Cyber Security

Facebook wants you to know it’s taking security seriously — enough for Zuckerberg and Co. to pay out over $1 million in reward within two years for its Bug Bounty program. According to a recent blog post, it’s awarded a total of 329 digital bounty hunters at least $500 for discovering and reporting security issues Continue Reading →

Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects, bringing the criminal wiretap into the cyber age. Federal agencies have largely kept quiet about these capabilities, but court documents and interviews with people involved in the programs provide new details about the hacking Continue Reading →

Major wireless carriers have fixed a bug that could have allowed criminals to hack into hundreds of millions of cell phones, says a security expert who exposed the flaw. Cryptographer Karsten Nohl of Security Research Labs in Germany says he discovered the bug after spending three years figuring out how to hack SIM cards, those Continue Reading →

Now that PRISM has been unveiled, there are (and will be) significant discussions about personal privacy and government monitoring of personal communications. There are several levels or developing issues and trends that this revelation triggers for all of us to think about. Privacy The fast answer is that there is no longer any privacy. Privacy Continue Reading →

The tragicomedy that is Anthony Weiner’s life has made everyone a comedian. There is seemingly no end to the puns, double-entendres, and schoolyard humor that his recent behavior has inspired. At this very moment, I am doing everything I can to restrain myself. That said, there is something very important missing from the coverage of Continue Reading →

Five Eastern European men have been charged with operating a global hacking operation that infiltrated some of the world’s biggest financial institutions, pilfered data for more than 160 million credit cards, and created hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. The case, brought by US attorneys in Manhattan and New Jersey, is the largest hacking Continue Reading →

That pesky 12-year-old Russian kid who infected your PC with malware that replaced all your photos with gifs of dancing bears is costing the American economy a lot more than you imagine. The Wall Street Journal reports that a new study conducted by McAfee and the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that Continue Reading →

Thanks to an encryption flaw in some SIM cards, your cellphone could be hacked in a couple of minutes merely by sending two SMS messages. The resulting security hole could leave individuals vulnerable to theft, surveillance, impersonation, and eavesdropping, says security expert Karsten Nohl, who tested around 1,000 SIM cards from North American and European Continue Reading →

Apple’s developer website has been down for days, and the company has just confirmed in an email that “an intruder” attempted to access personal information from its registered developers. In the email sent to its developers, Apple writes that “sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed.” But despite the claim that no sensitive Continue Reading →

Google has begun experimenting with encrypting Google Drive files, a privacy-protective move that could curb attempts by the U.S. and other governments to gain access to users’ stored files. Two sources told CNET that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is actively testing encryption to armor files on its cloud-based file storage and synchronization service. One Continue Reading →