Safety Security & Privacy

Summer may be almost over, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop going on vacation. Depending on your schedule or budget, you might be able to squeeze in one more long weekend away before the weather starts to cool off and it’s time to get back into your regular routine. While you are busy Continue Reading →

When the computer security company Hold Security reported that more than 1.2 billion online credentials had been swiped by Russian hackers, many people were worried—and justifiably so. Hold isn’t saying exactly which websites were hit, but with so many credentials stolen, it’s likely that hundreds of millions of ordinary consumers were affected. Some of these Continue Reading →

Cars are often rated on things like performance, comfort, value, and safety. But what about computer security? As cars become more computerized, should there be a rating system to let consumers know how safe vehicles are from hacking? That’s exactly what security advocacy group I Am The Cavalry proposed at the annual Defcon hacker convention. Continue Reading →

Yahoo users may have benefited most from the “Snowden effect.” The tech company was a laggard when it came to security practices until the NSA leaker’s disclosures made clear the extent to which weak security practices by tech companies are being exploited by talented hackers. It’s since hired a respected security researcher, Alex Stamos, to Continue Reading →

Late last month, a Siamese cat named Coco went wandering in his suburban Washington, DC neighborhood. He spent three hours exploring nearby backyards. He killed a mouse, whose carcass he thoughtfully brought home to his octogenarian owner, Nancy. And while he was out, Coco mapped dozens of his neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks, identifying four routers that Continue Reading →

During his keynote and a press conference that followed here at the Black Hat information security conference, In-Q-Tel Chief Information Security Officer Dan Geer expressed concern about the growing threat of botnets powered by home and small office routers. The inexpensive Wi-Fi routers commonly used for home Internet access—which are rarely patched by their owners—are Continue Reading →

There really isn’t such a thing as being too secure online, and Google is trying something new to get more website owners thinking about keeping their users’ information safe. After a few months of experimentation, the search giant now considers how secure a site is when it decides how prominently it gets placed in search Continue Reading →

Facebook, looking to better secure the vast amounts of customer data stored on its servers, agreed to acquire the cybersecurity company PrivateCore. PrivateCore, which received $2.25 million in funding in 2012 led by Foundation Capital, released a product that scrambles data held on computer-memory chips, protecting it when it is being transferred or is in Continue Reading →

On Tuesday, The New York Times dropped an exclusive account of what reporter Nicole Perlroth called “the biggest hack ever.” By the numbers it certainly held up: 1.2 billion accounts, covering 500 million unique email addresses over 420,000 websites. The data had been captured by a Russian hacker group called CyberVor, and revealed by Hold Continue Reading →

As many as 13 previously unknown vulnerabilities in home Wi-Fi routers and networked storage systems are set to be disclosed at the Black Hat computer security conference that kicks off in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Known as zero-day vulnerabilities, they allow hackers to exploit previously unknown security flaws in a wide range of devices and Continue Reading →