Security News

British F-35Bs deploying to the South China Sea next year may not meet key reliability metrics set by an American government watchdog, its annual report has revealed. On top of that, the supersonic stealth jet project's move towards Agile methodology for "Minimum viable product"-phased development of critical flight and weapons software every six months is a "High risk" strategy, according to DOTE. The F-35B fleet worldwide needs to rack up 75,000 flight hours before DOTE thinks it has gathered enough data to meet the contract spec.

A Chinese hacking crew which had previously been focusing on industrial and commercial attacks has now involved itself in efforts to suppress protests in Hong Kong. Researchers at security shop ESET say the Winnti Group, a hacking operation believed to be backed by the Chinese government, has begun targeting the networks and accounts of at least five universities in Hong Kong.

LONDON - The European Union unveiled security guidelines for next generation high-speed wireless networks that stop short of calling for a ban on Huawei, in the latest setback for the U.S. campaign against the Chinese tech company. No companies were mentioned by name but the term "High risk" supplier was an obvious reference to Huawei , the world's top maker of telecom infrastructure equipment such as routers, switches and antennas - the hidden plumbing through which wireless companies' internet data traffic flows.

The cancellation - or postponement, depending on how optimistic you want to be - was announced by the DEF CON team on Monday, a little more than ten weeks before the confab was scheduled to take place in Beijing. "China has announced a six-month hold on events like ours as part of the effort to combat the coronavirus outbreak," the DEF CON team said.

The second edition of the DEF CON China hacking conference has been put on hold as the country is fighting the coronavirus outbreak. The outbreak is prompting China to put several cities in lockdown.

Governments in the US and China are at the front of the line when it comes to knocking on Apple's door to request user data relating to fraud/phishing, according to the company's latest transparency report. Like any tech company that handles user data, Apple gets different types of requests: those that are made when an account holder is in imminent danger, those from law enforcement agencies trying to help people find their lost or stolen devices, those asking for Apple's help when thieves rip off credit card data so they can buy Apple products or services on somebody else's dime, and in situations where investigators think an account's been used to do something illegal.

An emergent and effective data-harvesting tool dubbed Oski is proliferating in North America and China, stealing online account credentials, credit-card numbers, cryptowallet accounts and more. Oski started out targeting victims in North America, but in the last few days has added China to its set of targeted geographies.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday challenged US opponents of Britain's potential decision to let China's Huawei telecoms giant develop its 5G network to come up with a better choice. The United States and Australia have both banned their 5G providers from using Huawei on security grounds.

Following reports about text transcriptions of live Skype calls being vetted by humans, meaning that sensitive conversations could have been bugged, Microsoft says it's moved its human grading of Cortana and Skype recordings into "Secure facilities", none of which are in China. On Friday, The Guardian published a report after talking to a former Microsoft contractor who lived in Beijing and transcribed thousands of audio recordings from Skype and the company's Cortana voice assistant - all with little cybersecurity protection, either from hackers or from potential interception by the government.

TikTok is a China-made global phenomenon mobile phone app. Now it seems that the Chinese government is not the only potential destination for their content that should worry TikTok users - Check Point found multiple vulnerabilities in the app that could easily be exploited.