Security News
Roid, the most popular mobile operating system in the world, runs on plenty of devices used by U.S. government workers, but only 0.08% of those devices are running the latest version of Android, a report finds. Mobile security firm Lookout is behind the report, which looked at over 200 million mobile devices being used by U.S. federal and state government workers between January 2019 and December 2020.
The CEO of Sky Global - which sold encryption chat software with customized smartphones - has come out fighting after Uncle Sam charged him with knowingly assisting the international drug smuggling trade. "There is no question that I have been targeted, as Sky Global has been targeted, only because we build tools to protect the fundamental right to privacy. The unfounded allegations of involvement in criminal activity by me and our company are entirely false."
The indictments were presented Friday against Jean-Francois Eap, the head of Sky Global, and Thomas Herdman, a former high-level distributor of Sky Global devices, the department said Friday. "The indictment alleges that Sky Global generated hundreds of millions of dollars providing a service that allowed criminal networks around the world to hide their international drug trafficking activity from law enforcement," said Acting US Attorney Randy Grossman.
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."
The Biden administration is not planning to step up government surveillance of the U.S. internet even as state-backed foreign hackers and cybercriminals increasingly use it to evade detection, a senior administration official said Friday. The official said the administration, mindful of the privacy and civil liberties implications that could arise, is not currently seeking additional authority to monitor U.S.-based networks.
US regulators on Friday listed Huawei among Chinese telecom gear firms deemed a threat to national security, signaling that a hoped for softening of relations is not in the cards. A roster of communications companies thought to pose "An unacceptable risk" to national security included Huawei Technologies; ZTE; Hytera Communications; Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, and Dahua Technology.
A senior US official said Friday the Biden administration is close to a decision on retaliation for state-sponsored hacking as fears grew over the fallout from the latest of two major cyberattacks. The official said the White House was working closely with the private sector to ramp up cyber defenses following the attacks which targeted Microsoft Exchange servers and SolarWinds security software, potentially compromising thousands of government and private computer networks.
The US Department of Justice has seized a fifth domain name used to impersonate the official site of a biotechnology company involved in COVID-19 vaccine development. Since December 2020, the US Department of Justice seized four other domains used by fraudsters for various nefarious purposes, including fraud, phishing attacks, and/or infecting targets' computers with malware.
The US government might have subtly signalled that it likely won't hack Russia this month - by telling credulous journalists it has a "Clandestine" plan to, er, launch an attack against its rival before April. Set against the backdrop of the SolarWinds and FireEye hack, and the most recent Hafnium attacks against Microsoft Exchange servers, it isn't hard to imagine presidential PR advisors wanting to give the impression that cyber warfare is their boss's top priority.
Last week, we argued over whether or not the media, including El Reg, should stop using the word hacker as a pejorative. The original meaning of hacker and hacking, in the context of computing, didn't denote criminality nor ill-intent, and referred to an avoidance of a standard solution.