Security News

Even the most tech-savvy Americans have bad online safety habits
2020-05-28 12:02

92% of Americans say they care about online safety and data privacy, yet a new report from iProov showed 44% polled shared passwords and mobile devices with their partners. "You wouldn't have the same key to your house, your car, and every building you ever need to go into. But it's also not possible to remember different passwords for every single site you use. So, Americans are recycling and sharing passwords because they want a convenient way to access their accounts. Biometric authentication is the modern replacement for keys."

Data researchers at odds: Will Americans opt in or out of COVID-19 contact tracing apps?
2020-05-22 16:14

Results from separate studies by Checkmarx and ExpressVPN reveal consumers won't easily share their personal information with tracing apps due to concern for misuse. The VPN provider ExpressVPN and software security company Checkmarx queried 1,200 and 1,500 consumers, respectively, to find out what Americans think about digital contact-tracing systems having access to their health information.

Less than a quarter of Americans use a password manager
2020-05-18 02:30

A large percentage of Americans currently do not take the necessary steps to protect their passwords and logins online, FICO reveals. Only 42 percent are using separate passwords to access multiple accounts; 17 percent of respondents have between two to five passwords they reuse across accounts; and 4 percent use a single password across all accounts.

Senator demands deep probe into spyware-for-cops after NSO Group touts hacking toolkit to American plod
2020-05-13 21:57

Senator Ron Wyden was reacting to Vice's discovery of a brochure by Westbridge Technologies - the US sales wing of the controversial NSO Group - which pitched NSO's Pegasus technology, rebadged as Phantom, to a police force in San Diego, California. The reference to spying on an ex-partner relates to claims that an employee of NSO Group who was caught using the firm's technology to spy on a woman they were interested in romantically.

Senator demands deep probe into spyware-for-cops after NSO Group touts hacking toolkit to American plod
2020-05-13 21:57

Senator Ron Wyden was reacting to Vice's discovery of a brochure by Westbridge Technologies - the US sales wing of the controversial NSO Group - which pitched NSO's Pegasus technology, rebadged as Phantom, to a police force in San Diego, California. The reference to spying on an ex-partner relates to claims that an employee of NSO Group who was caught using the firm's technology to spy on a woman they were interested in romantically.

Spyware slinger NSO to Facebook: Pretty funny you're suing us in California when we have no US presence and use no American IT services...
2020-05-01 20:55

Israeli spyware maker NSO Group has rubbished Facebook's claim it can be sued in California because it allegedly uses American IT services and has a business presence in the US. Last October, Facebook and its WhatsApp subsidiary sued the software developer and its affiliate Q Cyber Technologies in California, claiming that the firms made, distributed, and operated surveillance software known as Pegasus that remotely infects, hijacks, and extracts data from the smartphones of WhatsApp users. WhatsApp security manager Claudiu Gheorghe in a previous filing identified 720 malicious attacks on WhatsApp from the IP address 104.223.76.220, a server in California provided by QuadraNet and allegedly run by NSO. QuadraNet did not immediately respond to The Register's request to clarify the account holder for that IP address.

US Threatens to Block China Telecom From American Market
2020-04-10 12:03

The United States threatened Thursday to cut off Beijing-controlled China Telecom from serving the US market because of legal and security risks, the Justice Department announced Thursday. The agencies making the recommendation - which also included the Justice Department, the Commerce Department, and the US Trade Representative - said China Telecom is vulnerable to "Exploitation, influence and control" by the Chinese government.

For the past five years, every FBI secret spy court request to snoop on Americans has sucked, says watchdog
2020-04-01 21:24

The FBI has not followed internal rules when applying to spy on US citizens for at least five years, according to an extraordinary report [PDF] by the Department of Justice's inspector general. The failure to follow so-called Woods Procedures, designed to make sure the FBI's submissions for secret spying are correct, puts a question mark over more than 700 approved applications to intercept and log every phone call and email made by named individuals.

Coronavirus-related digital fraud: 22% of Americans targeted
2020-03-25 02:58

Social distancing has affected consumer shopping patterns, and a TransUnion survey found that 22% of Americans said they've been targeted by digital fraud related to COVID-19. Consumers are greatly reliant on online retailers during the coronavirus pandemic, and businesses must be armed to combat fraud, while making sure the company's web and mobile platforms are bug-free.

American cases added to 3D map showing the spread of COVID-19
2020-03-06 19:31

As of March 5, the map lists 176 cases in the US. A United Nations aviation agency built the 3DFX Dispersion map, which shows the movement of the coronavirus around the world via air traffic routes from its origin in Wuhan, China. The geographic information system map displays multiple layers of data, including deaths, confirmed cases, and cases by country.