Security

Senator: I Don’t Believe the NYSE and United Failures Are a Coincidence

At a US Intelligence Committee hearing this afternoon, Sen. Barbara Mikulski confronted FBI Director James Comey with some real talk about the strange shitstorm of tech failures today: The New York Stock Exchange, United Airlines, and the Wall Street Journal all went down, citing technical difficulties. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” Mikulski said. “Is the…

Privacy & Security Kate Knibbs

Hacking Team’s Lame Excuse for Selling Digital Weapons to Sudan

Hacking Team, the company now equally known for selling intrusive spyware to governments and getting royally hacked, has words for people who disagree with its habit ofpeddling powerful cyberweapons to regimes with terrible human rights records: What’s a “repressive” regime, anyway? I asked Hacking Team if someone would speak directly to its reputation for selling…

Privacy & Security Kate Knibbs

Warning: Hacking Team Wrote Malware for Flash, Android, and Windows

We learned yesterdaythat the Hacking Team—an Italian security company with ties to oppressive governments and a reputation for selling intrusive spy tools—got hacked. Today, we’re learning some scary thingsabout what this all means for you and me. In a word: malware. Thanks to documents leaked after the hack, we now know Hacking Team sold exploits…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes

Hack Exposes What an Utter Piece of Shit This Spyware Company Is

Spyware maker Hacking Teamjust asked its customers to stop using its software in the wake of a large data breach. Good! Because Hacking Team is a corrupt trashcan company that provides weapons to criminals. The information exposed by hackers this week makes it clear that the Italian company doesn’t give a shit if groups with…

Privacy & Security Kate Knibbs

This Free Font Automatically Redacts NSA Surveillance Trigger Words

Some might see downloading this free font called Seen as the digital equivalent of donning a tin foil hat. Except that we know that security agencies like the NSA are intercepting emails and other communications, scanning for specific trigger words that this font automatically crosses out. But Emil Kozole’s Seen font isn’t necessarily designed to…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Major Government Spying Service Supplier Hacked, 400GB of Data Stolen

An Italian company called Hacking Team, which supplies intrusion and surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies, has been hacked. The intruders have made off with 400GB of data which is now being leaked online. The tranche of document reveals details about the company’s clients, along with passwords and details about the use of…

Privacy & Security Jamie Condliffe

MasterCard’s Gonna Let You Pay With Your Face

Do you like your face? Then you’re going to love MasterCard’s new ID Check security system. The experimental feature uses your camera’s front-facing camera and facial recognition technology so that you can pay with your face. MasterCard thinks millenials will love it. The biometric identification system sounds kind of silly, but it’s definitely more secure…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes

3D Fingerprint Scans May Be the Ultimate Security Tool

Compared to a password that’s either too simple to be effective, or too hard to remember, a fingerprint is a great security tool. But they’re not infallible, in fact, they can be easily replicated with just a photo. So researchers are taking fingerprint security one step further and scanning them in three dimensions. The idea…

Privacy & Security Andrew Liszewski

FBI Investigating Attacks On Physical Internet Infrastructure In SF

Squads of Chinese hackers aren’t the only threat to internet infrastructure in the US, it would seem: the FBI is reportedly investigating “at least 11” physical attacks on high-capacity internet cables in the Bay Area dating back a year. According to a report in USA Today, agents have confirmed that they are looking into a…

Privacy & Security Chris Mills

No One Can Do Background Checks Until The Feds Fix Their Hack Mess

Fallout from the cyberattack on the US Office of Personnel Management is already starting: Federal background checks have been shut down for six to eight weeks as a “proactive” security measure. New employees and contractors will be left in clearance limbo as OPM cleans up its system. The shutdown happened after OPM conducted an internal…

Privacy & Security Kate Knibbs

MIT Invented a Way to Automatically Fix Software Bugs With Borrowed Code

A new system from MIT’s CSAIL, or Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, does something incredible to fix buggy software: It borrows healthy code from other applications–and then fixes the bug without ever accessing the original source code. Think of it as an organ transplant. Except in this case, the sick patient is a buggy…

Privacy & Security Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

Samsung Will Stop Breaking Windows Update With Its Crappy Bloatware

Earlier this week, a Microsoft security researcher wrote a scathing account of how Samsung’s SW Update tool (installed by default on all Samsung PCs) is disabling Windows Update, potentially leaving millions of computers vulnerable to critical security flaws. Thankfully, Samsung’s crack bloatware programmers have seen the light, and are pushing an update. Samsung provided the…

