Security

Last week, Iran’s chief of civil defense claimed that the Iranian government had fought off Israeli attempts to infect computer systems with what he described as a new version of Stuxnet—the malware reportedly developed jointly by the US and Israel that targeted Iran’s uranium-enrichment program. Gholamreza Jalali, chief of the National Passive Defense Organization (NPDO), told Iran's IRNA news service, “Recently, we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts... and was trying to enter our systems.”

L33tdawg: If you're interested in voting machine security, you'll probably like this talk that's coming up in Dubai at the end of this month.

A key part of what makes Signal the leading encrypted messaging app is its effort to minimize the amount of data or metadata each message leaves behind. The messages themselves are fully encrypted as they move across Signal's infrastructure, and the service doesn't store logs of information like who sends messages to each other, or when. On Monday, the nonprofit that develops Signal announced a new initiative to take those protections even further. Now, it hopes to encrypt even information about which users are messaging each other on the platform.

The chief of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess, has issued a blunt warning to Australia’s business community and their boards that mounting private offensive hacking attacks in the name of cyber or corporate security won’t be tolerated by the signals agency.

In a landmark speech the Australia Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra on Monday night, the cyber tzar put a rare broadside into the business community for contemplating private offensive capabilities, revealing deep concerns within the government over some corporate behaviour.

Two hackers who stole millions of users’ data from ride-hailing firm Uber have been indicted on separate hacking charges related to a data breach at online learning portal Lynda, two people familiar with the case have told TechCrunch.

Vasile Mereacre, a Canadian citizen living in Toronto, and Brandon Glover, a Florida resident, were indicted earlier this month in Florida on federal hacking and extortion charges for stealing data on 55,000 Lynda users’ accounts.

Linux and BSD variants that employ the popular X.Org Server package --almost all do-- are vulnerable to a new vulnerability disclosed on Thursday.

The vulnerability allows an attacker with limited access to a system, either via a terminal or SSH session, to elevate privileges and gain root access. It can't be used to break into secure computers, but it is still useful to attackers because it can quickly turn simple intrusions into bad hacks.

Facebook wants its billions of users to know it cares about beefing up security in the wake of a major security breach, and now it appears the social media giant is ready to spend some money on a major cybersecurity acquisition to make it happen.

Facebook has approached several security companies about a possible acquisition, The Information reported Sunday, citing sources described as familiar with the matter. Possible takeover targets weren't identified, but the tech news outlet said a deal could be announced as soon as the end of the year.

A recent hack of eight poorly secured adult websites has exposed megabytes of personal data that could be damaging to the people who shared pictures and other highly intimate information on the online message boards. Included in the leaked file are (1) IP addresses that connected to the sites, (2) user passwords protected by a four-decade-old cryptographic scheme, (3) names, and (4) 1.2 million unique email addresses, although it’s not clear how many of the addresses legitimately belonged to actual users.

Microsoft will incorporate Google's Retpoline patch to prevent Spectre Variant 2 from slowing down its operating system.

Microsoft plans to include the Retpoline patch, a fix developed by Google, in an upcoming version of Windows 10 to prevent slowdown caused by Spectre Variant 2, ZDNet reports.

The airport security experience is about to see facial recognition technology taking on a bigger role, as TSA today released its roadmap to use biometrics technology in the coming years.