Security

The UK’s New 12-Sided £1 Is the “Most Secure Coin in the World”

The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, today dipped into his pocket and displayed a new 12-sided £1 coin, the coin’s first redesign in 30 years. It is, supposedly, the world’s most secure coin. The new design will apparently cut down on fraud, said to cost millions of British pounds each year, thanks to…

NSA System Can Record an Entire Country’s Calls for 30 Days at a Time

Remember all that business about the NSA saying it only collects phone metadata? Yeah, that’s not true. Not only can the NSA listen in on foreigners’ phone calls. It can record “every single” conversation in an entire country and store the recordings for 30 days at a time, a new Washington Post report reveals. Security…

It does’t normally do this, but the NSA just released a statement in response to the recent report about the agency’s habit of infecting millions of computers with malware and impersonating Facebook servers. Unsurprisingly, the NSA is denying everything.

The NSA Has Impersonated Facebook To Spread Malware

So the NSA is spying on you. You’ve known that for quite some time now. What you might not know much about is exactly how they’re doing, and a new report from Ryan Gallagher and Glenn Greenwald offers up some pretty grizzly details about the agency’s worldwide, automated malware network. Did you know, for instance,…

Senator Feinstein Asserts That the CIA Spied On Senate Computers

Today, Senator Diane Feinstein backed up reports that the CIA had illegally searched Senate computers in an effort to figure out what the Senate knew about its torture activities. It turns out that the CIA acted exactly the way we expect the CIA to act—and that’s a problem. For those of you catching up, McClatchy…

Hackers Can Use the Labels On Your Snail Mail to Mess You Up Online

Think hacking starts and ends online? Think again. Forbes took a look at the damage an identity thief can do using just the address label on the magazines you subscribe to, and the answer ain’t pretty. Forbes’ Kashmir Hill reports that, up until last week, New Yorker subscribers’ passwords to the magazine’s subscription management website…

Meet CUPID: The Drone That Will Shoot You With an 80,000 Volt Taser

Are drones not scary enough for you yet? How about this? A drone helicopter that spots you and identifies you as an intruder. It tells you to stop and put your hands behind your head. Instead, you keep coming. The drone then shoots you with barbed Taser darts that pump 80,000 volts into you. If…

Apple Patents Emergency Alert That Calls the Cops When You Can’t

An Apple patent published today details a theoretical feature that would enable your mobile device to detect an emergency and alert your designated contacts or the police. And y’know what? It actually makes a lot of sense. The patent application for “mobile emergency attack and failsafe detection” outlines a series of ways your smartphone could…

Apple Finally Explains Touch ID Security in Detail

You shouldn’t really have been worrying about how Touch ID works too much, but if you have been, then Apple has finally explained most of the security details behind the technology in detail. https://gizmodo.com/stop-worrying-about-the-new-iphones-fingerprint-scanne-1326146704 Apple has released a new white paper about iOS security, which explains with more detail than before how Touch ID works—and,…

Report: Target’s Big Credit Card Hack Might Involve Even More Retailers

The Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon Communications is investigating similar security breaches at two more as-yet-unnamed retailers that occurred around the same time as the massive Target credit card hack late last year. The two retailers affected by the newly-discovered attack have not yet announced the event to customers. https://gizmodo.com/target-confirms-up-to-40-million-credit-and-debit-cards-1486419257 Verizon’s Bryan Sartin did…

A Contagious Computer Virus That Spreads via Wi-Fi

It’s sort of your worst nightmare: a computer virus as contagious as the common cold that avoids detection and infects every computer on a given wi-fi network. You just pop into your local coffee shop for a latte and a little internet surfing, and you leave with a virus. This is scary! Unfortunately, we now…

WSJ: Obama Weighing Four Alternatives to NSA Phone Surveillance

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Obama administration has been presented with “four options for revamping NSA phone surveillance”—including one which would scrap it for good. The report from the Wall Street Journal cites officials “close to the matter,” explaining that the four suggestions for NSA reform have all been submitted ahead of…

The Hijacked $50,000 @N Twitter Username Is Back In Its Owners Hands

Remember how Naoki Hiroshima lost his amazing $50,000 @N Twitter username? Well, for once some good news: he got it back! https://gizmodo.com/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-1511578384 While the username was hijacked last month, Naoki Hiroshima has once again regained control of the account. Last night he tweeted: It’s not clear yet exactly how he regained full control of @N,…

The Fix for Apple’s Scary OS X Security Flaw Is Here

Apple has prepared a fix for the scary OS X security flaw that lets somebody with “privileged access” to your network connection get at information you think is secure. It’s in the App Store now. Here’s what you need to know about the fix. https://gizmodo.com/why-apples-huge-security-flaw-is-so-scary-1529041062 An Apple spokesperson has confirmed that the 10.9.2 update addresses…

Why Hasn’t Apple Fixed Its Massive Security Flaw Yet? (Update: Fixed!)

On Friday, Apple quietly released a patch of what turned out to be a serious iOS security flaw. Five days later, that bug is still very much present in OS X, meaning your MacBook is more at risk than ever. So why hasn’t Apple fixed it yet? https://gizmodo.com/why-apples-huge-security-flaw-is-so-scary-1529041062 Update: It’s fixed! Go to the App…

New iOS Security Flaw Lets Malicious Apps See All Your Keystrokes

Just days after patching a rampant security flaw in iOS, another one has popped up in its stead. According to network security company FireEye, there’s a bug in even the latest version of iOS that can let malicious apps track your every keystroke with ease. https://gizmodo.com/why-apples-huge-security-flaw-is-so-scary-1529041062 FireEye was able to push a proof-of-concept app through…

The Privacy-Pimping Blackphone Is Here to Lock Up Your Data

Paranoid? Privacy conscious? Somewhere in between? Well there’s now an unlocked (forked) Android phone for you. Blackphone is on the scene and it looks as discrete as it keeps all your juicy info. We heard about Blackphone a while ago, but now SilentCircle and Geeksphone have officially unveiled it at Mobile World Congress with a…

The OS X Apps Affected by Apple’s Unpatched Security Flaw

While Apple recently patched a major security flaw for iOS, the same vulnerability continues to affect OS X. Until Apple releases a fix—which it says will come “very soon“—here are some of the apps you should avoid using on public Wi-Fi. https://gizmodo.com/why-apples-huge-security-flaw-is-so-scary-1529041062 Update, 2/25/14: Apple just released OS X 10.9.2, which patches the security flaw…

Why Apple’s Recent Security Flaw Is So Scary

On Friday, Apple quietly released iOS 7.0.6, explaining in a brief release note that it fixed a bug in which “an attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS.” That’s the understated version. Another way to put it? Update your iPhone right now. Oh, and by the…

1926: One of the world’s first walk-through metal detectors, invented to search employees leaving a manufacturing plant in Germany. [April 1926 issue of Radio News]