Items tagged with security
My phone just pinged. Did someone just like the Instagram photo of my dog? Is my Chipotle to-go order finally ready? Nope, I was one of the lucky one billion users whose Yahoo account was infiltrated by hackers, my personal information potentially compromised.
This past November law enforcement provided Yahoo with...
Read more...
An appeals court in Florida has overturned a previous ruling that stated a man suspected of voyeurism should not be compelled to give up the passcode to his iPhone as it violate the Fifth Amendment and force him to testify against himself. The appeals court disagreed with that ruling and has ordered the iPhone owner...
Read more...
When the topic of encryption comes up, it is often related to smartphones and tablets, and the differing opinions on the matter between hardware makers such as Google and Apple versus government agencies. Those are not the only areas where encryption matters. In an open letter to the camera makers around the world...
Read more...
Malware writers continue to find ways to make themselves out to be bigger scumbags than they already are. The latest dirty trick by the worst the web has to offer is a new twist on ransomware. Instead of simply encrypting the files on an infected PC and demanding a ransom in order to decrypt them, a variant called...
Read more...
It's no secret that Apple places a high value on customer security and privacy, and the company goes to great lengths to make sure that it's a market-leader in both regards. However, even the most careful companies can be exposed to crippling security vulnerabilities. If software contains a previously unidentified bug...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
It's been proven that some tech companies have been willing to cater to the government's every need, but others -- namely Google -- remain adamant about transparency regarding shady practices.
Earlier this year, we reported on Google's new feature that informs users if they've become the target of state-sponsored...
Read more...
A cloud security outfit is warning that a new ransomware strain called Stampado has emerged from the underground market and is wreaking havoc on systems. What makes Stampado stand out from the crowd is that it is available on the dark web for only $39 with a full lifetime license. That makes it one of the least...
Read more...
Remember getting Rickrolled? Talk about an annoying trend, but at least you could exit out of the 1980s hit single and resume normal activities (except for those dancing webpages on the desktop designed to dodge your exit attempts). Well, there's a new prank going around, one that can crash any iPhone handset in a...
Read more...
It seems that Apple may have a complicated relationship with device user privacy. Russian digital forensics firm Elcomsoft has recently discovered that iPhone users’ call histories are being sent to Apple’s servers.
A user’s call history can be sent to Apple’s servers if iCloud is enabled. The data will include...
Read more...
2016 is going to be remembered for a number of fortunate and unfortunate things, with one topic that falls into the latter category being the debacle of U.S. law enforcement vs. Apple. The FBI and other US federal agencies have made it no secret that they would like to be able to gain access to any smartphone if the...
Read more...
We recently witnessed a new and disturbing trend in cyber security and that is the widespread hacking of Internet connected devices to initiate DDoS attacks on an unprecedented scale. That is the method that made possible the Mirai botnet that targeted security expert Brian Krebs and his security blog with 620...
Read more...
Security researchers have found a rather alarming vulnerability in Linux that could ultimately allow an attacker to copy, modify, or destroy the contents of a hard drive, along with with configure the network to exfiltrate data. That in and of itself is cause for concern, but the real harrowing part about this is how...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
We hate to break it to you, but your PC is not as secure as you think. That remains true even if you lock your computer with a password. Should you leave your system unattended, it would be possible for someone to hack into it in less than a minute using a $5 Raspberry Pi device. The culprit doesn't even need advanced...
Read more...
In what is being described as the largest security breach of 2016, hackers stole over 400 million user credentials spanning two decades of customer data from Friend Finder Network, Inc., the company that owns and operates several adult-themed websites, including the online dating and hookup site AdultFriendFinder.com...
Read more...
Anyone who is looking for a reason to install the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (build 1607) need only consider that there has never been a more secure version of Windows. So says Microsoft, which made the claim in conjunction with a new white paper detailing the ways in which the latest version of Windows protects...
Read more...
Yahoo is again catching fire over a security breach dating back to 2014 that compromised the accounts of 500 million users, though this time the criticism is aimed at Yahoo's lack of timely disclosure. The company fessed up earlier this week that at least some of its employees had knowledge that a cyberattacker backed...
Read more...
Google has a message for webmasters serving up malware and it goes something like this: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Going forward, Google is plugging what it calls a "gap" in its online protection scheme that allowed sites serving up malicious content to become repeat offenders without much...
Read more...
What's that in the air? Could it be the smell of egg nog and pine? Nope, it's Microsoft Patch Tuesday, of course! This month's rollout is rather large and notable for a number of reasons. However, what matters most is that if you're not up-to-date yet, you'll want to take a little trip to the Windows Update section...
Read more...
Ahmed Mehtab, a student from Pakistan and the CEO of Security Fuse, is in the running to score a $20,000 payday from Google's bug bounty program. While there remains some red tape to clear, Mehtab is likely to receive the bounty for discovering a rather crafty flaw in Gmail relating to its authentication and...
Read more...
There's been no shortage of stories regarding Android security of the years, a fact that has worried some fans of the "openness" of the OS. Each new security story makes it seem more likely that the OS will become a little more locked-down, a la iOS. Well, that might not happen after all, because as it stands today...
Read more...
