How to avoid online surveillance -- the essential guide
It would appear that mass surveillance of the Internet is here to stay. We can rage against the machine, but ultimately we're powerless to stop the likes of the NSA and GCHQ prying into whatever they want to pry into. More and more people are turning to the dark web to help cover their tracks, but even the supposedly anonymous haven of Tor can be cracked for a price.
Last week in the UK, the draft Investigatory Powers Bill was published outlining proposals for ISPs to retain user's browsing histories for a full year. Governments want to weaken encryption. The FCC ruled that Do Not Track requests are essentially meaningless. The NSA finds and takes advantage of vulnerabilities. It's little wonder that privacy groups are up in arms -- the erosion of online rights continues with terrifying speed. But all is not lost. There are still things you can do to help maintain your privacy. If you're concerned, here's what you can do.
How BSIMM improves security by letting developers compare security practices [Q&A]
Every organization believes that it's making its systems secure, but because they usually work in isolation from competitors and other businesses they have no way of knowing how they compare.
The Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) aims to quantify security practices and present them in a measurable way to allow companies to compare their performance.
Top 50 UK websites expose your browser to unknown scripts
How much risk are you facing just by visiting a website? Do you know what scripts are running and which other sites they're pulling data from?
Malware prevention company Menlo Security scanned the Alexa top 50 UK websites to find out what their users were being exposed to. The findings show that on average, when visiting a top 50 UK site, your browser will execute 19 scripts.
Gmail to issue warnings about emails sent without encryption
Google, like many other companies, is pushing people towards using secure internet connections. HTTPS is becoming the norm, but not everyone has caught on. To keep the security-conscious informed, Gmail is set to issue warnings about emails that are received through unsecure connections that do not use encryption.
A joint study involving Google, University of Michigan and the University of Illinois found that email is "more secure today than it was two years ago", with an increase in the number of encrypted emails sent. That said, there are still plenty of people who are not using secure connections and Google is keen to keep its users informed when they receive communication through unencrypted channels.
Emsisoft Anti-Malware 11 ships with native 64-bit build
Emsisoft has announced the release of Emsisoft Anti-Malware 11 and Emsisoft Internet Security 11. Scanning has improved with better detection of ransomware, file-less malware, and threats which try to exploit script parsers and other host processes.
The products are smarter, too, and are now able to block many intrusion and exploitation attempts without annoying alerts.
Vormetric adds encryption and access control capabilities for Docker
Businesses are turning to encryption as a means of meeting compliance and data storage requirements and to guard against breaches and data loss.
But with the rapid evolution of enterprise IT data may be stored in a variety of environments in-house, in the cloud, which presents new security challenges.
The price of de-anonymization -- FBI paid $1m to Carnegie Mellon to crack Tor
Tor has long been thought of as offering a level of privacy, security and anonymity that enables people to do whatever they want online; it also facilitates access to the so-called Dark Web. Despite this, law enforcement agencies were able to crack Tor and identify a Silk Road 2.0 user. Now it seems that the FBI was helped out by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
It was previously known that the FBI tracked down Brian Richard Farrrell using information from a "university-based research institute". The Tor Project itself believes that the FBI paid researchers at the university at least $1 million to attack the network and gather data from Tor relays that could be analyzed and used to identify users' IP addresses.
Built-in safety measures create a false sense of security
It's increasingly common for hardware manufacturers and software developers to build in various security measures to protect users.
However, a new survey by cloud encryption company Alertsec reveals that these standard security precautions may be creating a false sense of security for PC and mobile users.
Companies vulnerable to cyber attack as defenses lag behind threats
Security solutions are lagging behind and failing to provide protection or detection levels adequate to protect against today's security threats.
This is according to a new survey from security and compliance solutions company Promisec. The results point to increased security gaps and vulnerabilities in spite of widespread fear of security breaches.
GCHQ finds major cyber-attacks against UK doubling in 2015
The number of "serious" cyber-attacks against the UK has doubled in just a year, BizTek Mojo reported on Tuesday, saying the company responded by forming a cyber-security academy to tackle the issue.
According to the report, GCHQ says there are, in average, seven serious threats faced by the country each day, and just last month it recorded 200 attacks, including state-sponsored assaults.
Microsoft to hide European data from the NSA with new German datacenters
The arms of the NSA may be long, but there are some parts of the world in which it holds no sway. Conscious of European concerns about US government web surveillance, Microsoft today announces German datacenter options for Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online.
Starting in the second half of 2016, customers in Europe will be able to opt to have their data stored in Germany. The datacenters will be controlled by German data trustee, Deutsche Telekom who will oversee all access to customer data. With Microsoft’s "mobile first, cloud-first" philosophy, this is a move to try to rebuild trust in cloud services which the company clearly feels has been lost.
Adblockalypse: nearly one fifth of web users employ ad blockers
Online ads are a major bugbear for web users, hence the existence of ad blocking software. Tools such as AdBlock Plus have long been popular, but despite efforts by publishers to discourage their use, more and more people rely on ad blockers to improve their online experience.
The Internet Advertising Bureau reports that ad blocking is on the rise. In the UK, 18 percent of people use software to prevent the appearance of ads -- up from 15 percent just five months ago. Not everyone, however, is looking to block every single ad they might encounter.
The performance impact of internet security products
Many people cite performance issues as a reason why they're reluctant to run or end up uninstalling internet security products.
Independent testing organization AV-Comparatives has released the results of its latest studies on a range of security products, focussing on how they impact system performance.
InstaAgent app steals usernames and passwords from Instagram users
An app that enables iPhone users to keep an eye on who has been looking at their Instagram account has been pulled from the App Store after it was found to be stealing usernames and passwords.
Apple took the decision to kill "Who Viewed Your Profile -- InstaAgent" when the app was found scraping login details and sending them back to the developer's server. This in itself is worrying for users, but it gets worse: the usernames and passwords were sent in unencrypted format.
Apple's Tim Cook on weakening encryption: 'Any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone'
Tim Cook is concerned about privacy. The Apple CEO has spoken out against requests from governments for backdoors into encrypted products. Following the UK government's decision not to ban strong encryption but to force companies to provide authorities with access to encrypted data upon production of a warrant.
This is effectively a backdoor into products and Tim Cook gives a stark warning: "Any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone". He also suggests that security is something that needs to be tackled on a global scale rather than by individual countries.
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