman Ram Mohan said in a news release. “The UASG is reaching out to Microsoft, Mozilla and Adobe to further investigate and mitigate this issue identified in the report, and ensure problems are resolved for all TLDs.” The study results “were in-line with our expectations," said ICANN Chief Technology Officer David Conrad in the news release. "However, there will need to be changes to systems and software to fully leverage the global opportunities these new TLDs enable.”

Let’s Encrypt, a free, automated, open-source certificate authority sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, issued its first-ever certificate Monday, EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman wrote in a blog post. Let’s Encrypt makes HTTPS implementation a “seamless, no-cost option for anyone with a domain” and puts “security in the hands of website owners,” Reitman said. EFF has worked on Let’s Encrypt for several years, Reitman said. The issuance of the first certificate marks the beginning of rolling out the service to the broader public, she said. The certificate isn't cross-signed currently so “visiting the page over HTTPS will give you an ‘untrusted’ warning unless you install the ISRG root [certificate authority] in your trust store,” Reitman said. Once the certificate is cross-signed by IdenTrust’s root in about a month, the trusted connection should work on nearly all browsers, Reitman said.

Global Cyberspace Cooperation Summit participants voted last week to adopt a set of cybersecurity principles that include “fact-driven, risk-informed, and transparent requirements to help information technology buyers acquire more secure products from global sources,” the EastWest Institute said Tuesday. The group hosted the summit that ended Thursday. The summit also adopted “rules of the road for the use of cyber weapons” and “streamlined procedures for fighting international cybercrime and protecting critical infrastructure,” EastWest said. The adopted cybersecurity principles build on reports from Huawei and Microsoft, EastWest said. “The world needs a way to better manage cybersecurity risks,” Microsoft Corporate Vice President-Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney said in an EastWest news release. “The answer lies in globally accepted cybersecurity norms of behavior for states, vendor transparency, and increased user control.” The private sector must act to address cybersecurity challenges, which “keep getting bigger as the rate of change accelerates,” CenturyLink Board Chairman William Owens said in the news release. “We can’t wait for governments to act.”

Kevin Grooms, 23, pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend, said a news release from the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia. Grooms used his cellphone to send 158 threatening messages, which included photographs, to his ex-girlfriend on Instagram and via text in an eight-hour time span, the release said. He was under a domestic violence protection order when he sent the threats. Grooms faces a sentence of up to two years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, it said.

Six Chicago residents have filed a complaint against the city's amusement tax, which was recently interpreted to include Internet-based streaming services for audio, video and gaming including Netflix, Spotify and XBox Live, the filing said. Chicago’s comptroller ruled in June that the charges paid for accessing these streaming services would attract a 9 percent amusement tax starting Sept. 1. The complaint, filed Sept. 9, alleges the comptroller acted beyond his authority in applying the amusement tax to activities it wasn’t originally intended for. According to the complaint, new taxes can’t be imposed without a city council vote, so the tax on streaming platforms is legally invalid.