“We cannot trust” Intel and Via’s chip-based crypto, FreeBSD developers say: Developers of the FreeBSD operating system will no longer allow users to trust processors manufactured by Intel and Via Technologies as the sole source of random numbers needed to generate cryptographic keys that can’t easily be cracked by government spies and other adversaries. The […]

Will Utah cut off the NSA data center’s water?: Each day, the National Security Agency’s massive data center in Utah requires 1.7 million gallons of water. Recently, opponents to the NSA’s massive online spying operation have started to wonder: What if we just turned off their water? The agency has been under scrutiny ever since […]

Microsoft disrupts botnet that generated $2.7M per month for operators: On Thursday, Microsofts Digital Crimes Unit, the legal and technical team that has driven the takedown of botnets such as Bamital and Nitol during the past year, announced that it has moved with Europol, industry partners, and the FBI to disrupt yet another search fraud […]

What IT Can Teach Utilities About Cybersecurity & Smart Grids: There is a perception within IT circles that cybersecurity threats against critical infrastructure like smart grids are a problem waiting to happen — but not right away. The reality is much more dire. Last year alone, there were a number of sophisticated attacks, and they […]

Someone’s Been Siphoning Data Through a Huge Security Hole in the Internet: In 2008, two security researchers at the DefCon hacker conference demonstrated a massive security vulnerability in the worldwide internet traffic-routing system — a vulnerability so severe that it could allow intelligence agencies, corporate spies or criminals to intercept massive amounts of data, or […]

NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show: The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that […]

Anatomy Of An Electronic Health Record Zero: Graduate student Doug Mackey was starting to wonder whether his research on the security of one of the nation’s most ubiquitous electronic health records (EHR) software platforms was so interesting after all. A month of poking around for vulnerabilities in the simulated EHR system he had fashioned in […]

NSA Documents Released to the Public Since June 2013: The ACLU and others have long suspected that the National Security Agency is relying on its authority to target foreigners abroad as a useful cover for its sweeping surveillance of Americans’ communications. Those suspicions were proven true when, on June 5, 2013, The Guardian released the […]

Could Google and the NSA Make Whistleblowers Disappear?: What if Edward Snowden was made to disappear? No, I’m not suggesting some future CIA rendition effort or a who-killed-Snowden conspiracy theory of a disappearance, but a more ominous kind.What if everything a whistleblower had ever exposed could simply be made to go away? What if every […]

Prices falling for cybercriminal supplies: Wondering what to get the cybercriminal in the family this Black Friday? There are great deals to be had on stolen credit card numbers — and don’t forget the accessories. A U.S.-based Visa or MasterCard number is going for about $4, research by Dell SecureWorks found. It’s $7 for an […]