You probably know by now that the biggest tech companies in the US are currently battling it out with the NSA over data encryption and what the US government should be allowed to access. Since back door access to customer data is clearly out of the question following the Snowden …
Read More »China’s ‘Great Cannon’ could be its most powerful digital weapon
China has had a firm grasp on its country's internet for decades, with researchers in the 90's terming its mix of legislation and technological censorship, “The Great Firewall.” On a more aggressive front, it's maintained divisions of the military exclusively for hacking for years now but it may have recently given birth to …
Read More »US tracked billions of phone calls before 11th September attacks
One of the biggest revelations in tech in recent years, was that the United States' intelligence agency, the NSA, has spent a lot of time, money and energy recording and storing the digital communications of Americans and foreigners, regardless of criminal activity or intent. This was huge, but it turns …
Read More »US to bring sanctions against hacker nations
The last year has revealed a lot of stories of nefarious hacking, with a good number of them seemingly sponsored by one nation or another. More often than not too, those actions – like the one against Sony – target US facilities and companies, which is why, despite its own efforts …
Read More »Github hit by multi-day DDOS attack
The collaborative programming site GitHub has been hit by a sustained denial of service attack over the weekend, with suggestions that China may be behind it. While not entirely clear, it's thought that the reasoning may be to shut down projects designed to circumvent Chinese censorship tools. At last count …
Read More »Twitch had a security breach- password changes required
Twitch has revealed that it recently had a security breach, during which user account information was accessed. As a result, the company has expired all passwords and stream keys, meaning that a password change is mandatory the next time you log in. Additionally, accounts were disconnected from Twitter and YouTube …
Read More »New Zealand used NSA spy tools on WTO director candidates
If you were applying to become the head of the World Trade Organisation, you might expect some scrutiny into your affairs. However, what you might draw the line at is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence agency utilising anti-terror tools to read your emails and potentially give your opponents …
Read More »Only two per cent of UK big businesses have hack insurance
Getting hacked is one of the worst scenarios for a modern day corporation. It damages reputation, relationships with your customers and can be a massive loss financially and in terms of secretive intellectual property. We've seen it happen with the likes of Sony multiple times in recent years and yet …
Read More »Yahoo wants to move to password-free logins
Several tech companies have been working on ways to replace the traditional password for quite a while now, some have moved to biometric scanners, like Apple with Touch ID but Yahoo wants to go in a different direction with mobile phone verification. Yahoo is currently setting up a system for ‘on-demand' …
Read More »US feds claim JPMorgan hackers ‘gettable’
Last year, JPMorgan Chase, one of the world's largest banking institutions, was made to look foolish when over 83 million email addresses, phone numbers and business addresses of its customers were stolen by hackers. However, while many other large firms experiencing big data breaches have come up empty when it …
Read More »Can you trust a cybersecurity firm from another country?
An interesting change is taking place in the world of digital security. As it becomes more clear that nations around the world are constantly probing each other's online assets, firms once aligned together against malware and nefarious hackers, are now backing their host nations, injecting the world of cybersecurity with …
Read More »Parliamentary office claims banning encryption ‘not acceptable’
Despite current British Prime Minister David Cameron's insistence that he wants to see more Chinese filters affecting the UK's internet and his announcement that if re-elected he would ban effective encryption, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has published a report which suggests that doing so would be “not …
Read More »Three scammers charged with stealing 1 billion email addresses
The Department of Justice over in the US has announced charges against three individuals over the theft of more than 1 billion email addresses over a three-year period. According to the indictment, Vietnamese citizen, Viet Quoc Nguyan, broke in to eight different email providers, harvesting a ton of personal information. …
Read More »Signal iOS app keeps your data secure from prying eyes
With continued reveals of more government spying no matter where you are in the world, many organisations have been clamouring for software that makes our communications so obfuscated through encryption and other measures, that it becomes a waste of time to try and decipher even the most banal conversations. One …
Read More »Bluebox data security questions Xiamoi safety
Even though the battle between iOS and Android smartphones has been fought for years here in the ‘West,' in China, that war was lost long ago. With over 90 per cent of the country's smartphones running Android, you would think it's clear who the victor was, but in-fact it isn't …
Read More »NZ journalist promises big spying revelations
