Safety Security & Privacy

BlackBerry is buying a privately held German firm that specializes in voice and data encryption, it said on Tuesday, in a bid to burnish its credentials with highly security-conscious clients like government agencies. The Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone maker did not disclose the terms of its deal to acquire Secusmart GmbH, which specializes in encryption and Continue Reading →

Bluebox Security, the same outfit that last year identified a worrisome (but thankfully patched) flaw in the Android app-packaging system, has done it again. On Tuesday, the company said it had found a new Android vulnerability that potentially allows the stealthy theft of information from millions of devices. Those with old Android handsets that no Continue Reading →

Excited about the promise of the shiny new Internet of Things? Good. Because hackers are too. Or at least they should be, according to a study by computing giant Hewlett-Packard. The company’s Fortify application security unit conducted an analysis of the 10 most popular consumer Internet things on the market and found 250 different security Continue Reading →

Security conscious types with a hankering to pepper their homes with sensor-packed cameras to keep remote tabs on their stuff should point their eyes at Blink: a wireless connected security camera with a relatively cheap price-tag vs the extant competition. Blink is currently a prototype — with its makers pulling in crowdfunds via Kickstarter to Continue Reading →

You are trying to book theatre tickets online with a rarely used credit card. Prompted to give a password, you find you can no longer remember it. The result is a failed transaction and a minor rise in blood pressure. It gets worse. While shopping later on, you drop your car keys. An opportunist picks Continue Reading →

The Internet of Things could get out of control pretty fast. We’re still pretty far from self-aware homes trying to procreate, but as Gigaom Research analyst Craig Foster noted in his recent report on IoT security, the dangers are already very real. Take a look at the maritime industry. Earlier this yea, hackers tilted and Continue Reading →

The “right to be forgotten” is already having a huge impact on Google’s search results. Since the landmark May ruling, Google has removed “tens of thousands” of links — potentially over 100,000 — pertaining to Europeans who’ve filed to have that information hidden from web users. According to a Wall Street Journal source, 91,000 people Continue Reading →

Last month Google said that it was tired of mashed-together bug fixes for OpenSSL and decided to create its own fork called BoringSSL. It has now implemented that variant in the latest Chromium build, the open-source software that eventually arrives in Chrome. OpenSSL is software used for secure connections — created largely by volunteers — Continue Reading →

While the internet has completely changed the way in which we conduct our personal business, it has also brought with it a boatload of security issues. It seems that barely a day passes without another new security breach affecting everyday consumers. Digital criminals work by compromising online services like email accounts (spammers), email servers (spammers), Continue Reading →

Apple has published new information about the diagnostic capabilities of iOS, in what appears to be a response to suggestions that it includes a ‘backdoor’ that could enable governments and other third-parties to access user data. The controversy arose after security consultant Jonathan Zdziarski documented a vulnerability that could leave usage data on iOS device Continue Reading →