Tim Cook is an opportunist
Nine years ago, a NPR interviewer asked me about Google and other U.S. companies censoring search results in China. The question was one of morality -- to which I gave answer she didn't expect. That response, or my recollection of it, is appropriate for rather ridiculous and self-serving statements that Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly made two days ago.
"We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy", Cook said, Matthew Panzarino reports for TechCrunch. "The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it". Oh? What is moral? The answer I gave NPR in 2006 applies: There is no moral high ground in business. The high ground is quagmire, because all public companies -- Apple surely among them -- share a single, moral objective: Make profits for stockholders. Plain, pure, and simple.
Security firm Tiversa refutes allegations of hacking and extorting potential clients
Last month we reported that Tiversa, a security firm, was being accused of fraud by one of its former employees, Richard Wallace. In his testament, Wallace claims that the company was hacking potential clients to force them to buy its services. The firm has reached out to us to share its side of the story and shed more light on the matter.
The testimony, provided by Wallace in front of a Washington DC courtroom, also accuses Bob Boback, the CEO of Tiversa, of making his employees look for IP addresses of known identity thieves utilizing the company's ties to law enforcement agencies. The firm would then present these addresses to potential clients to scare them.
Bromium launches smoother endpoint protection for enterprises
Enterprise security teams are under increasing pressure to respond to threats from breaches as well as more traditional security threats.
To ease their workload threat isolation specialist Bromium is launching a new platform designed to speed deployment time and give security teams better management capabilities.
Hacker groups aiding ISIS in takedown of news media sites
For a while now we've witnessed the brutality of Islamic State, but less in the news is the cyber terrorism carried out by it. However that's a big part of the arsenal for this group and media outlets have been a primary target in the war. Recently the site and social media of a French TV station was taken down and defaced with messages from the group.
Following the attack on TV5Monde, media groups within France held an emergency meeting. This came after all of the network went black for more than three hours in April.
Datameer launches regulatory tools for Hadoop
The popularity of big data has boosted demand for Hadoop systems. Yet data handling and analytic capabilities are often seen as the key features while governance and security get relegated to a support role.
In corporate environments though the governance side of things is important which is why big data specialist Datameer is launching new tools for maintaining data validity and manageability in the Hadoop ecosystem.
Tim Cook lashes out at the government, Facebook and Google over privacy
We live in an age where people are more concerned about and more aware of privacy issues than ever before. Speaking at EPIC Champions of Freedom event in Washington, DC, Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized the government for seeking to implement backdoors into encryption techniques. He also hit out at Google and Facebook with their ad-dependant business models for infringing upon privacy.
He said that Apple wants to be different, saying: "We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy. The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it". Cook was at pains to stress that Apple should be viewed differently to other companies, assuring people that -- unlike others -- the company "doesn’t want your data".
Organizations take too long to fix security vulnerabilities
A new study from threat prediction and remediation specialist NopSec reveals key security vulnerability issues and highlights the length of time it takes for enterprises to fix problems.
NopSec analyzed more than 65,000 vulnerabilities contained in the National Vulnerability Database over a 20-year period, as well as a subset of more than 21,000 of those vulnerabilities identified across customers in all industries.
New big data platform helps with security analytics and forensics
Cyber attacks are becoming more covert which helps them to consistently evade detection and means they can take weeks to uncover.
Cyber security startup Niara is unveiling its Security Intelligence Solution, combining advanced security analytics and forensics to help security teams quickly find sophisticated cyber threats within their organization.
Facebook adds support for OpenPGP email encryption
Facebook can send out quite a lot of emails to its users in the course of an average day. Notifications can fly in thick and fast letting you know about friend requests, replies to your posts, messages from contacts, and the like, and it's possible -- nay likely -- that these will contain delicate personal information.
To help calm the fear of those with privacy concerns ("why are they using Facebook?", you might well ask) Facebook today announces the introduction of OpenPGP encryption support. This gives users the opportunity to protect communication from Facebook by encrypting it so it cannot be read by unauthorized parties.
Chrome VPN service Hola allegedly boosts revenues by facilitating DDoS attacks
Popular peer-to-peer VPN service Hola has become one of the most popular extensions for web users for its free and easy-to-use service, but it looks like the company has been using bandwidth from users for illegal DDoS attacks, amongst other things.
Image board 8chan first reported multiple DDoS attack from Hola, claiming it used an affiliated Luminati network to send the huge traffic spikes. DDoS attacks have been a frequent issue for 8chan, as it struggles to build reliable servers and infrastructure.
Google makes it easier to control privacy and security settings
Taking a leaf out of Facebook's, er, book, Google today unveils a revamped privacy checkup page. Google and privacy are not words that belong in the same sentence for many people, but the search giant wants to change that. Users are invited to answer a series of simple questions to control how their data is stored, collected, and shared.
The company wants to place users back in control, and at the heart of today's announcement is the My Account page which is now central to configuring privacy settings. In the interests of transparency, Google has also set up a page dedicated to revealing how and why data is collected.
DDoS attacks spread to more countries
A total of 23,095 DDoS attacks were carried out on web resources located in 76 countries in the first quarter of 2015, up 15 percent from the 66 countries affected in the final quarter of last year.
This is one of the findings of a new study by cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab into the botnet-assisted DDoS attack landscape. But although the geography is expanding the overall number of botnet-assisted attacks is down by 11 percent and the number of unique victims down by eight percent.
Adware makers turn their sights on OS X
Hot on the heels of news that OS X topped the vulnerabilities charts in April comes Dr. Web's virus activity review for May which shows increasing quantities of adware and unwanted applications targeting the Apple operating system.
The company reports several programs aimed at OS X that either install adware, install other applications or inject JavaScript code into webpages.
How a growing cyber attack industry is good news for investors
Whilst cyber attacks continue to make the news, a new report published by Capital News Desk suggests that around 70 percent of organizations choose to keep their security incidents quiet.
It also reveals that around 73 percent of large organizations have been infiltrated by attacks. It's newer technologies like BYOD and the cloud that are seen as the biggest threats along with cyber crime.
IRS hack exposes personal data of more than 104,000 taxpayers
Hackers stole personal information from more than 104,000 taxpayers this spring, the International Revenue Service (IRS) just revealed.
Commissioner John Koskinen said in a press conference that the information included several years' worth of returns and other tax information filed with the IRS, and explained exactly what happened.
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