Security

We seem to have a vigilante white hat hacker on our hands, as newly discovered ‘malware' aimed at Internet of Things devices and certain routers appears to be making these devices more secure. The Linux.Wifatch virus is doing the exact opposite of what most viruses would, rather than stealing user …

As much as it can often be handy to use the most popular technological platform as it tends to get plenty of updates and support from various sources, the downside is that it's more prone to attacks. As Apple devices have become more common place in the past decade, we've …

Today, Patreon revealed that it recently suffered a security breach, during which someone gained unauthorized access to one of the site's databases containing user information. The security hole has already been patched up but names, email addresses and some shipping addresses were accessed. Patreon has let its users know via …

This week, Imgur discovered a vulnerability in its system that made it possible for people to inject malicious code in to an image link from the site. These links were then used to leverage genuine user's browsers in order to send a DDOS attack out to the sites 4Chan and …

The topic of China and its continued tug of war with the United States on the digital battleground is a hot one at the moment. With Chinese president Xi Jinping set to meet with President Obama to discuss hacking and digital defences, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper has …

While most people use their smartphone for the WhatsApp encrypted messaging service, some use WhatsApp Web to do the same thing. Available to Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and iOS users on their PCs, it lets people look at messages they've received and sent, including images and videos. However, those that …

There is some new ransomware on the block for Android users. It turns out that there is currently a dodgy app called ‘Adult Player' floating around. It's an app that lures users in by offering porn but once opened, it takes a picture using the phone's front facing camera, locks …

Valve has had to pull a game from its Steam Greenlight platform, after a link on its page sent users to a link that downloaded malware, which when activated made changes to their account without permission. In one instance, it even went so far as to automatically rate the game highly and …

When you fill in a form on a website, you expect that information to go straight to the company who owns the site (and the NSA), not its entire mailing list of customers. But that's exactly what happened recently with WHSmith's site, which had a misconfigured “contact us” form on …

As much as having a camera set up can be great for security, in that it can record anyone breaking into your property, in an age of wireless updates and web clients, there's also the possibility that it will be hacked and its footage or feeds viewed by governments or …

Shortly after his appointment as the United Nations' first head of privacy, Joseph Cannataci has called the current state of digital surveillance in the UK a “joke,” describing it as worse than anything George Orwell may have conjured up in his novel 1984. To address this and the oversight over …

The recently hacked infidelity ‘dating' website, Ashley Madison, is now facing a lawsuit in Los Angeles from a man who claims that it and its parent company, Avid Life Media (ALM), didn't have adequate safeguards in place to protect his data. As well as being “embarrassing,” the suit claims that …

In response to claims from the company, that Ashley Madison customer data revealed earlier this week might not be real, the hackers responsible have released almost twice as much data again, this leak containing emails from the company's CEO and founder, Noel Biderman. The dump also contained source code for the …

Although the fact that Google tracks an awful lot of data about individuals is perhaps a bit ironic considering this particular data set, it's hard to argue that it's not interesting to see emerging trends among different sections of society. In this case, Google searches related to personal privacy, hacking …

Hackers that made off with the user account and financial details of some 40 million members of infidelity website, Ashey Madison, have made good on their threat and posted them online. The details, posted to a Dark Web address that is only accessibly by Tor, include usernames, passwords, account histories, …

Kaspersky anti-virus is being accused by several former employees of attempting to have competitor anti-virus software flag up false-positives that would discredit the programs and potentially even damage the systems of users. According to those same sources, which have remained anonymous for obvious reasons, this was to improve Kaspersky's standing, …

Google has gone ahead and launched a second patch for the Stagefright bug in Android, which had the potential to affect hundreds of millions of Android devices. Google's first attempt to fix the bug apparently failed to do so, but thanks to security firm, Exodus Intelligence, everything should now be …

A little while back, Epic Games had its forums hacked, revealing user emails and personal account information. Now we are starting to see that stolen information put to use as Epic Games is warning people that it is “experiencing a phishing attack” and that you probably shouldn't trust any emails that …

It turns out that we aren't the only ones assuming that every government out there is looking at our private communications; even high-ranking United States politicians don't feel safe from hackers and foreign actors. In a TV interview, current U.S. secretary of state and one-time presidential candidate, John Kerry, admitted …

Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton has been under fire from government agencies and the public, for her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state to the Obama administration. Since official emails are technically the property of government, the lack of oversight and the potential for …

It looks like Microsoft is hoping to keep Windows 10 secure with its bug bounty payouts. Microsoft has gone ahead and increased the amount it is willing to pay out to those who find problems within its new operating system, along with offering a solution. The “Bounty for Defence” now …

The Carphone Warehouse is the latest company to be targeted by cyber criminals as a “sophisticated” hack took place on the 5th of August, putting personal details of up to 2.4 million customers at risk. In addition to that, around 90,000 Carphone Warehouse customers may have had their credit card …

Android is great for many things but unfortunately, security isn't really on that list. However, Google and Samsung are looking to improve things by providing monthly over the air updates to device owners, patching up security holes and tackling the problem head on. Google announced its monthly OTA update scheme …

The Do Not Track (DNT) standard, introduced by a number of browsers over the past few years, was designed to give consumers some control over what information was recorded about them by advertisers and various web applications. However, now the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Ad Block and a number of other …

Despite having his file locker website seized along with most of his personal assets back in early 2012, Kim Dotcom has been an active entrepreneur ever since, launching several services and a political party. One of those entities was encrypted cloud storage platform Mega, which he was a big proponent …

If there is one thing that we've learned from the past few years of anti-terror and anti-hacking legislation that have been pushed for in various governments around the world, politicians can be dogged when it comes to the perceived crack down on criminal elements. If it wasn't SOPA, it was …

As much as modern technology is something that everyone can enjoy and benefit from, it's often the generations that grow up and help develop it, which understand it the best. Perhaps that's why, with the average age of U.S. senators being in the mid-60s, they haven't responded favourably to the …

Valve had a bit of a panic moment last week as users discovered an exploit that allowed Steam accounts to be accessed using a username. For some reason, something over on Valve's end made it so that users could avoid the authentication process when changing an account password. Users could go …

As much as contactless payments with a debit or credit card represent a much easier way to go about paying for things you want, since you don't even need to remember your pin code, they represent a massive security problem according to Which?. Due to the low cost of card …

Like with every aspect of our modern lives, securing your home is becoming as connected as the rest of it. There are apps and companion hardware available, which is exactly what we are looking at today. It is known as the Piper nv iControl Network, which incorporates everything from a …