It's no secret at this point that every member of the Five Eyes spying network (essentially every English speaking nation) has been snooping on not only their citizens, but everyone else's over the past few years, under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts. Despite this though, new revelations every few months …
Read More »TalkTalk warning customers that data may be compromised
TalkTalk is currently warning its customers that its servers were breached recently and user data may have been compromised. According to the UK ISP, cyber thieves may have been able to get their hands on account numbers and personal information, such as names and date of birth. Now with these …
Read More »Paypal kills MEGA’s account under US Senate pressure
The MEGA filelocker site was never designed to please US regulators. In-fact, if anything it was designed as a real middle finger to the establishment, after its predecessor, MegaUpload, was torn down in early 2012 and its founder, Kim Dotcom arrested in a raid on his New Zealand home. With …
Read More »Reddit to kill anyone’s nude photos if they ask
Reddit is taking a stance on personal privacy and has enacted a new policy in its latest administrative changes update that will mean if anyone complains about a nude or sexually suggestive photo of themselves being disseminated on the site, it will be removed without question. Ultimately, any such photo …
Read More »CITIZENFOUR wins an Oscar and Snowden does an AMA
CITIZENFOUR, the recently premiered documentary by Laura Poitras about the beginning of the Edward Snowden NSA revelations, has won an Oscar for “Best Documentary” at this year's Academy Awards ceremony. The film shows Snowden's efforts to expose the gross abuses of the US government's National Security Agency, along with the help of Laura Poitras …
Read More »Lenovo “messed up” with Superfish bloatware
Lenovo has recently been in hot water due to its use of Superfish, or what it calls “shopping aid” software, that it pre-installed on some of its laptops between September and January. It had originally said that the software was only being pulled temporally, while it waited for a new version …
Read More »Spies probably have the keys to your phone
Everything your phone transmits to and receives from your network providers phone tower is encrypted, so that only the network operator can receive your calls and data and route them as you request. This is all encrypted with a set of keys on the sim card inside your phone and another set …
Read More »Lenovo faces criticism over shipping PCs with Superfish installed
Lenovo has a bit of a situation on its hands after customers and the security conscious noticed that some Lenovo PCs were shipping with an install tool known as Superfish on-board, which can result in adware as well as put communications at risk. It turns out, that some customers aren't too …
Read More »Google warns against FBI demands for expanded hacking
Currently, government agencies and local police forces in the US, are only able to obtain permission to hack into the computers and other electronic devices of suspects in their region and only then once they have a warrant. However, now the FBI and other organisations want to expand that power …
Read More »HTTP/2 is finished and will be coming to your browser soon
The Internet Engineering Task Force has just reached a consensus and finished finalising the next major update, to the HTTP standard that we all use every day. The specification builds upon and is an alternative to, but does not obsolete, the HTTP/1.1 standard that was first introduced in 1999, that we currently use whenever …
Read More »Kaspersky claims NSA hid spyware in HDD firmware
Hot off of the heels of breaking news on the biggest digital bank heist run in history, Kaspersky labs, the anti-malware firm, has released a new batch of information that indirectly paints the NSA and the US government as having inserted malware into the firmware of commercial hard drives. While …
Read More »Microsoft to notify Office 365 and Azure customers of government requests
Microsoft is now the first major cloud provider to make use of the ISO/IEC 27018 international standard for cloud privacy. From now on, Microsoft Azure and Office 365 customers will be notified when a government data request is received, allowing for more transparency. The standard was published by the International …
Read More »Google to give developers more time to fix bugs before revealing
Google's Project Zero was announced last year as a new way to help improve online security by identifying vulnerabilities in software and services. Upon finding a vulnerability, it is reported directly to the company in charge of the software or service affected, the developers then have a certain amount of …
Read More »Kaspersky details billion dollar digital bank heist
According to anti-malware security firm Kapersky, many of the world's major banks have been hit by digital thieves over the past year and a half, with the attackers making off with at least $300 million, but potentially as much as a billion (£648 million), after using malware and social engineering …
Read More »Obama signs order to protect America’s computer networks
In a move to help protect American online businesses and help them coordinate with US authorities, Obama has signed an executive order that will make federal agencies set up a way of sharing data between technicians in these businesses and federal agents. This information sharing will go both ways, with companies tipping …
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