Gadgets Chris Mills

Behold, the Latest Laser Built for Frying Rogue Drones

Here comes yet another drone-zapping laser: A German missile manufacturer built this Death Star-like beam to protect world leaders. And it works, too: in a field test, it took down a mini-drone in three seconds flat. The laser was teased in a video at this year’s Paris Air Show earlier this month—a video that sadly,…

Privacy & Security Bryan Lufkin

This $300 Palm-Sized Bug Wirelessly Steals Laptop Crypto Keys

This self-contained snooping device can steal data from laptops within 19 inches of it, sniffing out information based on the radio waves that leak from processors as a result of their variations in power use. And, as its designers point out, it’s small enough to fit inside a pita. Developed by researchers from Tel Aviv…

Privacy & Security Jamie Condliffe

Samsung Disables Windows Updates to Favor Its Own Crappy Bloatware

Windows updates are simultaneously very boring and incredibly important: they have a habit of shutting down your computer at the wrong moment, but also patch critical security flaws with alarming regularity. So if a manufacturer decided to disable Windows Update to favor its own crappy bloatware, that would be incredibly fucked. Oh hey there, Samsung!…

Tech News Chris Mills

WhatsApp and AT&T Fail to Keep Our Data Safe, New Study Finds

Concerned about NSA snooping? Better get rid of WhatsApp and AT&T. That, at least, is one takeaway from the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s annual “Who Has Your Back?” scorecard, which tells us which tech companies are doing a reasonable job protecting user data, and which are failing abysmally. As Americans have become increasingly aware of (and…

Privacy & Security Maddie Stone

Hey Android Users: Avoid These Insecure Apps

Here’s some bad news for Android users. Security researchers have discovered 100+ more apps that fail to encrypt your login data properly, making it frightfully easy for hackers to steal your password. What’s worse: the vast majority of the app makers aren’t doing anything about it. The specific issue, an HTTPS vulnerability, is hardly a…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Say Hello to Cam and Aware, Nest’s New Home Surveillance System

We knew it was coming. When Nest bought the camera maker DropCam for a cool half billion last year, it seemed inevitable that a surveillance camera would be Nest’s third big hardware release. Today, Nest announced Nest Cam—along with a subscription service called Nest Aware. The Camera Let’s start with the Cam, which popped up…

Gadgets Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

How Do You Keep Your Stuff Safe Online?

Hacks are writ large in the headlines, most recently the news that millions of U.S. government files with personal employee info were stolen, and LastPass’s embarrassing breach. So how do you secure yourself in the wilds of the internet? https://gizmodo.com/am-i-an-idiot-for-still-using-a-password-manager-1711673486 It seems like every week a world government or big company suffers a potentially disastrous…

Privacy & Security Kaila Hale-Stern

UK Police Scanned the Faces of 100,000 People at a Music Festival

Police used facial recognition technology to scan the faces of thousands of attendees at the Download music festival in the UK without their knowledge. Because this is the world we live in. Leicestershire Police used this weekend’s event to do a test run of their new facial recognition tech, trying to catch “organized criminals” who…

Privacy & Security Meg Neal

Senator: I Don’t Believe the NYSE and United Failures Are a Coincidence

Hacking Team’s Lame Excuse for Selling Digital Weapons to Sudan

Warning: Hacking Team Wrote Malware for Flash, Android, and Windows

Hack Exposes What an Utter Piece of Shit This Spyware Company Is

This Free Font Automatically Redacts NSA Surveillance Trigger Words

Major Government Spying Service Supplier Hacked, 400GB of Data Stolen

MasterCard’s Gonna Let You Pay With Your Face

3D Fingerprint Scans May Be the Ultimate Security Tool

FBI Investigating Attacks On Physical Internet Infrastructure In SF

No One Can Do Background Checks Until The Feds Fix Their Hack Mess

MIT Invented a Way to Automatically Fix Software Bugs With Borrowed Code

Samsung Will Stop Breaking Windows Update With Its Crappy Bloatware

Behold, the Latest Laser Built for Frying Rogue Drones

This $300 Palm-Sized Bug Wirelessly Steals Laptop Crypto Keys

Samsung Disables Windows Updates to Favor Its Own Crappy Bloatware

WhatsApp and AT&T Fail to Keep Our Data Safe, New Study Finds

Hey Android Users: Avoid These Insecure Apps

Say Hello to Cam and Aware, Nest’s New Home Surveillance System

How Do You Keep Your Stuff Safe Online?

UK Police Scanned the Faces of 100,000 People at a Music Festival

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Fourth Most Populous Country in the World Bans Most Social Media for Kids

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‘Steel Ball Run’ Will Return This Year…Eventually

‘The Mummy 4’ Is Getting the Family Back Together

JD Vance Says UFOs Are Actually Demons

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Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

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