Taiwanese electronics company Acer began sending letters to customers last week indicating that some of their sensitive financial information–credit card data included–may have been accessed over the last year or so. Customers’ names, addresses, card numbers, expiration dates, and three digit CVV security codes may have been accessed by a third party, according to a data breach letter...

Last year’s Superfish and eDellRoot bloatware mishaps exposed the security nightmare that pre-installed software updaters can create on new laptops. And while these two high-profile incidents made the issue public, they’re hardly isolated cases. Many popular consumer and business laptops from manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus and Acer include bloatware that have a...