Security News

Downfall fallout: Intel knew AVX chips were insecure and did nothing, lawsuit claims
2023-11-09 22:20

Intel has been sued by a handful of PC buyers who claim the x86 goliath failed to act when informed five years ago about faulty chip instructions that allowed the recent Downfall vulnerability, and during that period sold billions of insecure chips. The lawsuit [PDF], filed on behalf of five plaintiffs in a US federal court in San Jose, California, claims Intel knew about the susceptibility of its AVX instruction set to side-channel attacks since 2018, but didn't fix the defect until the disclosure of the Downfall hole this year, leaving affected computer buyers with no other option than to apply a patch that slows performance by as much as 50 percent.

23andMe hit with lawsuits after hacker leaks stolen genetics data
2023-10-13 20:12

Genetic testing provider 23andMe faces multiple class action lawsuits in the U.S. following a large-scale data breach that is believed to have impacted millions of its customers.Late last month, a threat actor leaked 23andMe customer data in a CSV file named 'Ashkenazi DNA Data of Celebrities.

Google throws California $93M to make location tracking lawsuit disappear
2023-09-15 17:15

Half a percent of last quarter's net income? That'll teach 'em Google has been hit with another lawsuit alleging it deceived users about its collection, storage, and use of their location data,...

Google pays $93M to settle Android tracking lawsuit in California
2023-09-15 13:57

California's Attorney General announced today that Google will pay $93 million to settle a privacy lawsuit alleging it violated the U.S. state's consumer protection laws. An investigation by the California Department of Justice found that Google had engaged in deceptive practices related to collecting, retaining, and utilizing Android users' location data for purposes such as consumer profiling and advertising, all without obtaining their proper informed consent.

Google Agrees to $93 Million Settlement in California's Location-Privacy Lawsuit
2023-09-15 11:10

Google has agreed to pay $93 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. state of California over allegations that the company's location-privacy practices misled consumers and violated consumer protection laws. "Our investigation revealed that Google was telling its users one thing - that it would no longer track their location once they opted out - but doing the opposite and continuing to track its users' movements for its own commercial gain," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.

Lawsuit claims Tesla corp data security is far less advanced than its cars
2023-09-07 16:30

An ex-Tesla staffer has filed a proposed class action lawsuit that blames poor access control at the carmaker for a data leak, weeks after Tesla itself sued the alleged leakers, two former employees. As a result of Defendant's inadequate data security and inadequate or negligent training of its employees, on or around May 10, 2023, a foreign media outlet, Handelsblatt, informed Tesla that it had obtained Tesla confidential information.

Class-Action Lawsuit for Scraping Data without Permission
2023-07-05 11:14

I have mixed feelings about this class-action lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming that it "Scraped 300 billion words from the internet" without either registering as a data broker or obtaining consent. On the one hand, I want this to be a protected fair use of public data.

Google targets fake business reviews network in new lawsuit
2023-06-16 18:26

Google has filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Ethan QiQi Hu and his company, Rafadigital, accusing him of creating 350 fraudulent Business Profiles and 14,000 fake reviews for an alleged business verification service for Google services. "Our lawsuit targets a bad actor who perpetrated a coordinated campaign to deceive consumers and business owners by fraudulently attempting to manipulate our services for small businesses," alleges a Google announcement.

Google settles location tracking lawsuit for only $39.9M
2023-05-22 14:45

In brief Google has settled another location tracking lawsuit, yet again being fined a relative pittance. Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office announced the $39.9 million fine last week, along with news that Google will have to implement several state-ordered tracking reforms that clarify what data is being gathered and for what purposes.

DISH slapped with multiple lawsuits after ransomware cyber attack
2023-04-01 10:39

Dish Network has been slapped with multiple class action lawsuits after it suffered a ransomware incident that was behind the company's multi-day "Network outage." DISH is facing at least five lawsuits seeking to recover losses for Dish shareholders who were adversely affected by the alleged "Securities fraud" from February 22, 2021 to February 27, 2023.