Safety Security & Privacy

Now that it’s been over a year since the Snowden leaks, you might’ve thought that all of the insane NSA revelations had been revealed. Not so! Foreign Policy just published a fascinating and exhaustive list of every patent ever awarded to the spy agency. And one of its latest inventions is all about your SIM Continue Reading →

Computer users pass around USB sticks like silicon business cards. Although we know they often carry malware infections, we depend on antivirus scans and the occasional reformatting to keep our thumbdrives from becoming the carrier for the next digital epidemic. But the security problems with USB devices run deeper than you think: Their risk isn’t Continue Reading →

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 →