Cybersecurity

Microsoft on Monday unveiled Project Natick, a research initiative aimed at developing underwater data centers that could be built near coastal cities. The project is still in its infancy, but Microsoft built one test facility last year. Dubbed "Leona Philpot" -- after a character in the Halo video ...

Oracle earlier this week announced its decision to scrap its Java browser plug-in. The plug-in, which has been a frequent target of hackers, won't be included in the next version of the kit for Java developers, JDK 9, which is expected to ship in September. Oracle's action was motivated by browser m...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

FDA Guidelines Target IoT Medical Device Security

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week took a step toward addressing the threat the Internet of Things poses to patients and their data by releasing some proposed guidelines for managing cybersecurity in medical devices. "A growing number of medical devices are designed to be networked to f...

Apple's Safari browser has been crashing on Macs and iOS devices when users launch a search through its address bar, according to reports that surfaced Wednesday. OS X and iOS users worldwide have been affected, according to The Verge, which confirmed the problem on several iOS devices and at least ...

The rise of autonomous war machines is outpacing policies and technological countermeasures, weapons and robotics experts warned last week at the World Economic Forum. Autonomous weaponry potentially is a $20 billion industry that has taken root in 40 countries, said BAE Systems Chairman Roger Carr....

Google Chrome users will get faster Web access soon through the Brotli open source compression algorithm, which has been rolled out to the M49 release of Chrome. That's in Canary -- which is designed for devs -- so it's not clear when Brotli will surface in the Chrome browser. Brotli, which was intr...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

GM Bug Program Gets Mixed Notices

Two white-hat hackers, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, made headlines last year when they demonstrated how they could hijack the control systems of a moving motor vehicle over the Internet. The move got the attention of the auto industry, and last week General Motors put in place a program to enco...

Ukrainian officials earlier this week said they had launched a probe into the source of a cyberattack that targeted a Kiev Airport. The attack may be related to the BlackEnergy malware attacks that recently targeted Ukrainian infrastructure facilities, apparently from Russia. CERT-UA on Monday warne...

LastPass has boosted security for its users after a security researcher alerted the company of a phishing attack he devised to steal users' login and two-factor authentication credentials. Sean Cassidy, CTO of Praesidio, demonstrated the phishing attack, which he calls "LostPass," last week at Shmoo...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Privacy as a Service Advocates Promise Better Data Protection

There's been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Sisyphean task of protecting privacy in the Digital Age, but that hasn't stopped innovators from searching for ways to preserve it. One of the latest ideas to emerge in the field is Privacy as a Service. As with many emerging technologies...

Obama administration officials last week met with senior executives from several leading Silicon Valley firms in a summit on how to combat the proliferation of terrorist communications on social media networks. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and John Carlin, assistant atto...

Microsoft on Tuesday ended technical support for the older versions of its legacy Internet Explorer browser, placing at risk millions of users who -- despite extensive warnings -- have not upgraded to the latest version of Internet Explorer or the free install of Windows 10. The support expiration m...

ProPublica last week reportedly launched what's believed to be the first major news site on the dark Web. The site's purpose reportedly is to maximize the privacy of readers. The Tor hidden service goes beyond SSL in that visits to sites are hidden from eavesdroppers and Internet service providers.

Security researchers at SentinelOne on Wednesday revealed a vulnerability they discovered in the Blackphone. The flaw -- an obscure socket -- lets an attacker take over and control communications on the Blackphone, a highly secure Android smartphone Silent Circle developed and marketed in reaction t...

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