Hacking

The code warriors of the future literally might be computer code acting as warriors to defend against attackers on computer networks. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, gave us a glimpse into that future last Sunday, when it announced the winners of its Cyber Grand Challenge at...

Apple on Thursday introduced its first bug bounty program, set to launch in September. Ivan Krstic, head of Apple security engineering and architecture, announced the program during his presentation at Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. The focus reportedly is on an exceptionally high lev...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Old Tech Can Create New Security Woes

"Patch your systems in a timely manner" is a mantra of security experts, but what happens when the patch well runs dry because a product's maker no longer supports it? That is a situation many large enterprises find themselves in, and it's one that poses security risks. Between 30 percent and 50 per...

The campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is the latest possible victim of a series of hack attacks some cybersecurity experts have linked to the Russian government. Campaign officials reportedly acknowledged that an analytics program it uses, which is maintained by the DNC, wa...

A vulnerability in inexpensive wireless keyboards lets hackers steal private data, Bastille reported this week. The vulnerability lets hackers use a new attack the firm dubbed "KeySniffer" to eavesdrop on and capture every keystroke typed from up to 250 feet away. The stolen data is rendered in clea...

The FBI on Monday confirmed it has opened an investigation into claims that the Wikileaks email dump of nearly 20,000 DNC emails over the weekend might be linked to the Russian government. Hackers connected to Russian intelligence agencies allegedly have been working to help tilt the U.S. presidenti...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Civil Rights Office Issues Ransomware Guidance

Ransomware infections are on the rise, and healthcare organizations are ripe targets, which may be why the federal government addressed the subject last week. Ransomware attacks have risen from about 1,000 a day last year to 4,000 a day this year, Symantec has reported. Many of those attacks are for...

Though quick to capitalize on connected health devices and the coming Internet of Medical Things, hardware manufacturers may be moving too slowly when it comes to building the necessary protections into the back end. The National Security Agency last month told participants in a defense technology s...

Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game that has become an overnight sensation, experienced sluggish performance over the weekend, possibly from a hacker attack on its login servers. Shortly after Pokemon Go devs tweeted that the game was rolling out to 26 additional countries, this tweet appeared: "...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Mobile Ransomware Has Mushroomed: Report

The number of mobile ransomware victims across the globe has increased fourfold compared to a year ago, suggests a Kaspersky Lab report released last week. Kaspersky software protected 136,532 users targeted by ransomware from April 2015 to March 2016 -- up from 35,413 in the year-ago period, the co...

Hackers late Sunday broke into CEO Sundar Pichai's Quora account and through it accessed his Twitter followers, according to reports. The group taking credit for the breach, OurMine Security, previously hit other prominent high-tech figures, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Spotify CEO Daniel...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Study: Third-Party Apps Pose Risks for Enterprises

Since mobile computing put an end to the good old days when IT departments had absolute control over software deployed in the enterprise, there's been a rise in employees' use of third-party applications -- a rise that poses security risks to corporate environments. That is one of the findings in a ...

Google on Monday began rolling out a new two-step authentication feature, Google Prompt, targeting enterprise employees. The new option consists of a pop-up that displays a mobile user's name and profile image, and that specifies the location and device involved in the attempted sign-in. The device ...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Crime Pays: Ransomware Bosses Make $90K Annually

If crime doesn't pay, Russian ransomware bosses wouldn't know it. The average Russian ransomware boss makes $90,000 a year -- or 13 times the average income for citizens in the country who stick to the "straight and narrow," according to a recent Flashpoint study. What does a ransomware honcho do fo...

Technewsworld Channels