Security News

Rights Activists Slam EU Plan for Access to Encrypted Chats
2020-11-09 15:59

Digital rights campaigners on Monday criticized a proposal by European Union governments that calls for communications companies to provide authorities with access to encrypted messages. The plan, first reported by Austrian public broadcaster FM4, reflects concern among European countries that police and intelligence services can't easily monitor online chats that use end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or WhatsApp.

End-to-end encrypted communication mitigates enterprise security risk and ensures compliance
2020-11-09 05:30

Most Fortune 1000 compliance and security teams have the ability to access employee accounts on their enterprise communications platform to monitor activity and investigate bad actors. Unfortunately for enterprise security and compliance teams in most companies, unsanctioned communications platforms like WhatsApp are being used outside to conduct sensitive business in contravention of corporate policies.

iStorage launches diskAshur M2, a portable PIN authenticated, hardware encrypted SSD
2020-11-04 01:30

iStorage has launched the diskAshur M2. The diskAshur M2 is iStorage's smallest, lightest, fastest and most rugged FIPS compliant encrypted portable SSD and includes connectivity for both USB type A and C ports. The new diskAshur M2 SSD encrypts data using FIPS PUB 197 validated, AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption and uniquely incorporates a Common Criteria EAL4+ ready secure microprocessor, which employs built-in physical protection mechanisms designed to defend against external tamper, bypass physical attacks and more.

Berlin to Give Secret Services Access to Encrypted Conversations
2020-10-22 08:10

The German government Wednesday agreed to allow secret services to listen in on conversations via encrypted messaging services such as Messenger or Whatsapp as a means of tackling terrorism. Cabinet adopted a bill to that effect, drawn up after a series of far right attacks in the country, and the proposed legislation now goes forward for parliamentary assent.

Thought the FBI were the only ones able to unlock encrypted phones? Pretty much every US cop can get the job done
2020-10-21 23:34

The report concludes that, far from modern phones being a bastion of privacy and security, there are in fact routinely rifled through for trivial crimes without a warrant in sight. The report gives numerous other examples of phones taken from their owners and searched for evidence, without a warrant - many in cases where the value of the information was negligible such as cases involving graffiti, shoplifting, marijuana possession, prostitution, vandalism, car crashes, parole violations, petty theft, and public intoxication.

'Five Eyes' Alliance Demands Ways to Access Encrypted Apps
2020-10-11 18:59

The "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance demanded Sunday that tech companies insert "Backdoors" in encrypted apps to allow law enforcement agencies the access they say they need to police online criminality. Law enforcement globally has complained of the difficulty encrypted communications poses to criminal investigations.

Aussie telco Telstra says soz after accidentally diverting traffic meant for encrypted email biz through its servers
2020-10-02 18:01

Aussie telco Telstra has apologised after a Border Gateway Protocol routing oddity caused traffic destined for encrypted email service ProtonMail to wrongly pass through Telstra's servers. Switzerland-headquartered ProtonMail raged in a blog post that Telstra had engaged in "BGP hijacking" through what it described as "Incompetence and not malice", complaining that "Around 30 per cent of the global internet looking for us got pointed to Telstra instead".

Actian and Sotero partner to deliver encrypted enterprise data security
2020-10-01 00:30

The combination of Actian Avalanche and Sotero KeepEncrypt 360 offers enterprises robust and comprehensive end-to-end encrypted data security across all enterprise data, both at rest and in motion, and ensures that regardless of workload or location, data is protected. This critical capability enables enterprise-class levels of data security for data migrations across enterprise systems and operational data warehouse analytical workloads, both in the cloud and the data center.

Kingston Digital launches the 128GB DataTraveler 2000 encrypted USB flash drive
2020-09-16 00:15

Kingston Digital announces the availability of the 128GB DataTraveler 2000 encrypted USB flash drive. DataTraveler 2000 features an alphanumeric keypad that allows users to lock the drive with a word or number combination for an easy-to-use PIN, providing an extra layer of protection.

Sorry we shut you out, says Tutanota: Encrypted email service weathers latest of ongoing DDoS storms
2020-09-14 14:27

Encrypted email biz Tutanota has apologised for accidentally shutting its own users out while fending off the latest of a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks. "It is a challenge to protect a privacy-focused service such as Tutanota from DDoS attacks because we need to block high-level application attacks ourselves," co-founder Matthias Pfau told The Register.