Hacking

In what amounts to a serious environmental breach or a continuation of China's anti-Apple PR blitz -- or both -- Chinese regulators are scrutinizing a pair of Apple suppliers in China over pollution allegations. The factories in question, located in Kunshan, an electronics manufacturing hotbed about...

A team of researchers used a custom-built GPS device to send counterfeit signals to a 213-foot yacht, forcing the $80 million vessel off its course without triggering any alarms. The spoofed yacht was part of the experiment, so no harm was inflicted on the vehicle or its passengers. However, the tes...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Hackers Demand Ransom for Hijacked Androids

Ransomware has made the jump from personal computers to the Android world. Android.FakeAV.C, a new breed of ransomware, has been spotted in Asia -- almost half of it in India and Indonesia -- according to an alert by Bitdefender security researcher Liviu Arsene. Mobile ransomware works much like its...

A couple of white hat security experts have shown how hackers could take control of an automobile's steering, braking and other operations through the vehicle's on-board computer. Charlie Miller, a security engineer at Twitter, and Chris Valasek of security firm IOActive, demonstrated how they could...

It wasn't long after the Internet came into widespread use that online privacy became a growing concern. After all, anytime people are connected through their computers and sharing resources online, there's the potential for prying and abuse. Such concerns were compounded with the arrival of social ...

Britain is simultaneously investigating and praising Chinese telecommunication firm Huawei. OK, so the UK didn't out and compliment Huawei. Less than a week after British authorities launched a cybersecurity review of the company, however, Prime Minister David Cameron said that British telecommunica...

About 25 percent of mobile phones currently in use may be vulnerable because they rely on 1970s-era Data Encryption Standard security, according to Security Research Labs. Out of 1,000 SIM cards it tested over two years, 250 used DES instead of more advanced approaches such as triple DES or the Adva...

Devout followers pay heed: The Catholic Church is offering indulgences for those who take the righteous step of following Pope Francis on Twitter. The granting of indulgences, a centuries-old practice, is believed to reduce the time that one must spend in purgatory. Traditional means of obtaining in...

Two researchers at cybersecurity firm iSec Partners have cracked the security of a Verizon femtocell. Femtocells, also called "small cells," are low-power cellular base stations that wireless carriers, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, either sell or give to consumers. They connect to the serv...

"City authorities: More areas have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living," warned a voice over the emergency alert system on Montana station KRTV during an airing of a regularly broadcast program in February. That incident, which has become known ...

It looks as though leaker/hero/traitor Edward Snowden has options as he seeks a place to take up asylum. Venezuela and Bolivia have now both offered asylum to Snowden, who is believed to be holed up in a Moscow airport. Snowden reportedly submitted a formal asylum request with Venezuela and Nicaragu...

Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at reforming the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by imposing more requirements for prosecuting violators. Representatives Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a revised draft of the Act, naming it f...

France plans to propose a law that would prevent Amazon from offering discounts and free delivery for books in France. Amazon's discounts amount to unfair competition and threaten booksellers' business model, culture minister Aurelie Filipetti said. France is not alone complaining about Amazon's agg...

France's data protection watchdog, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes, says it will fine Google if the company doesn't rewrite its privacy policy within the next three months. The CNIL will fine Google up to 150,000 euros, or about $200,000, and double that if it fails to act...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Hackers Find WordPress Easy Pickings

Adobe Reader and Oracle Java aren't alone in having a bull's eye painted on their code. WordPress also is becoming a popular target for Internet outlaws. It's quite a large target, too. About 18 percent of the sites on the Web -- about 60 million of them -- use WordPress. One reason WordPress is att...

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