Top 10 Stories

A group of security researchers has successfully discovered a method to hack into six out of seven popular Smartphone apps, including Gmail across all the three platforms - Android, Windows, and iOS operating systems - with shockingly high success rate of up to 92 percent. Computer scientists the University of California Riverside Bourns College of Engineering and the University of Michigan have identified a new weakness they believe to exist in Android, Windows, and iOS...

Leak reveals massive trove of private communications. The Australian Signals Directorate is able to tap into the details of hundreds of billions of private communications records, thanks to a custom Google-like search engine built by the National Security Agency (NSA), new leaked documents reveal. The documents - dated from 2007 and 2010 - are attributed to whistleblower Edward Snowden and were obtained by The Intercept.  

It remains to be seen whether data security experts will be assigned to a White House tech squad recently forged to ensure government websites work better than the initial, botched HealthCare.gov, Obama administration officials said Monday. Privacy advocates, and even Google, are calling on websites worldwide to offer stronger safeguards, following a spate of data breaches and allegations of government snooping.  

For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent. The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other...

Yet another reason for iOS users not to jailbreak their handsets emerged this week after the release of a new report detailing AdThief – a relatively unheard of piece of Chinese malware already downloaded to 75,000 iPhones. The malware, also known as Spad, works by hijacking advertising revenues and redirecting them to the attacker, according to a lengthy Virus Bulletin study by Fortinet researcher, Axelle Apvrille.

Our colleagues at PandaLabs have discovered a new strain of ransomware, a piece of malicious software which allows cyber-criminals to remotely lock the computers they infect.   Ransomware locks computer systems and encrypts files, demanding the user pay a ransom to get control back.

Add Amazon to the growing list of technology providers ensuring that its encryption capabilities exceed a minimum standard.   Yesterday, the company announced that its web content delivery platform Amazon CloudFront had turned on Perfect Forward Secrecy, in addition to a number of changes designed to improve the performance of its SSL connections, Amazon said.

Hacking groups operating from Syria, Russia and Lebanon have targeted activists on both sides of the Syrian civil war with malware campaigns, says security firm Kaspersky.   Groups of attackers have targeted activists on both sides of the Syrian civil war with a new malware campaign that, while not particularly sophisticated, has grown to compromise more than 10,000 systems, according to researchers from Kaspersky Labs, which analyzed more than 100 files used by group.

Privacy activist Max Schrems, leader of the “Europe-versus-Facebook” movement, has had a procedural win in Austria that means Facebook Ireland has to prep its defence.   According to Reuters, Schrems says his lawsuit in Austria's Vienna Regional Court has taken a step forward, passing its first review by the court.

The United Parcel Service (UPS) has announced that customers’ credit and debit card information at 51 franchises in 24 states may have been compromised.   There are 4,470 franchised center locations throughout the U.S., according to UPS. The malware began to infiltrate the system as early as January 20, but the majority of the attacks began after March 26. UPS says the threat was eliminated as of August 11 and that customers can shop safely...