Top 10 Stories

Just a few weeks after the US government effectively conceded defeat in its efforts to force tech companies to introduce backdoors into their software, the issue is being pulled back onto the table. Both FBI director James Comey and deputy CTO Ed Felten have reopened discussions: Comey stating that tech companies like Apple and Google should simply stop offering end-to-end encryption; Felten asking for people to send in their comments on this "critical conversation." The...

Despite the French Ministry of Interior's demands, France will not ban the TOR anonymity network or Free public Wi-Fi as a way to help the law enforcement fight terrorism. French Prime Minister Manual Valls has gone on record saying that a ban on Free public Wi-Fi is "not a course of action envisaged," and he is not in favor of banning the TOR anonymity network, either. Following the deadly terror attacks on Paris last month,...

A new survey from Ponemon Institute finds that nearly 80 percent of enterprises say that their organization's portfolio of applications has become more vulnerable to attacks. This vulnerability comes as more enterprises are relying on increasing numbers of applications to conduct their business. The survey found that 57 percent of enterprises have between 1000 and 5000 business applications in use throughout their organizations. 84 percent of respondents say the most common gateway attack experienced by...

Kiwi hacker Lachlan Temple has found holes in a popular cheap car tracking and immobilisation gadget that can allow remote attackers to locate, eavesdrop, and in some cases cut the fuel intake to hundreds of thousands of vehicles, some while in motion. The gadgets are rebranded white box units from Chinese concern ThinkRace that allow users to attach to their cars to enable remote tracking, engine immobilisation, microphone recording, geo-fencing, and location tracking over a...

A Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosure has shown that the National Health Service (NHS) has an ‘alarming' lack of cyber-security around mobile devices in the workplace. Accellion, a California-based cloud solutions company, released its findings yesterday saying that “NHS trusts across England do not have adequate training programmes that guard employees against cyber threats”. Nearly three-quarters of NHS trusts said they had no cyber-security training programme for mobile devices despite the fact that a similar number...

Most of the autonomous cars you read about these days come from Europe and the US, and at least one from Japan. China, of course, isn't going to take that sitting down. A year ago, Baidu and BMW forged a partnership to bring China's first self-driving to China's highways by 2015. 2015 is all but over but at least Baidu has made some significant progress as far as tests go. The Chinese Internet giant has...

Only 37 percent of SMBs feel that their organisation is fit to manage IT security. IT employees in almost one-third of companies (32 percent) balance IT security with their other responsibilities, showing that critical cyber-security tasks do not gain the attention they deserve.  A new global report from Webroot surveyed 700 global IT head honchos from the UK, US and Australia in companies with 1,000 employees or less. Nearly 60 percent of respondents believe their...

Some of the biggest names in the security software business have been compromised by a serious flaw that could allow a hacker to use the commercial security code to infiltrate computers. In March, researchers at security firm enSilo found a serious flaw in popular free antivirus engine AVG Internet Security 2015. They found that the software was allocating memory for read, write, and execute (RWX) permissions in a predictable address that an attacker could use...

New European Union cyber-security legislation should serve as a wake-up call to companies that handle personal data. That's the view of Jens Puhle, managing director of security firm 8MAN, who welcomed yesterday's agreement between the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission designed to make the whole of the EU's online environment more secure. However, Puhle argued that organisations must take more responsibility around handling data. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Computing

Kiwicon American hardware hackers have ruined Christmas cooks ups across Australia, revealing gaping and pwnable vulnerabilities in Internet-connected barbecues. Hardware hackers Matthew Garrett and Paul McMillan revealed how the Internet-of-things CyberQ exposed its remote administration facilities and could be owned over the internet.</ Garrett told the Kiwicon conference in Wellington today the barbecues can be found using Google and pwned by getting users to visit a malicious page. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: The Register