Cybersecurity

Microsoft last week announced plans to crack down on terrorist content, perhaps in response to the Obama administration's intense effort to get Silicon Valley's help in preventing organizations like ISIS from using social media as a recruiting and fundraising tool. Microsoft has amended its terms of...

Eset on Wednesday announced that it has fashioned a free tool that victims of all variants of the TeslaCrypt ransomware can use to unlock affected files. After the criminal gang behind TeslaCrypt recently abandoned support of the malicious software, an Eset analyst contacted the group anonymously, u...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Flaw Puts a Billion Wireless Mice at Risk

Wireless mice and keyboards are the perfect accessories for a world in which devices increasingly are shuffling off their connection coils, but those accessories -- especially untethered rodents -- also can create new threats for those who use them. One such threat is Mousejack. The attack exploits ...

Google last week announced that it would minimize use of Adobe's Flash Player in its Chrome Web browser by the end of the year by turning off its default status. When Chrome encounters a Web page, it will report the presence of Flash Player only if a user has indicated that the domain should execute...

The daily barrage of data breach news appears to be eroding confidence in security solutions. Fifty percent of IT pros aren't confident about the ability of their security measures to protect their data, according to a survey released last week by Barkly. The high percentage of IT pros with doubts a...

A forum on Reddit, /r/ Technology, on Monday announced it was considering blocking links to websites that require visitors to turn off their ad blockers before viewing content on the site. "It has come to our attention that many websites such as Forbes and Wired are now requiring users to disable ad...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission on Monday announced a joint investigation into the issue of mobile device security updates. The FTC issued an order requiring eight mobile device manufacturers -- Apple, BlackBerry, Google, HTC America, LG Electronics USA, M...

IBM on Tuesday announced Watson for Cyber Security, a cloud-based version of its AI technology, trained in cybersecurity as part of a year-long research project. "This technology is about using Watson's learning capability and ability to understand the meaning and context of human language, and appl...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

ISIS Cyberthreat: Puny but Gaining Power

The Islamic State group's cyberwar capabilities are unsophisticated, but they won't be that way for long. That was the conclusion of a 25-page report released last week by Flashpoint. The report, "Hacking for ISIS: The Emergent Cyber Threat Landscape," found that the Islamic State's "overall capab...

Researchers at the University of Michigan on Monday announced they had uncovered a series of vulnerabilities in the Samsung SmartThings home automation system that essentially could have allowed hackers to take control of various functions and break into a user's home. The researchers, working with ...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

BlockIQ Escalates War on Ad Blockers

As consumers turn to ad blockers to avoid advertising on their mobile and computer screens, marketers and content providers who depend on pitches to pay the bills are searching frantically for ways to counter the pesky programs. BlockIQ offers them one. BlockIQ, owned by AdSupply, which recently mer...

The Obama administration reportedly has authorized a new online campaign in its slow, grinding war against ISIS. The Pentagon's Cyber Command aims to get inside the heads of terrorist commanders to disrupt their military operations. The goal appears to be to sow mistrust and confusion among ISIS lea...

SentinelOne last week announced that it has detected a technique being used in Asia to infect systems with remote access Trojans that ensures that the payload remains in memory throughout its execution and doesn't touch the victim's computer disk in an unencrypted state. Attackers remain hidden from...

A white hat hacker last week announced the discovery of more than a half-dozen security flaws in some software Facebook used on its corporate network. While performing penetration testing of some third-party software in a network appliance Facebook used, Orange Tsai, a security researcher for Devcor...

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