Security News

Crims steal data on 40 million T-Mobile US customers
2023-01-20 01:33

T-Mobile US today said someone abused an API to download the personal information of 37 million subscribers. A regulatory filing [PDF] disclosed one or more miscreants were able to access potentially the "Name, billing address, email, phone number, date of birth, T-Mobile account number and information such as the number of lines on the account and plan features" of each affected customer.

University of Texas latest US school to ban TikTok
2023-01-19 16:15

Faculty and students at the University of Texas at Austin this week became the latest members of a public US university to lose access to Chinese video app TikTok via campus networks. According to Neyland's email, the ban puts the university in compliance with a December directive issued by state governor Greg Abbott.

US think tank says China would probably lose if it tries to invade Taiwan
2023-01-12 03:15

Three years from now, hypothetically, China launches an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. There's no overland route to deliver supplies to Taiwan's military - whatever it has when China invades is what it'll have until friendly forces can resupply it over the Pacific.

Health insurer Aflac blames US partner for leak of Japanese cancer policy info
2023-01-11 03:29

Zurich’s Japanese outpost also leaks a couple of million records Global insurer Aflac's Japanese branch has revealed that personal data describing more than three million customers of its cancer...

Russian meddling in 2016 US presidential election was weak sauce
2023-01-10 22:00

Russian disinformation didn't materially affect the way people voted in the 2016 US presidential election, according to a research study published on Monday, though that doesn't make the effect totally inconsequential. Boffins from New York University, University of Copenhagen, Trinity College Dublin, and Technical University of Munich analyzed more than 700,000 social media posts in April and in October 2016 from Twitter accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian influence operation.

US Supremes deny Pegasus spyware maker's immunity claim
2023-01-09 20:30

The US Supreme Court has quashed spyware maker NSO Group's argument that it cannot be held legally responsible for using WhatsApp technology to deploy its Pegasus snoop-ware on users' phones. Previously, the US Solicitor General filed an amicus brief [PDF] advising the Supreme Court not to hear the spyware developer's case, noting "NSO plainly is not entitled to immunity here."

No more holidays for US telcos, FCC is cracking down
2023-01-08 10:01

In Brief The Federal Communications Commission plans to overhaul its security reporting rules for the telecom industry to, among other things, eliminate a mandatory seven-day wait for informing customers of stolen data and expand the definition of what constitutes an incident. In a unanimous 4-0 vote, the FCC published a notice of proposed rulemaking that Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said is sorely overdue, as the current rules are more than 15 years old.

US passes the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act – and why not?
2022-12-29 20:45

Remember quantum computing, and the quantum computers that make it possible? Quantum computing enthusiasts claim the performance improvements will be so dramatic that encryption keys that could once comfortably have held out against even the richest and most antagonistic governments in the world for decades.

US House boots TikTok from government phones
2022-12-28 00:12

The US government's New Year's resolution for 2023: no more TikTok at work. In an email to members and staff Tuesday, the Committee on House Administration banned the use of TikTok from House-managed mobile devices.

FCC calls for mega $300 million fine for massive US robocall campaign
2022-12-22 20:57

US regulators want to fine the operators of a claimed massive robocall operation almost $300 million that made more than 5 billion pre-recorded calls over three months early last year. Those five billion calls went to more than 500 million phone numbers between January and March 2021 in what the Federal Communications Commission called the largest robocall operation it has ever investigated.