The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has updated two of its computer security guides to help system managers protect their systems from hackers and malware.
Microsoft Warns of Permanent Zero-Day Exploits for Windows XP
When Microsoft announced that it would discontinue support for Windows XP starting on April 8, 2014, many companies began the long process of transitioning to modern operating systems like Windows 7 or Windows 8. But there are others that won’t – and t…
Android Bitcoin Wallet Issue Points Out Critical Need for Mobile App Management
The previously disclosed flaw in Android’s Bitcoin wallet has now been quantified in terms of its scope: the vulnerability has left over 360,000 applications up for attack, subsequently compromising the data of thousands of users, as well as their cybe…
The Detention of David Miranda Raises Serious Issues
Over the weekend David Miranda, partner of Glen Greenwald – the Guardian journalist who published the first of a series of reports detailing United States and British mass surveillance programs, based on documents obtained by Edward Snowden – was deta…
Google Responds to British Lawsuit: UK Privacy Laws Don’t Apply
There have been two new developments in the British lawsuit against Google for allegedly overriding Safari privacy settings to track users’ internet habits: firstly the High Court granted permission to serve on Google Inc, putting the papers into the p…
Are Encryption Keys Protected by the Fifth Amendment?
A man was arrested in Wisconsin this week as the latest move in a long-running battle by the authorities to force him to hand over decryption keys for hard drives believed to contain child pornography.
Washington Post (& CNN, & Time, but not NYT) Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army
The Washington Post yesterday issued a brief statement confirming that it had indeed been breached by SEA. At around the same time, the New York Times claimed that a brief outage on Wednesday had been caused by maintenance rather than hacking.
Error 451 – Unavailable for Legal Reasons
The Open Rights Group has launched a campaign for the adoption of a new HTTP 400 range status code: Error 451, designed to indicate that access to a page or website is unavailable by court order.
IBM to Acquire Financial Malware Defense Firm Trusteer
IBM has announced a definitive agreement to buy the Israeli firm Trusteer, which specializes in anti-financial malware and fraud software. Although terms have not been revealed, market estimates put the price at around $800-$900 million.
Users Have No Expectation of Privacy in Gmail Says Google
In filing a motion to dismiss a class action that it illegally intercepts and reads emails, Google lawyers have invoked a ruling from a 1979 court case (Smith vs Maryland) that originally referred to telephony.