Items tagged with FBI
Fingerprint analyzing software used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and more than 18,000 other law enforcement agencies in the United States might contain Russian code. The apparent finding comes at a time of heightened security concerns over international spying efforts—just three months ago, the Department of...
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Microsoft announced this week that it has teamed up with the FBI and other partners including ESET to dismantle the massive botnet called Gamarue (Andromeda). Microsoft says that it and its partners began the journey to disrupt the botnet all the way back in 2015.
A coordinated take down started on November 29...
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There's no secret that the FBI is not a big fan of device encryption on devices like smartphones. As we saw in the San Bernardino incident, then FBI director James Comey attempted to bully Apple into providing a backdoor to iOS and the Touch ID safe enclave in order to break into an iPhone 5s that was used by one of...
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In December 2015, a man in San Bernadino, California and his wife participated in a terrorist attack that left 14 people dead. In the wake of that attack, the FBI opened an investigation into the couple and ties to other potential terrorists living within the US. An iPhone 5C was discovered that belonged to one of the...
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WikiLeaks, the non-profit organization that publishes secret information provided by anonymous sources, released details about a tool that was used by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to ensure that other government intelligence agencies were sharing the biometric information they collected. That...
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Antivirus maker Kaspersky Lab may have kissed and made up with Microsoft over a dispute in how Windows 10 handles third-party AV software, but even so companies are reportedly being warned not to use the security software. The warning comes from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), according to...
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No good deed goes unpunished. That could be the case for UK citizen Marcus Hutchins, who was arrested this week in Nevada by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). While the name Marcus Hutchins might not be familiar to you, you might recognize his Twitter handle, MalwareTech, and the Los Angeles-based security...
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The investigation regarding the 2014 Yahoo hack is finally getting somewhere. The United States Justice Department just announced the indictment of two members of the Russian intelligence agency FSB, and two hackers hired by the Russians. The spies managed to hack into 500 million Yahoo accounts.
The charges...
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Can the FBI access your email if it is on a foreign server? Google was recently ordered by a United States judge to release emails stored on foreign mail servers to the FBI. The communications are possibly related to a domestic fraud case.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled that transferring...
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The FBI may have overstepped its bounds (again) and acted outside what was made legally permissible by a 2008 Justice Department memo when it asked Twitter to provide information about certain account holders. Twitter received the data requests by way of two national security letters (NSLs) that were served, one in...
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Police are supposed to catch criminals; not become the victims of their antics. However, one Texas police department is finding out the hard way that ransomware is a big problem, as one of its employees fell for one of the oldest tricks in the [computer hackers’] playbook.
According to a local news report, someone...
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The FBI is currently investigating a series of cyberattacks on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), that they believe the Chinese military to be responsible for. The attacks on high-level employees' computers started in 2010 and resurfaced again in 2011 and 2013. Victims included former FDIC Chairwoman...
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The Supreme Court approved a series of changes to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by the United States Department of Justice that go into effect today. Those changes, which the DoJ proposed earlier this year and that were never discussed by Congress, gives the FBI permission to hack into multiple...
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation made a big deal out of Apple's unwillingness to help it crack a locked iPhone 5c handset that was used by a terrorist in the deadly San Bernardino shooting, but it turns out it rarely needs assistance. Nine of out ten times, the FBI is successful in its attempts to unlock a secured...
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Less than two weeks before U.S. elections kick off on November 8th, the FBI has released a new bombshell that threatens to shakeup what has already been an almost circus-like campaign season. FBI Director James Comey, who is known more widely in the circles for his staunch criticism of Apple in the San Bernardino...
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The battle between the FBI and locked phones is far from over. The FBI is currently trying to crack into another locked iPhone that once belonged to a now deceased terrorist. The iPhone in question belonged to Dahir Adan, who stabbed ten people in a Minnesota mall before a police officer shot and killed him. ISIS has...
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It's come to light that a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) was arrested back in August by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The agency suspects the contractor might have stolen and disclosed classified computer code developed by the NSA to hack into networks of governments around the...
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Security firm Cellebrite made headlines earlier this year when its services were employed by the FBI to help break into the phone of the San Bernardino shooter. Cellebrite recently invited a bunch of UK press to an event to show off what it's capable of.
Equipped with an outdated smartphone, BBC reporter Rory...
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Earlier this year, the FBI and Apple were embroiled in a bitter battle of words with regards to unlocking an iPhone 5c that was used by Syed Farook, one of two San Bernardino shooters. After much bluster on the part of FBI, and complete stonewalling from Apple, the FBI eventually went to a third-party vendor to bypass...
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Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire whiz kid who created the most popular social networking site on the planet, puts tape on his system's webcams. While that might sound paranoid to some, it's a common privacy measure against hackers who might be trying to spy on you or your company. Zuckerberg is far from alone—James...
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Google has just reported that there were over 40,000 request for user data from the government between June and December 2015. Requests for user data has steadily increased since 2009, however this was the highest number yet.
Google admitted that this number was not comprehensive. For example, the same Gmail...
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The HFS and HFS+ file systems have served Apple well for years, but it’s time to make a clean break from the past. That break from tradition is coming in the form of the Apple File System (APFS), which uses unified encryption to bolster the security of nearly every device that Apple makes. APFS has been in development...
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