Security News
As part of urgent efforts to fight COVID-19, a science is rapidly developing for measuring the number of encounters and the different levels of interaction in a group. At the National Institute of Standards and Technology, researchers are applying that science to a concept they have created called "Encounter metrics." They have developed an encrypted method that can be applied to a device such as your phone to help with the ultimate goal of slowing down or preventing future pandemics.
Encrypted phone network Sky Global has seemingly shut down after European police swooped on users and distributors, and its chief exec was indicted by American prosecutors. News of the company shutdown was broken by Vice News after raids in Belgium and the Netherlands on Sky ECC users and resellers.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday announced an indictment against Jean-Francois Eap, the CEO of encrypted messaging company Sky Global, and an associate for wilfully participating in a criminal enterprise to help international drug traffickers avoid law enforcement. Sky ECC is said to have surged in popularity following a similar takedown of Encrochat last July by French and Dutch investigators, with many criminal gangs shifting to the service to carry out criminal acts.
The US Department of Justice has indicted the CEO of encrypted messaging company Sky Global, and an associate for allegedly aiding criminal enterprises avoid detection by law enforcement. Sky Global is the developer of an encrypted chat app known as Sky ECC that claims to be the "Most secure messaging app available anywhere in the world today."
Image: Sky ECC. European law enforcement authorities have made a large number of arrests after a joint operation involving the monitoring of organized crime communication channels after "Unlocking" Sky ECC chat's encryption. The investigation started after Belgium police seized mobile phones from criminals who used Sky ECC. After "Unlocking" the chat platform's encryption, investigators have been able to monitor communications between roughly 70,000 Sky ECC users.
A series of police raids in Belgium have resulted in the apparent shutdown of the Sky ECC encrypted mobile phone network. As the second major encrypted phone network to be shut down by police in Europe, Sky ECC's seeming downfall has parallels with the Encrochat story, where French and Dutch police man-in-the-middle'd the encrypted phone network on suspicion it was being used mainly by organised criminals.
Microsoft has said it will add end-to-end encryption for some one-to-one Teams calls later this year - and urged folks to move away from using passwords with Azure AD. The Teams improvements, announced at the tech giant's Ignite conference this week, will be available "To commercial customers in preview in the first half of this year." Video conferencing rival Zoom offers end-to-end encryption with a few caveats and additional steps, and that appears to be more or less the approach Microsoft will take, too.
CD Projekt Red, the Polish developer of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, has disclosed a major security incident in which several company systems were encrypted and confidential data stolen. "If we will not come to an agreement, then your source codes will be sold or leaked online and your documents will be sent to our contacts in gaming journalism," wrote the attackers, who added CD Projekt Red had a 48-hour deadline to respond to their demands.
European encrypted services providers ProtonMail, Threema, Tresorit and Tutanota on Thursday urged European Union policy makers to rethink plans that would require the implementation of encryption backdoors. The Council of the European Union in December adopted a resolution on "Security through encryption and security despite encryption." The council said it supports the development and use of strong encryption to protect citizens and organizations, but at the same time it believes law enforcement and judicial authorities need to be able to exercise their legal powers.
Element Matrix Services is adding a bridge between hipster chat platform Slack and the open-source world of Matrix messaging. To ease the journey from the centralised world of Slack, Element Matrix Services - a hosting platform for Matrix - is adding a managed bridge for connecting Slack to the Matrix ecosystem.