Security News

ACLU sues US govt, demands to know if agents are buying their way around warrants to track suspects' smartphones
2020-12-03 13:30

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the US government, claiming Homeland Security agents trampled over people's constitutional rights - by buying phone location data from commercial brokers rather than getting necessary search warrants. "These practices raise serious concerns that federal immigration authorities are evading Fourth Amendment protections for cell phone location information by paying for access instead of obtaining a warrant," the ACLU said in a statement this week.

Amazon Sues Instagram, TikTok Influencers Over Knockoff Scam
2020-11-13 19:05

Instagram and TikTok social-media influencers Kelly Fitzpatrick and Sabrina Kelly-Krejci are among 13 defendants in a lawsuit filed by Amazon, which alleges that they participated in an an online scam to sell counterfeit luxury goods. Counterfeit goods are strictly forbidden in the Amazon marketplace, but generic products - often called "Dupes" - are allowed.

Google Safari Workaround case inspires campaign to sue Facebook in UK's High Court over Cambridge Analytica app
2020-10-29 20:00

A campaign to sue Facebook over lax privacy policies that allowed Cambridge Analytica to slurp almost a million people's personal data from the social networking website hopes to become a representative action in the High Court, its instigators said today. The campaign said in a statement: "In 2013 and 2014, thousands of people participated in the thisisyourdigitallife app on Facebook. Facebook allowed this app to harvest the data of the app users' friends without their friends' permission or knowledge, including Alvin Carpio, the representative claimant. By taking data without consent, it is alleged that Facebook failed to meet their legal obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.".

Palo Alto Networks threatens to sue security startup for comparison review, says it breaks software EULA
2020-10-23 17:58

Palo Alto Networks has threatened a startup with legal action after the smaller biz published a comparison review of one of its products. Israel-based Orca Security received a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer representing Palo Alto after Orca uploaded a series of online videos reviewing of one of Palo Alto's products and compared it to its own.

TikTok Sues Over Ban Ordered by Trump
2020-08-24 18:31

As tensions soared between the world's two biggest economies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance - effectively setting a deadline for a sale of the app to a US company. "Today we are filing a complaint in federal court challenging the administration's efforts to ban TikTok in the US," the company said in a blog post.

TikTok Says to Sue Over Trump Crackdown
2020-08-24 11:58

Video app TikTok said Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned platform, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat. As tensions soar between the world's two biggest economies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance - effectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the app to a US company.

Microsoft sues coronavirus phishing spammers to seize their domains amid web app attacks against Office 354.5
2020-07-08 22:07

Microsoft has taken legal action to seize web domains being used to launch coronavirus-themed phishing attacks. "Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit first observed these criminals in December 2019, when they deployed a sophisticated, new phishing scheme designed to compromise Microsoft customer accounts," said the mega-corp in a blog post this week.

Facebook Sues 12 Fraudulent Domain Names
2020-06-09 11:27

Facebook on Monday announced that it filed a lawsuit in Virginia against 12 domain names for their deceiving behavior. The 12 fraudulent domain names are registered by India-based proxy service Compsys Domain Solutions Private Ltd. and the social platform sued them for impersonating Facebook apps and services such as facebook-verify-inc.com, instagramhjack.com and videocall-whatsapp.com.

ACLU Sues Clearview AI Over Faceprint Collection, Sale
2020-05-29 12:40

The U.S. citizens'-rights watchdog organization has filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Illinois against Clearview AI, on behalf of a number of organizations comprised of vulnerable communities-such as survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence and undocumented immigrants-for violating the the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. Clearview has been collecting what are called "Faceprints," or unique biometric identifiers similar to someone's fingerprint or DNA profile, and then selling them to "Private companies, police, federal agencies and wealthy individuals, allowing them to secretly track and target whomever they wished using face recognition technology," ACLU Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler wrote in a blog post published Thursday.

Pablo Escobar’s brother sues Apple for $2.6b over FaceTime flaw
2020-05-28 13:06

Roberto Escobar's company has reportedly filed a $2.6 billion lawsuit against Apple for purportedly having lame-o security - security so bad, his address purportedly got leaked through FaceTime and has led to subsequent assassination attempts. According to TNW and TMZ, former accountant and co-founder of the Medellín drug cartel Roberto Escobar, brother to the now deceased drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, is claiming that his iPhone X nearly killed him.